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Slayer
Slayer is an American thrash metal band founded by guitarists Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King. Slayer rose to fame as a leader of the American thrash metal movement with their 1986 release, Reign in Blood, which has been called "the heaviest album of all time" by Kerrang!. The band is credited as one of the "Big Four" thrash metal bands, along with Megadeth, Metallica, and Anthrax.
Slayer is known for its musical traits, involving fast tremolo picking, guitar solos, double bass drumming, and shouting vocals. The band's lyrics and album art, which cover topics such as gore, serial killers, Satanism, religion and warfare have generated album bans, delays, lawsuits and strong criticism from religious groups and the general public.
Since their debut record in 1983, the band has released two live albums, one box set, two DVDs, one VHS, two EPs, and ten albums, four of which have received gold certification in the USA. The band has received two Grammy nominations, winning one in 2007 for the song "Eyes of the Insane", and headlined music festivals worldwide, including Ozzfest, The Unholy Alliance and the Download Festival
Early Days
Slayer formed in 1981, when guitarist Kerry King met Jeff Hanneman while auditioning for a band. The two recruited bassist and vocalist Tom Araya, who had played with drummer Dave Lombardo who met King while delivering a pizza. The band began playing cover versions of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest songs at clubs and parties in Southern California. Early shows relied on a Satanic image, which featured pentagrams, make-up, spikes, and inverted crosses. Rumor has it the band was originally known as Dragonslayer, after the 1981 movie of the same name. However, when King was asked "How did you come up with the name Dragonslayer?" King responded "We never did; it's a myth to this day."
The band was offered to open for Bitch at the Woodstock Club in Los Angeles, performing eight songs — six being covers. While performing the song "Phantom of the Opera" by Iron Maiden the band was spotted by Brian Slagel, a former music journalist who had recently founded Metal Blade Records. Impressed with Slayer's performance, Slagel met with the band backstage and asked them to record an original song, "Aggressive Perfector" for his upcoming Metal Massacre III compilation. The band agreed and the song created underground buzz, which led to Slagel offering the band a recording contract with Metal Blade