Slayer 66 2/3: The Jeff & Dave Years. A Metal Band Biography. (7 page)

Chapter 6:

Thrash Incubator

The state of California didn’t just host the thrash metal revolution. It sponsored it, to the tune of $2.3 billion, via a project whose inadvertent results included a stronger version of metal.

Southern California is place of contrasts, a sun-baked melting pot of religious Republicans, conservative businessmen, their rebellious kids, chill surfers, stoned hippies, belligerent rednecks, a handful of Latino cultures, an equally unhomogenous black population, other nationalities, and cornucopia of good-looking type-A personalities drawn there from all over the world. Given the weather and culture, the area is a fertile ground for gritty alternatives.

Over the course of the 20
^th
century, musical culture had drifted away from its roots in myth, magic, mysticism, and the martial tradition. Metal brought it back. Thrash was faster than everything that came before. It was heavier. It was louder. It was darker. Compared to party-hearty bands like Mötley Crüe and Quiet Riot, intricate thrash compositions felt closer to classical music.

In the mid-1980s, Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax  established the broad parameters of thrash metal. The bands were collectively known as “The Big Four” thrash bands. They weren’t always the genre’s most extreme acts, but in that golden age, they emerged as its most successful groups. Eventually, they headlined arena tours, and they put up platinum numbers. Three of the Big Four hailed from California. Over six decades, the state had invested in a thrash incubator.

In the early ’80s, Southern California’s emerging metal scene was built by suburban teens from outlying Los Angeles- and Orange Counties. Its stars weren’t old enough to legally drink. And they weren’t polished enough to play clubs. So Metallica, Slayer, and their pals worked at home, where they smelted metal into a new form, in Downey houses that were soon to be demolished. The blue-collar community had resisted the long-gestating Interstate 105 project tooth and nail.

The 105 had been on the drawing board since 1947. The interstate was intended to link the L.A. County suburb Norwalk and the Los Angeles International Airport. Plans finally came together in the late ’60s. The controversial first drafts cut a swath through numerous low-income neighborhoods, targeting thousands of homes, apartments and businesses for destruction. A class action lawsuit stopped progress in 1972. The lawsuit settled in 1979. Construction began in 1982. And the 105 opened to traffic in 1993
^6-1
.  Ultimately, the $2.3 billion project displaced around 8,000 structures
^6-2
, across nearly 6,400 parcels of land
^6-3
. Between groundbreaking and completion, the multigenerational endeavor yielded some unexpected dividends and left deep marks in metal and punk.

Preparing for the freeway, the California department of transportation bought property after property. Between the time Caltrans cut the first check for a house and the start of demolition, the 17-mile stretch of eminent domain would become a playground of abandoned, condemned and doomed houses where metalheads could party and punks could squat.

(The latter scene of Mohawks and vacant homes was dramatized in
Suburbia
, a low-budget flick by Penelope Spheeris, who had directed the classic L.A. punk documentary
The Decline of Western Civilization
. Spheeris later chronicled hair metal in
The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years
, then spellbound America with longhair hijinks in the
Wayne’s World
movie. The
Suburbia
soundtrack featured D.I.’s “Richard Hung Himself,” which Slayer would record on the covers album
Undisputed Attitude
.)

The sites were also a nexus of bands who were locked in a friendly competition for the metal crown.

“It was great,” recalled Katon W. De Pena, frontman of underrated thrash also-rans Hirax, one of Metal Blade’s marquee acts in the early days. “It was a great time to be young and crazy. There was nobody to really police us, so we could just do whatever, because the houses were going to be torn down anyway. But some people held out in those areas as long as they could before they had to leave, like Metallica. We used to hang out at their house all the time. You heard metal 24/7.”

