Slayer's Reign in Blood (33 1/3) (7 page)

“Hanneman and Araya—those boys
partied
,” says Hirax’s Katon W. De Pena. “But Kerry never came out for that crap; he was probably at home, writing riffs, or taking care of band business. Kerry’s like the Lars Ulrich of the band—brains and business. You’ve got to have a guy like that in the band.”

Today, King could star in a movie about an alien bounty hunter. Backstage in Detroit, his eyes are hidden behind gray wraparound Oakley sunglasses, his head shaved—his hairline was receding as early as 1986. A demon’s face is permanently needled into the back of his head. Covered from fingertips to his skull in pointy tribal tattoos, he has
GOD HATES US ALL
inked down a meaty left forearm.

Months later, the glasses come off for lunch at his favorite steakhouse in Corona, where you get the sense he’d still be a well-liked regular if he managed the neighboring tire shop. He’s Slayer’s designated bartender, a member of the Dime Clan—the hard-drinking coterie formed by slain Pantera guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott. The Kerry King who broke into heavy metal’s bush leagues was not a party person.

“He was a straight-edge kid. Not
straight-edge
, but he didn’t [party],” says Hanneman, laughing at the label. “He wasn’t raised in the same environment we were raised in. He wasn’t ever introduced to [partying] like I was or Tom or Dave. Then, he was so quiet and shy. He wouldn’t even look you in the eye.”

That different environment wasn’t much more than a block away from Tom Araya’s house. As the only male child in his house, King was subject to closer surveillance than the rest of the band. His dad was qualified for the task; Mr. King was a deputy in L.A.’s Firestone Station until Kerry was six.

The law-enforcement work was a side gig; for his full-time job, King’s dad inspected aircraft parts at the Terminal Island Hitco plant. Kerry inherited a genetic predisposition to small details. The guitarist describes himself as “anal” [retentive] and makes good on it—during our interview, he notices an uncapped yellow highlighter, removes the lid from the end of
it, covers the writing tip, and stands the marker up, just so.

Two jobs and a mere three children—as opposed to the seven children of the Araya clan, the four-large Lombardos, and the five-kid Hanneman crew—left the King family pretty flush. In the 70s and 80s, before guitars were available cheap at every mall and Wal-Mart, King didn’t have a guitar; he had
guitars
. The vintage tobacco sunburst Stratocaster was nice, but King’s first love was a big red BC Rich Mockingbird.

“My dad was a country-western fan,” says King. “He kind of lived through me. He was never a guitar player, but he messed around. So if he admired something, I would get it.”

The former policeman could keep the ship on course while he gone. After Mr. King resigned from law enforcement, he worked second shift during the week, and would just see Kerry as he was leaving for work. The two spent time together on the weekends, and sports kept Kerry busy during the week. He played basketball and was an all-star shortstop. As a resident of Huntington Park, King should have gone to Huntington Park High.

“It wasn’t as a good a school,” recalls King, who had won Gage Junior High’s math award. “I was good in school then, so it mattered to me.”

King used the ROTC program at nearby South Gate as an excuse to transfer there. He liked the military program. The future firebrand rose through the ranks to sergeant, overseeing a squad of pimply faced cadets. One afternoon, the uptight commanders made an example of King.

“I said, ‘This is fuckin’ stupid. Fuck this, you guys are douche bags,’” recalls King. “It was fun while it lasted, but whatever you did was never good enough. So I’m like, ‘I don’t need this shit.’”

King quit and reunited with his junior high friends at Huntington Park until his mom arranged for him to commute to the Downey district Warren. In Warren, his knack for math sputtered out, and his aptitude for women blossomed. King was on his path.

The guitarist says his enduring antireligious theme isn’t rooted in any particular experience. He doesn’t have any religious background to speak of.

“I went to Sunday school one summer, ’cause I was kind of bored,” says King. “And I gave up on that.”

He doesn’t recall what denomination it was. Over the years, he’s compared religion of all stripes to brainwashing and mind control, and now proudly identifies himself as an atheist. Religion just bugs him.

“Being where we are, in the Inland Empire of California, it’s like a mini Bible-belt,” King explains. “If you’re an atheist or you write
SATANIST
on your window, those motherfuckers will key your car, because they’re blind-faith fanatical.”

King doesn’t have a big reason for his teenage clean living, either. It’s just what he did. King is all-in or all-out.

