I was born and raised Catholic, so it's in my blood. I don't go to church... I was born and raised Catholic, which is about the extent of my religion. My parents made one request: that I have my first Holy Communion.
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.
A good wine has many qualities, I think. If drunk moderately, it is healthy and good for your heart.
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 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.
Fortune is either with you or it's not.
Besides Slayer, which is a full-time job, I raise animals. I have a ranch in Texas. My wife takes care of the animals when I'm on tour. When I get home, I become a ranch hand.
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.
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.
Venom was a band that strongly influenced the image and the idea behind Slayer.
Oh yeah, our first tour in Europe they wouldn't give me the time off from work.
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.
I follow politics, but I don't like to discuss it.
As far as thinking about death and murder and various ways of killing people and how people die... I probably have the most twisted mind in Slayer.
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.
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.
Growing up, my dad drank a lot of wine, so I got a taste for, and learned how to enjoy it. He spoke a lot about flavors and differences in tastes of wine. Also, our manager, Rick Sales, is a big wine drinker; he goes to a lot of wine-tasting classes, and he's taught me about the qualities of wine.
As long as it's good music, that's what's important.
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 was born and raised Catholic.
