SLAYER HOLDS BAND MEETING TO VOTE ON PUTTING TOM ARAYA TO SLEEP
Guess what Tom Araya won’t be doing any time soon?
I’ve seen Slayer live many, many times, and I can pretty much tell you that, on-stage, Tom Araya only does one of two things:
- He sings and plays.
- He headbangs and plays.
Okay? I’m not giving him or Slayer shit because I love them more than I love some of my blood relatives, but the guy ain’t exactly Greg Puciato. His performance style is fairly simple, but it works for him, mostly, I imagine, because he’s the front man for SSSSSLLLLAAAAYYYYEEEERRRRR!!!!
Unfortunately, it seems that Araya will now have to amend that list so that it reads as follows:
- He sings and plays.
- He does his best impersonation of Mick Mars.
For he revealed during a recent Noisecreep “Creep Show” podcast…
…that his back injury was caused by decades of headbanging and the abnormal positioning of injured discs in his neck was due to his particular style of helicopter and figure eight headbanging. He added that although he can still sing and play bass as well as ever, he will headbang no more.
So That sucks; not just for me as a fan, but I’m sure Araya isn’t happy about it, either.
Oh, well. At least Araya is alive and able to perform. The band’s various summer tour commitments are right around the corner, so it will be interesting to see how, if at all, Araya tries to compensate for not being able to whip his neck around; I imagine he’ll be making much more eye contact with people in the front row now. And if it turns out a non-headbanging Araya is a completely boring Araya, I guess I’ll have to start giving him shit like I do Mick Mars. Bummer.
You can watch the full Noisecreep podcast, with the complete Araya interview, below.
-AR