Before Cliff Burton joined the band, Metallica’s original bassist was Ron McGovney. McGovney’s parents owned four properties in Downey, and held on to them as long as he could. The family rented a row of three homes. And once the writing was on the wall, they let young Ron and his friend James Hetfield live in the middle house for free. McGovney and Hetfield turned the garage into a red-and-white practice space. And the house became the Metallica clubhouse. The 105 scene was an all-star metal rager
^6-4
.

Before Slayer were musical stars, half the members were MVPs on the party circuit. Longhaired heshers would blast vinyl, pound beers and swill vodka into the small hours, until everything faded to black. It was a diverse scene. Araya was a regular, if not a pillar.

Araya clarifies that, though they spent time with other bands, they weren’t tight with them. Hanneman was more likely to bring over friends from Jordan High Panthers. (Hanneman played defensive end. “I’d be the guy who went after the quarterback,” he told
Decibel
in 2009
^6-5
.)

“You gotta get drunk, be young and stupid,” the singer says. “We’d just do just do what everyone else did: stand around and try to look cool.”

For the most part, Araya didn’t find it weird, hanging out with kids four years younger. But occasionally, a downside occurred to him.

“You never think about that until you’re in a situation like, ‘Fuck, I’m the oldest one here – I could get in trouble,’” recalled Araya.

Hanneman was around so much, he threatened to become a lumpy fixture. Walking upstairs at McGovney’s, you wouldn’t be surprised if you had to step over Hanneman, who was passed out on the staircase. Hanneman was the band’s party king, but Slayer’s actual King was absent.

“I’ve never known Kerry to be a party guy,” recalled De Pena. “He’s driven as hell. He bleeds Slayer blood, and I’m sure he goes to bed thinking about Slayer The ones that I remember partying most were Hanneman and Araya. The stories about Jeff Hanneman are legendary.”

King wouldn’t take his first drink until he was 21, and never used drugs. Since he skipped the parties, even scene regulars just knew him as a swaggering, cocksure figure at shows. But he was shy when pinned down one-on-one, hesitant to make eye contact. In either mode, he wasn’t as well-liked as Araya and Hanneman.

“I thought he was pompous jerk,” recalled De Pena. “But now, I totally get him, and I understand what he’s about. He’s one of the guys that I respect most in the music scene.”

Also absent was drummer Dave Lombardo, who was already sidelined with future wife, Teresa. She was two years older than Lombardo, but her brother had been in his class in elementary school. She caught Lombardo’s eye when shopping at K-Mart in Cudahy, California. At the time, the community was a seedy, small, trailer-park-dense city in Los Angeles county. Lombardo worked at the department store, often serving as a greeter at the courtesy desk. He didn’t always make a great impression. For some shifts, he would show up dead tired, with raccoon eyes from the makeup he wore at the previous night’s show. One day Teresa walked in, and he locked in on her. And their paths wouldn’t diverge for nearly 30 years. (The former Mrs. Lombardo’s name is most often transcribed as “Theresa,” but it’s “Teresa.”)

Teresa’s ongoing presence eventually became the greatest source of friction in the band’s 30-plus year history. The future Mrs. Lombardo saw Slayer play a party early its career. She was on hand for the band’s first club show.
But she was no groupie or club rat.  As Slayer’s renown for thrashing it up on and offstage grew, the Lombardo clique completely skipped the party scene. The drummer remained loyal to his number-one fan.

Recalled Lombardo, “We had our own party going on.”

Chapter 7:

Slayer Takes the Scene

From the start, Lombardo and Slayer were often on different pages. Araya, Hanneman, and King were the product of local public schools. Lombardo attended Catholic school until high school.

Slayer had played their first show Halloween, 1981
^7-1
, an afternoon show at South Gate Park Auditorium Battle of the Bands. Hanneman didn’t get much attention at home. But on stage, he did.

“I was nervous as fuck before we went on,” Hanneman recalled for
Guitar World
’s Randy Howard
^7-2
. “But as soon as we started playing, I loved it, because I loved showing off. Once I got up there, I was like, ‘Yeah! This is great!’”

