Slayer is not the kind of band to go gently into that good night. Not after nearly 40 years of unrepentantly provocative and aggressive music-making, a span in which the thrashers introduced the world to death metal and spawned an army of pentagram-worshipping fans that have left an indelible dark mark on popular culture. Slayer may be officially retiring after their current tour, but they are bringing the fire and rage one last time before hanging up their flying-V guitars and patched-covered black denim vests. We couldn’t miss it. So when Slayer rolled in to Houston, Dallas and Austin with enough pyrotechnics to raze a small city, we had photographer Ben Sklar embed with the band and its so-called “Slaytanic Wehrmacht” for their final Texas shows to see just how crazy the end of the road would be.
Ben describes the experience in his own words:
“I set out to photograph Slayer’s final tour to catch a tiny glimpse of the influence they’ve had and legendary status they’ve created in the last several decades. Since Slayer’s inception in the ’80s, Tom Araya, Kerry King, Paul Bostaph and Gary Holt have pushed the limits of music and culture while building a huge community of fans that are bonded like family and who appear in the regimented attire of a militia—black being the color of choice, of course.
The fans I met were proud to have their portrait made at each show, though they were consistently confused why GQ Style was interested in Slayer. But the fact is whether you’re a banker, a ballerina or even a faithful church-goer, you’ve heard some Slayer—and you’ve definitely seen their iconic logo emblazoned on a local metalhead’s tattered tour tee. Across the three shows I saw fathers, sons, brothers, mothers, sisters, daughters, cousins and friends come together every night to bang their heads and thrash in a mosh pit together.
A long-running band like Slayer can never live in the present without the shadow of their past. But though the current lineup may be aged (Araya’s grandchild was at the Houston show), their spirits and desire to bring maximum adrenaline to each show is unchanged. Before the show, the dressing room was like a solemn enclave of musical precision, with King sitting in a red-lit room moving his fingers across scales faster than most people can type. As pre-show joints were passed around, friends from Slayer’s past like former Pantera bodyguard Chris the Krusher rolled through to catch up. One former tour manager/security guard/driver/make-things-happen-guy came by to share photos from Slayers touring in the ’80s and ’90s, like of super scene character Toby Rage diving off a speaker stack. After the band closed with massive tracks like “Raining Blood” or “Angel of Death,” it was nearly-frozen Jägermeister shots all around.”
Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Matt Sweeney might be reviving the mysterious project.
