Slayer 66 2/3: The Jeff & Dave Years. A Metal Band Biography. (13 page)

“We don’t really like hanging out with anybody,” said Araya. “Me and Jeff hung out quite a lot for a bit. And Jeff and Kerry hung out too.”

King said he never looked at the clubs as an opportunity to socialize or network: “It’s like: Get up there, just bust balls, and say ‘See ya.’”

At that point in its evolution, the very definition of metal was up for grabs. Suicidal and late-period Black Flag were being hailed as “the new metal.” In punk journal
Maximumrocknroll
, Metallica visual artist Pushead described Suicidal’s self-titled debut "blistering rough-arsed metal thrash.”
^11-6

            It was a sudden sea change from just a few years ago, when punks couldn’t be bothered with metal, and few music fans listened to both.

            “I don’t remember anybody doing it,” recalls D.R.I. singer Kurt Brecht. “[In 1982, 1983] when we first started playing shows in San Francisco, there was the Stone, that was across the street from Mabuhay Gardens. So we’d stand on one side of the street to see a punk rock show, and on the other side of the street, there’d be a line to go see Metallica or something. And that’s right on the other side of Broadway. They’d be throwing stuff at each other, and there were no longhairs on our side, and no punks on their side. It was just completely segregated. And it was pretty integrated by ’86 or ’87.”

            Adds Dan Lilker, “It would be hard to talk about thrash metal as a complete entity without talking about the influence of hardcore.”

The overlapping punk and metal scenes spawned the crossover movement, which enveloped next-generation bands like Cryptic Slaughter and Crumbsuckers, as well as reconstituted hardcore outfits like D.R.I. and Dr. Know. But Slayer’s epic shredding made it clear: There was a huge difference between going metal (a pejorative term applied to punk bands who slowed down and added hesher signifiers like solos) and
being
metal.

By 1985, pits were commonplace. The Venom/Slayer/Exodus show at the Hollywood Palladium — capacity just under 4,000 — saw three simultaneous pits break out over the venue’s vast floor, surprising nobody.

Slayer shows weren’t the only incidents of primal metal moshing. Megadeth and Metallica had comparable intensity, but they never gigged with A-list hardcore bands and their ready-to-slam crowds. Slayer shows at the time might have been unpredictable, but fans always knew what to expect, and the band always delivered it: chaos.

Chapter 12:

Undead Live &
Live Undead

As Slayer’s sound grew bigger, so did their crowds. By mid 1984, the band was edging its way toward 1,000+ capacity clubs and auditoriums like Seattle’s Mountaineers (also known as the Norway Center).

In October 1984, Slayer truly took the show on the road. A crew of seven stuffed themselves into Tom’s bronze Camaro, with gear in a 15-foot U-Haul truck rolling behind as they bounced all over the country — and beyond. The personnel on hand were the band, Goodman, lighting technician Kevin Reed, and all-purpose tech John Araya. (Over the years, the younger Araya would hone his craft as Hanneman’s guitar tech, and even worked for Lou Reed in the late 1990s.) Goodman, 21, was able to take the trip because he had two weeks of paid vacation from his union job at a grocery store.

The drummer took a break of sorts, too.

“He gave me a promise ring the night before his first tour,” recalled Teresa in the Lombardo’s divorce documents, “and the very next day he had sex with a stranger and broke my heart. Petitioner [Dave Lombardo] promised me he would never do this again, but he did time and time again.”
^12-1

(Lombardo declined to address Teresa’s claim, but offered, “Reading these allegations, the only truth I see is: We are divorced. That is accurate. Period.”)

To start, the band worked its way up the West Coast, with a stop at the Stone in San Francisco. In Portland, Slayer were scheduled to have the honor of opening Mercyful Fate’s first U.S. show, at the Starry Night club. Unfortunately, the Danes’ gear was held up in customs. The show was pushed back two days, and went on without Slayer
^12-2
. The California band hit the city anyway, for a couple photo opportunities.

With the show postponed, Mercyful Fate still went through with an in-store appearance. Slayer stopped by and had pictures taken, smiling beside their heroes. And King had some pen pal-tape trader friends in the city that he had planned on seeing.

“We stopped in Portland basically to sign autographs for these kids and to take pictures with them,” recalled Goodman.

Slayer’s first real tour — and very lives — nearly ended in Montana, en route to Canada. The caravan was speeding down a highway in the dark. Kerry took the wheel and put in a demo tape of Exodus’
Bonded by Blood
. Zooming down the freeway at cruising velocity, the Camaro hit a patch of black ice and spun out, turning in multiple circles before lodging on the side of the road, firmly stuck in the gravel.

Everyone unpacked, checked, and exchanged a round of “Are you OK?” Tom took a step on the ice and fell on his ass. Everyone laughed, temporarily dispelling the tension. They were OK. They were also stranded. As they spun toward oblivion, the U-Haul had continued barreling down the road, unaware of near-calamity unspooling behind them.

A passing truck stopped to help the stranded young men. Without a chain or tow attachment, the vehicle couldn’t push the Camaro out of the cold muck. The good Samaritans headed off into the darkness, promising they’d send a tow truck.

Frustrated and impatient in the cold night, the Slayer crew kept gunning the car until it broke free. Once the car was back on the road, then they realized the full depth of their plight: Stuck in the Montana blackness with no visible road signs, they didn’t know which way to go. They examined the highway. Because they had skidded on ice, no telling skid marks were visible. Nobody could figure out which direction they came from — or which one they wanted to follow. After some failed forensic analysis, they picked a direction. It was the right one. They were intact and Canada-bound, where Maroushka awaited.

