By far the most notorious and in some instances down right villainous Metal band of the last thirty years is renowned thrashers Slayer. Always a band that have managed to stir shit up and deliver controversy, the guys continue to hold their ground as kings amid the ever changing face of Metal. Having recently wrapped up the third leg of their U.S. tour in support of their latest release Christ Illusion I was privileged to speak with frontman Tom Araya in regard to the unlikely pairing of Slayer and Marilyn Manson and what aftermath was left as a result. I also addressed criticisms levied against the band themselves by fans who are unhappy with the sometimes unequal involvement of its members in the writing process. In addition we discussed the special edition of the Christ Illusion CD, the upcoming Unholy Alliance DVD, Tom’s fascination for symbols and his disillusion with being on the road among many other interesting facts and insights that most Slayer fans have probably been unaware of. I’ve always enjoyed speaking with the members of this band and this is by far the best interview that I’ve conducted thus far. Slayer are undeniably a band who demands your attention.

OT: Hey Tom, how’s it goin’, man?

Tom: Hey, what’s up, man? ‘Bout time we hook up huh?

OT: (Laughing) It’s been a couple weeks but I’m a patient guy, it’s alright. So after we spoke backstage in San Diego in the catering area, I went out and saw the show… my ears are still f*cking ringing.

Tom: Cool, cool.

OT: It was great, man. So I was shooting during the first couple of songs and the fog – after it finally cleared – I was intrigued about something that stood out to me. Y’know, I’m so close taking pictures and it’s kind of an odd ball question to start with but I just had to ask: what’s with the Stars of David on the fretboard on your bass?

Tom: I don’t know, it’s a symbol of religion, I guess.

OT: You just felt like throwin’ it on there.

Tom: Yeah, yeah. I have one with the up-side down cross, a pentagram, a Star of David and the crescent moon and star.

OT: Ok, yeah. The upside down cross - I would expect that – I just didn’t expect the Star of David one.

Tom: Yeah the Star of David and the pentagram, they’re all symbols – they symbolize a religion, you know what I mean. That’s all, there’s no deep meaning.

OT: You haven’t converted to Judaism, right? (Laughing)

Tom: (Laughing) No, no no. You know, believe it or not, the six-pointed star is a good symbol, so I just thought it’d be kind of neat to use it. It’s like wearing a Star of David around your neck, it’s just a good symbol to wear; they all have meaning and they all stand for good, y’know what I mean?

OT: Right, right.

Tom: It wouldn’t hurt to put ‘em on my bass; make me play better and feel good about what I do. (Laughing)

OT: (Laughing) Oh is that why you’re doin’ it!

Tom: Well you know what I mean, symbols are good, I just like the whole symbol and gem and stones and crystals and all that stuff; they all have meaning.

OT: So you’re into a lot of that deeper thought stuff then?

Tom: Yep, more so than people think.

OT: More so huh? I know the first time I met you, you thought you’d met me in a former life. (Laughter)

Tom: (Laughing) Well y’know, when you meet people you’re kinda like, ‘Do I know you?’

OT: Right on, man. So you guys made it through the tour, how did the Manson crowd respond to you guys?

Tom: It was good. I mean we had what you would consider prime-time, prime slot, the 8 o’clock slot.

OT: Right, oh yeah.

Tom: Otherwise known as prime-time. It ended up working well for us. So it was good, nothing major happened as far as the audience goes. We had the usual with security bein’ rough with the kids comin’ over the barricade, and it didn’t matter what the kid looked like or how they were behaving, they still treated ‘em kind of rough, you know what I mean? Some places were great but a lot of places they were just… I guess because you’re in the moment and you get all excited. It’s like a pack of dogs; a pack of dogs where one’s goin’ crazy and the rest are goin’ crazy ‘cause he went crazy! (Laughing)

OT: (Laughing) Yeah, absolutely. So I was talking with some friends that were at that show, they’d come down from three hours north, and they got a hotel across the street and I was talkin’ on the phone with them from the catering area there sayin’, ‘Hey you better get here because they’re goin’ on in less than an hour!’ And they’re like, ‘What? Slayer’s opening? They’re goin’ on first?’ So there seemed to be a little bit of animosity that you guys were goin’ on first (before Manson) and that you would even be on tour with somebody like Manson to begin with, being that his music’s very different and not something that the average Slayer fan would embrace.