The all-cover set included “Rock the Nation” by Montrose, Deep Purple’s “Highway Star,” and if Hanneman recalled correctly, UFO’s “Lights Out.”
^7-3

When the aspiring musicians weren’t partying like rock stars, Slayer played shows wherever they could: high schools, house parties, and back alleys behind industrial units, where they could unload their gear and plug in to an unprotected outlet.

Slayer hit the big time in June 1982, landing their first cover photo. It was part of a feature in South Gate High School’s
Rambler
. The student paper gave the band a vague review in a feature about a new program that let bands play lunchtime gigs Fridays — if no conflicting events were scheduled
^7-4
.

“When we started, nobody liked us,” said King. “We just kept going, and people stuck around.”

After a year, the band graduated to club gigs at Costa Mesa’s Concert Factory and Anaheim’s bar the Woodstock Concert Theater, a middle ground for heshers from Los Angeles and Orange Counties. The graffiti-filled square room had overflowing toilets and a run-down ambience comparable to C.B.G.B.’s. In 1982, Slayer played a half-dozen or show club shows, all in California.

The members worked, scrimped, and stole to provide for the band. A miniature golf course was King’s last non-Slayer job. The boss told him to cut his hair, and King quit. Later, his dad would offer him an X-ray tech job at the Hitco plant, but Kerry wasn’t interested if he couldn’t take time off to tour. At King’s few retail jobs, he had demonstrated a knack for sticky fingers. When strapped for cash, King kept himself in the reptile game by shoplifting snakes.

As the band grew, the guitarists would use their kleptomaniac skills to assemble an impressive stage show. The group would raid local apartment complexes and steal big light bulbs for their lighting rig, screwdrivers in their pockets in case the lights had protective mesh. The band assembled an eight-foot inverted pentagram of white lights that straddled Lombardo, flashing behind him while they played.

As the band started to gig regularly, Lombardo was the first member to buckle. He didn’t just skip parties.

A year into the band, Lombardo forced the band to cancel a show at the URWA Hall, a former rubber workers’ union headquarters bands regularly rented. The hungry young group was forced to drop off the bill. Pissed that they couldn’t play, the rest of Slayer made a show of posting signs announcing that the band would be auditioning drummers.

The scuttled URWA gig was an isolated incident, but King never forgot or forgave it. To King, Slayer’s incredibly consistent history is a matter of his personal and professional pride. And the very few times members have dropped the ball — those are permanently stuck in his craw.

Between shows, the band’s headquarters was the garage at Tom Araya’s house, which was the Huntington Park midpoint between Lombardo and King’s parents’ houses. Nicknamed “The Club Horizon,” it was a gutted two-car structure that was soundproofed with fiberglass insulation, stuffed with amp stacks, plastered with rock posters, and lined with a wall-long mirror so the band could watch themselves headbang as they practiced.

“It’s a really good family,” says Cuellar. “Very close. The fact that the kids had the garage to play their metal music, I thought, was very big of the parents.”

The bigger the band got, the more time they spent in the garage. Eventually, Hanneman moved in for a spell.

“We were there every fuckin’ day,” said King. “And we’d rehearse. Jeff would play drums, and I’d play a riff or vice-versa. That’s how we came up with a lot of drum parts, believe it or not – not to take anything away from Dave.”

In a corner hung a homemade SLAYER banner with giant red letters on a white bed sheet. When the group bought new gear, they would set off flash pots inside. And after the canceled URWA show, there were fireworks in the driveway.

The next time the band met, they had a huge argument outside the garage. And it wouldn’t be the last one.

Lombardo laid it out: He was well within his rights to cancel: He was sick. He couldn’t play. If he played, he’d be sick longer. He needed to rest and get better. King didn’t think Lombardo understood his point of view.

“Like, ‘Dude, you don’t get it,” King told Lombardo in his sharp, matter-of-fact intonation. “We need a drummer that plays when he’s sick.’”