Misfortune averted, the unprepared troupe bumbled their way through customs and entered the Great White North.

Slayer’s first foreign shows were a three-night stand in Winnipeg. The venue was Wellington’s, a subterranean club below a sketchy hotel that rented rooms by the hour.

When the Slaytanic caravan pulled into Winnipeg, they were late and unaware. The band were under the impression they were playing a three-night stand from Monday through Wednesday. When they arrived, they learned they were a day late for a four-night stand.

The staff weren’t happy, but that kind of miscommunication wasn’t rare in an age without cell phones, internet, fax machines, or phone cards. The band loaded into the basement. Carrying a drum case, Goodman fumbled his way into his life’s work. Heading down the stairs, he dropped the reinforced box, and it clanged down the entryway.

“In my head, it’s either Tom or Kerry,” recalled Goodman. “One of the guys from the band picks up the drum and looks up the stairs and me and says, ‘Why don’t
we
carry the gear and
you
go figure out who’s paying us?”

And Slayer had a tour guide; given his lack of experience, Goodman refuses to refer to himself as a “tour manager” at that stage in his career.

As the band set up, the venue presented its unique logistic challenges: Strippers in the basement alternated upstairs and downstairs shows on the hour. Downstairs, the girls danced on a tiny stage that double as groups’ drum riser.

Slayer unloaded to a near-empty club with a couple drunk patrons and dancers. Over the week, the crowds picked up, produced around 50 people a night. Not all of them were there for Slayer, but not all came for the girls, either. Early in the week in Manitoba, the locals took whatever entertainment they could get.

They had even more entertainment options upstairs, at the hotel. Whether patrons and their guests stayed for an hour or a night, they checked in with Maroushka, an old woman who punched the time clock at the front desk. Over the days, she took a liking to the boys. The old woman eventually revealed a number tattooed on her forearm from a concentration camp. One pressing of
Hell Awaits
had a photo montage with a picture of Hanneman pointing at the time clock. The elderly timekeeper is immortalized at the end of the thanks list in
Hell Awaits
, with a cryptic “Maroushka lives in our brains!!”

A local band called Sinister Witch opened the shows. San Francisco hardcore band Verbal Abuse were in town; the bands crossed paths, and Slayer got them on the bill for the third show. Later, Slayer would further reward the American band with a songwriting credit.

November saw a spot at New York City’s legendary L’Amour (capacity around 1,500) and smaller shows booked at venues like the Flint, Michigan Ukrainian Hall and the forgotten Cheaters in Cleveland. In first week of November, between shows in Philadelphia and Baltimore. Caught a Loudness show at L’Amour. The band and some local fans took a road trip to see Mercyful Fate. Between New York state shows, the band recorded
Live Undead
in early November 1984.

(The release date is commonly listed is November 1984, even on Metal Blade’s website, though the disc wasn’t released until March 1985. The
Best of Metal Blade Volume 1
credits list the album as “recorded November 1984.” And Goodman firmly remembers the date as November 1984, in New York.)

The credits claim
Live Undead
was recorded in “New York City” during the
Show No Mercy
tour, but no location is listed. Slayer’s first documented New York gig was Halloween 1984, at the Valley Stream Theater.
Live Undead
was recorded at a small promotional event at Tiki Recording in Glen Cove, a Long Island North Shore studio where a dozen or so WBAB contest winners gathered to meet the band and watch them play. The label had a list of the attendees and planned to list them in the credits, but that idea never made it to fruition.

Live Undead
gives the impression Slayer are absolutely slaying in a packed club. In McIver’s full-scale Slayer biography, engineer Metoyer implies the crowd noise is dramatically enhanced, perhaps to remedy a deficiency in the master recordings
^12-3
. The big EP squeezed seven songs into 23 minutes.

By the time
Live Undead
was released, Slayer’s sound had already made another quantum leap: The band recorded its second full-length album,
Hell Awaits
, in September. But for now, they were still primarily promoting their debut album, a killer EP, and a new live disc. Concerts were much like an expanded edition of
Live Undead
, with a little taste of
Hell
:

1. “Hell Awaits”

2. “Aggressive Perfector”

3. “Metalstorm/Face the Slayer”

4. “Necrophiliac”

5. “Crionics”

6. “The Final Command”

7. “Captor of Sin”

8. “Chemical Warfare”

9. “Fight Till Death”

10. “The Antichrist”

11. “Black Magic”

12. “Die by the Sword”

Encore:

13. “Evil Has No Boundaries”

14. “Haunting the Chapel”

15. “Show No Mercy”

A brief December agenda wrapped a run of shows in Texas, then returned to L’Amour for a two-night stand, followed by a New Year’s Eve show in Ruthie’s in Berkeley, the city they had played as an emerging new band almost exactly a year before.

The definitive record of this period is
Live Undead
, a big live EP released in March 1985 (though the release date is commonly identified as November 1984, even on Metal Blade’s website). On the live disc, Slayer’s sound is evolving into its own malevolent presence. As with Slayer’s early music, the cover picture has some artistic debts, but artist Albert Cuellar delivered a rough classic.

Gallery 2: Previously Unreleased Live Undead Draft Art

Live Undead
cover artist Albert Cuellar entered a meeting with Slayer with these spooks already sketched. Slayer quickly rejected them and began explaining their concept for the picture disc’s artwork. All original Cuellar sketch art is from his 11” x 14” hardback sketchbook and reproduced courtesy of Cuellar. The top-center stick-person diagram is a bleed through the other side of the page.