“A lot of Slayer riffs aren’t really for bass players – there’s just too many notes”: Slayer’s Tom Araya charts his incredible 4-string journey

American singer Tom Araya of Slayer performs live on stage during Rock am Ring at Nuerburgring on June 8, 2019 in Nuerburg, Germany.

There are metal legends and then there are metal gods: visionaries who drag their music into the deeper abyss, far beyond the point of no return. When the Los Angeles quartet Slayer formed in 1981, they did so with the purpose of pushing their new wave of British heavy metal influences to the very extremes.

Today they stand as the old gods of war, metal veterans with a near-religious cult of admirers the world over through their bludgeoning riffs, blastbeat rhythms and ominous tales of human cruelty.