Tom Araya

“Fortune is either with you or it's not.”

“I went to school for about 2 years on a technical course, and I learned a lot. I learned about air mixture ratios and all the stuff; I learned how to draw blood.”

“Whatever had been on the radio in the '60s; I mean we were always listening to the radio.”

“When this genre of music started in America, Metallica was up north in California, we were in Southern California, Anthrax was on the East Coast. We each developed our own metal music, and after 30 years, we're still playing our metal music.”

“From the heaviest of the heavy to classical to country, that's what I listen to, I listen to a variety and I enjoy good music, good songs.”

“I am not an atheist; I believe in God. But my religion ends there. I have my own personal belief system that is so strong it allows me to do what I do. I don't have to worry about going to Hell because of Slayer, you know? Everyone has a personal belief system and believes in life somehow.”

“When I heard the idea of a Slayer wine, I tasted the wines they suggested for us. To be honest, I was a bit skeptical at first before I tasted it, but once I tried it, I thought, 'You know what? This is actually really good. A really fruity and round type of flavor for a red wine.' It's very flavorful and tasted awesome!”

“When I do interviews, I enter them with an open mind and try to answer the questions the best I can.”

“Our album 'Show No Mercy' came out in late '83, and we did three or four shows in San Francisco after the release. That was our first experience with stage-divers, crowd-surfing, people walking on people across an entire crowd.”

“That was the reasoning behind learning to play bass, and then after that it was more like it was neat to play songs together - for me to play bass and for him to play guitar.”

“Yeah, yeah I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions towards the band. The biggest one is that we're Satan worshippers, but next to that just the fact that we're normal.”

“A good wine has many qualities, I think. If drunk moderately, it is healthy and good for your heart.”

“Slayer fans are unforgiving. Early on in the career, if something changes, it's accepted. But 30 years down the road, in my opinion, they would rather see us do a three-piece than even try to replace Jeff, in a sense.”

“We did like 12 shows, then we did the entire Ozzfest with the first half completely booked; then we did the second half with a couple days off here and there.”

“I read a book recently by a psychiatrist who was able to interview a few serial killers and she had a thesis on how you could figure these people out. And she thinks that there are things that could tell you whether someone has the potential to do that.”

“Oh yeah, our first tour in Europe they wouldn't give me the time off from work.”

“Venom was a band that strongly influenced the image and the idea behind Slayer.”

“We just bought a new house, so my wife's been doing all the moving and other stuff, so I would like to go home and just sit and enjoy all that for a couple months before I gotta start playing again.”

“When you're in a club or a theater or even an arena, yeah, you want visuals, you want a good light show. But Slayer has always been about the sound. We have to sound good. It has to be tight.”

“If it were bad songs, yeah, I'd speak up, but they're not bad songs.”