“I said, ‘There’s a band called Iron Maiden? Who’s that?’”: Tom Araya didn’t listen to metal before joining Slayer

Tom Araya fronting Slayer in 2019.

Slayer singer/bassist Tom Araya didn’t listen to metal until he joined the band.

The fire-spewing thrash metal frontman made the revelation during an interview on Canadian TV network SuperChannel in 1988. When the interviewer asks him to name his influences, he laughs and answers, “You don’t want to hear my influences!”