“I’ve never done drugs in my life,” says King. “At that point, I didn’t know if I was ever going to drink. I just didn’t know if it was for me. And I’ve never been one to rush into things. I didn’t drink until I was twenty-one—not because of the legality, but because that was my time. So once I found my vice, I’m real good at that one, and that’s fine.”

Since the explosion of the Internet, King has emerged as the most outspoken man in metal. Privately, nine of ten metal musicians have extensive thoughts about where and why Metallica and Megadeth went wrong. King has the most candid critiques of his peers and heroes. When a band he likes
loses a step, he’s downright offended.

“I try to take all my experiences from growing up as a fan and apply them to Slayer,” says King. “I think that’s why our fans are so dedicated to us. Unfortunately, the first time I saw Priest was on
Point of Entry
. I’d seen pictures of them all in leather, studded out. And that was only tour in history where [singer Rob] Halford wore denim. And I hadn’t heard Maiden before, and Maiden opened, and they kicked the shit out of ’em. And it’s always a dark thought in the back of my mind: ‘I can’t let that happen.’”

Over the years, droves of rockers have gracefully evolved into mild, tea-drinking, wisdom-spouting professionals who just play a character onstage. King might be the one member of the class of ’81 who’s measurably more metal than he was in ’86. Drinking aside, he still does what he did as a teenager: He collects reptiles and consumes a steady diet of metal, making it through his day with the help of an iPhone loaded with Arch Enemy, Chimaira, and In Flames.

“It was kind of fun to watch Kerry’s transition as he shaved his head and put tattoos all over and became this complete hellion,” says bassist Dave Ellefson, who played with King during the guitarist’s brief tenure in Megadeth. “He was like Gene Simmons: He created this role, and he grew into it. Kerry is a great visionary.”

In 2007, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences members honored Rick Rubin with a Producer of the Year Grammy Award, for work that included Slayer,
pop superstar Justin Timberlake, embattled country stars the Dixie Chicks, and funky-punks-turned-arena-rockers the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The award capped a twenty-plus-year hot streak. He’s risen from New York hip-hop producer prodigy to West Coast music business overlord. And that journey began with the production of the fiercest metal album of the thrash era, Slayer’s
Reign in Blood
.

“It helped change the perception from me being viewed as a hip-hop producer to that of a music producer,” says Rubin.

By introducing pop-song structures to the previously undisciplined field of rap, Rubin had revolutionized hip-hop. As far as the musical mainstream was concerned, Rubin’s acts arrived fully formed. With two albums and two EPs under its belt, Slayer was the first example of what Rubin could do with an established band.

By 1985, he had played a huge role in poising hip-hop as a commercial culture and business juggernaut. In 1991, he transformed the Red Hot Chili Peppers from horny guys with socks on their johnsons to sensitive balladeers. In 1994, Rubin rebooted Johnny Cash’s recording career, once and for all establishing
Reign in Blood
’s producer as a maker of serious and significant music.

Rubin has the most eclectic, acclaimed résumé in the business: U2. Audioslave. Metallica. Weezer. Jay-Z. Slipknot. Rage Against the Machine. Krishna Das. The Jayhawks. The (International) Noise Conspiracy. Neil Diamond. Dan Wilson. The Mars Volta. Paloalto. Rahat Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Eagle Eye Cherry. Tom Petty. Lucinda Williams. Manmade God. Donovan. AC/DC. The Red Devils. The Four Horsemen. American Head Charge. Andrew Dice Clay. Sir Mix-A-Lot. Wolfsbane. Saul Williams. Mick Jagger. Trouble. The Cult. As
an executive producer, he has overseen projects by Shakira, the Black Crowes, and Public Enemy.

“He’ll bring out the best in you,” says Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo. “He’s got a great attitude in the studio. He’ll give me different ideas. He fertilizes the talent. He really brings it out.”

In recent years, his reputation as a production guru has drawn parallels to his eclectic spiritual practice, which incorporates elements of Buddhism, Christianity, assorted mysticism, and his family’s Jewish tradition. The mellow dude who juggles prayer beads, the Dixie Chicks, meditation, and Metallica doesn’t sound like the young man who went west to make Slayer’s third LP.