Tom: Yeah, it was an odd bill, and we got the audience I figured we were gonna get and that was an audience that people didn’t come to see us; the same with Manson. A lot of the people that came to the show I think came because they wouldn’t come to see just Manson or Slayer, but since they were playing together, ‘Let’s go check it out.’ And I think a lot of our crowd was that; we got this kind of crowd on this entire tour. So it did well for everybody because this is our third time now goin’ through and we were doin’ really well, as far as merch. sales we did the same. We did the same amount the last time as this time so we did really well; it showed good numbers for us. We had a really positive growth and response’. So it worked out really well for us, like I said, we were on prime-time, 8 o’clock. The only thing is, like you said, a lot of people just assumed that we would headline, and that was the one thing that we let it be known a long time ago: this is a co-headline bill – but – we’re gonna kick his ass every night. (Laughter) We’re gonna open up and kick his ass every night. That’s by his choice! (Laughing)

OT: Yeah, my buddy and I, we weren’t gonna hang out after you guys got done playin’ but he started getting’ into all the little goth girls that Manson brought and started chasin’ them around the arena.

Tom: (Laughing) [Yeah, he said him and his buddy were plannin’ to leave after our show but they went around the arena chasin’ all the little goth girls! (Laughter) They didn’t watch Manson but they chased around all the goth girls! (Laughing) See, everybody had sumthin’ to do!

OT: (Laughing) that’s true!

Tom: Everybody was entertained! (Laughing)

OT: Absolutely! Now the rumor backstage, talkin’ to some of the people afterwards that had been to some of the earlier shows, especially the L.A. crowd I guess, said the Manson camp, some of their people, tend to be a little controlling and uptight about the way everything was being handled back there. I guess even your manager had some problems being told he couldn’t smoke in certain areas.

Tom: Well yeah, just in general period. For a co-headline, we’re the kind of band that if you allow access for somebody…, we don’t mind not having too much access but if you’re wearing the proper credentials  you shouldn’t be stopped and you shouldn’t be questioned and you shouldn’t be told you can’t go because you don’t have the right whatever, you know what I mean? And there was a lot of that going on on this tour and to us; well we’re not like that. You got a laminate that says all access, well then goddamnit I guess you’re all access, you know what I mean? If you have a VIP that says you get to these areas and you can’t go beyond that area, that’s great, but they kept changin’ the rules, it wasn’t our camp. There were issues like that were goin’ on through the entire tour and that’s one of the reasons why it’ll be a one-time run. (Laughing)

OT: (Laughing) Ah, right. I was gonna say chances are this probably won’t ever happen again.

Tom: Oh yeah. It’s like why? Why would we ever wanta go through this again? It’s like, f*ck you. We’ve been doin’ the business that we did with Manson… we’ve been pretty much doin’ the same business everywhere where we’ve gone and done it: Unholy and played ourselves, we’ve done basically the same business. So… to me, I wouldn’t want to do that again. (Laughing)

OT: Yeah, definitely. Well onto bigger and better things.

Tom: Yeah, bigger and better things, there ya go.

OT: Right on. Now when it comes to the general majority of the population – the world as we know it – Slayer has, for the most part, always been a band that has been feared and despised at times. Has this been the image that you intended to project all these years?

Tom: (*Deep breath*) you know, we set out to be the fastest and the heaviest. And we set out with our imagery to…., I guess yeah, I guess we’ve succeeded in doing that because that’s what we set out to do. When people mention the name Slayer it conjures up all kinds of images and lots of crazy weird thoughts, ‘Oooh Slayer, aren’t they that devil band?’ (Laughing) So I guess we set out to do that and I guess we’ve accomplished that; where people can associate the name and they get these images of Satan worship and sacrifice. We purposely set out to do that and we’ve obviously achieved our goal, at least that part of it.

OT: Right, right, absolutely; there’s no doubt! Y’know the world’s changed since you guys first entered the scene all those years ago. How has your outlook on life, and the band’s place in history, changed over the years?

