SLAYER guitarist Kerry King recently sat down with Metal Hammer and spoke about METALLICA’s 40th anniversary and the relationship between the two thrash giants.
When asked what his initial reaction was to METALLICA’s 1991 self-titled album, also known as ‘The Black Album’, Kerry said: “I may not have been super-stoked on it, but I never hated it the way a lot of people did. To this day, I like that record a lot. I think it’s METALLICA but I don’t think it’s thrash METALLICA. You can hear where all the influences come from, from all of their older stuff. They just super-slowed it down and made it super-heavy; they made it super-catchy. That record probably sold more than all of my records combined. [Laughs] There was so much grief over that when it came out. And to be honest with you, everything that came out after that for a long time, that’s what I have a problem with. But The Black Album? It’s still heavy. It’s got some fast stuff on it.”
King also touched on METALLICA’s greatest accomplishment, saying: “Man, they’ve had so many. One that I can say we were a part of was the ‘Big Four’ show at [New York’s] Yankee Stadium. I think we were the first musical concert at the new Yankee Stadium and I think that was big for METALLICA, so I’m happy to be a part of that with them. But their greatest achievement, I would say, has got to be The Black Album. That’s the biggest level of success for them. It may not be my thing, but it’s the first thing that comes to mind.”
You can read the full interview in the upcoming issue of Metal Hammer.