In 1986, the
Village Voice
’s Barry Walters profiled a twenty-three-year-old Rick Rubin. Rubin’s dad—a wealthy powerhouse salesman who had dealt in furniture and shoes—proudly compared his son to Al Capone. Russell Simmons, Rubin’s partner in Def Jam, told Walters, “I’m sure Rick would like me to tell you what a bastard he is.” Beastie Boy Adam “Adrock” Horovitz said of his friend, “Rick’s a dick. He knows how to get what he wants. It’s almost a spiritual thing.”
¹⁰

Frederick Jay Rubin—better known as Rick—was raised in an environment that would prepare him to produce such a diverse roster. Rubin grew up in the upscale, predominantly Jewish Lido Beach. He attended Long Beach high school, which drew its student body from racially and economically mixed neighboring areas.

As a kid, Rubin was into magic and music. At first, he preferred the Monkees to the Stones and Led Zeppelin.
¹¹
Harder rock like AC/DC would find him. He learned to play guitar listening to Ramones records. Devo and the Dead Kennedys
followed. In 1981, he enrolled in New York University, to study film and video. His keen ears led him to punk clubs like CBGBs and the Peppermint Lounge. Rubin’s slow-torture art-punk band Hose released its second single in 1982. He adorned the sleeve with a tone-arm logo and the name Def Jam Records.

Rubin wasn’t the only affluent kid in hardcore circles. He became fast friends with the hardcore band the Beastie Boys, whose parents included playwright Israel Horovitz. When the Beasties turned in a rap direction, Rubin became their DJ, spinning as DJ RR. Unlike the metal subculture, New York City’s punk and rap traditions had some overlap.

Rubin was a suburban kid running in street circles, but he was no frat-boy tourist. The stubble-faced guy in a leather biker jacket could walk the walk and talk the talk. And his knowledge of rap records was second-to-none.

When groups like Run-DMC started helping rap come into its own, Rubin began drifting out of punk. “Rap records in those days were very slick,” Rubin told Greg Kot of the Chicago
Tribune
. “Typically disco records musically with a guy rapping over the top. But when Run-DMC came along, it was black punk rock.”
¹²

At NYU, Rubin was the smart, charismatic leader of an eclectic peer group. Always persuasive, he could use intimidating aggression to back down agitated dorm neighbors. And he could disarm an interviewer with a puppy-dog look like John Belushi in
The Blues Brothers
. His room in the Weinstein Hall dorm was the hub of an extracollegiate rainbow coalition. The nexus was filled with high-end stereo equipment, funk records, and empty White Castle wrappers. Cool people from all over the city filtered in at all hours, except the morning
ones: Rubin worked late, played late, and slept late. A photographic memory and deep pockets helped Rubin maintain straight As—writing his own papers would have cut into his time club-hopping at hip-hop hotspots like Danceteria and the Roxy.
¹³

By 1983, Rubin was more interested in hip-hop than classes. In December, Rubin entered the rap game by programming a drum beat for T. La Rock and Jazzy Jay’s “It’s Yours” and borrowing $5,000 from his parents to finance the single.
¹⁴
Rubin sold it to Arthur Baker, the production impresario whose discography included Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock.” Baker released it on his Party Time/Streetwise label, thought it had the Def Jam logo on the back. After a nasty business split, Baker accused Rubin of having “a spoiled-brat mentality that he can get away with as long as his records do well.”
¹⁵

Rubin never faced that kind of reckoning. His demeanor was different in the studio, where he knew how to get the best out of his collaborators. The nurturing approach came from parents, who indulged him and let him find his way.

“I’ve given Ricky a lot of freedom,” Rubin’s father told Walters.
¹⁶
“But I’ve insisted that he follow two rules: don’t use drugs and never lie to me. I told him, ‘Ricky, you’ve got me and you need nobody else on this earth. But if you lie, you’ll fuck up the best deal a son ever had.’ He doesn’t need to lie to anybody because if somebody doesn’t like the truth, fuck ’em. He doesn’t take shit from anybody.”

Rubin followed his father’s rules and reaped the benefits. Even when he left his parents’ nest, like Kerry King, Rubin remained sort of straight-edge: no drinking and no drugs. In the drug-saturated decade of the 80s, even during a brief stint
on tour with the Beastie Boys, Rubin never consumed anything harder than a little MSG.

“He never used to hang out with us since he didn’t drink,” recalls Beastie Boys tour manager Sean Carasov. “He’d just stay home and watch porn and get Chinese takeout.”