Tom: It’s come from demons to real-life situations. I think maturity is the best way to describe what the band has done since its inception; we’ve matured creatively and in all ways we’ve matured. It’s become more of a challenge to try to come up with new and creative ways to be evil. (Laughing) At least to write about evil things.

OT: (Laughing) right, no I can definitely see that. I mean in the early days there was more of an almost fantasy like side to the bands material, when you spoke of different satanic-themed evil things and the hidden stuff that was out there. Now it’s more like, hey this is reality anymore, this stuff actually takes place – we don’t have to make it up anymore.

Tom: We don’t have to make it up anymore.

OT: I can totally see that. Now I was interested to find out: what’s the deal with the release of the special edition Christ Illusion CD? It seems that from what I’ve read, most of the fans are pretty satisfied with the original.

Tom: Yeah they were pretty satisfied but I mean somebody wasn’t satisfied. (Laughing)

OT: (Laughing) ah, the mighty record company.

Tom: Yeah they figured that they could do the record justice by re-issuing it and promoting it as if it were the first time coming out. So it was an initiative that they took and so they just said, ‘Listen we want to re-issue the album, do you have anything we can put on it?’ And we’re like, ‘Well y’know, we never really finished this last song.’ And, actually, it goes really well with the rest of the album, the song that we put on. It’s an actual song that was part of this album; it wasn’t something that was written way after the fact. So we gave ‘em that and we said, ‘How about if we put on there the original version of “Black Serenade”?’; so we put that on there. But that was something that somebody wanted to do and they just wanted to know if we had anything extra to put on there. We’re like, ‘We got all this stuff.’ and they’re like, ‘Alright, cool.’ So they put together this package. But it was something that they initiated, they wanted to do.

OT: That’s cool.

Tom: Yeah, it was really cool.

OT: I like the little 3-D effect on the cover, that’s cool. (Laughing)

Tom: Yeah, that was something else… they come up with all these crazy marketing ideas and that was the one that we thought would…, it was like, alright we liked that one, that was really cool.

OT: Right on. Now I noticed there was some criticism on the writing of the CD. In my travels I’ve spoken with quite a few fans that would really; really love to hear more writing from you and Jeff, I know Kerry pretty much did most of what was on this album.

Tom: Yeah, musically, Kerry writes a lot and lyrically, lately, Kerry likes to write to his own music, that’s one of the reasons why you don’t see me writing to anything that Kerry has musically done because he pretty much writes his own songs to his own music. But I’ve written songs, actually for God Hates I’ve actually had five songs written on that album; four that I had pretty much complete and one that I was startin’ to work on, an idea that I started workin’ on, but they didn’t want to use any of my ideas. They used two of my melodies, but not any of my song ideas. On past records I’ve had songs that haven’t been used at all, so it’s not like I haven’t been writing, I have; they just don’t use ‘em.

OT: (Laughing) they just don’t use ‘em.

Tom: Yeah they don’t, they don’t. Me and Jeff, it seems like whenever we collaborate on a song, we tend to write the songs that become favorites. But me and Jeff seem to, whenever we collaborate we click on ideas and stuff and they just kinda fall together whenever we start workin’ on ‘em. Like “Jihad” was something that just kinda fell together. “Eyes Of The Insane” was something that he had musically and he had some stuff written for a song and then I read an article and the song came to me in the middle of the night. I looked at him and I said, ‘Listen, listen, I’m gonna steal this line and I’m gonna title the song, “Eyes Of The Insane”” And he’s like, ‘Oh ok.’ ‘Yeah, I wanta steal this phrase right here, and then I wrote the song and then put that phrase in the song, you know what I mean?

OT: Right. It’s always great when it works that way and it gels that way.

Tom: Yeah. A lot of the stuff that me and Jeff have worked on together just kind of falls into place, which is kinda cool because then I guess we’re kind of both ‘in sync’ with our idea of the final vision of the song, you know what I mean? They tend to fall in place and, like I said, Jeff leaves it open for someone to help write or assist; Kerry doesn’t, so that’s one of the reasons why you see a lot of that. And on this album, the recording process and the writing process, was very similar as to how we did South and Seasons. That’s why you can hear the similarities because the writing and the recording processes were very similar on those. The records in between there, they started stepping away from that.

OT: Right, right yeah.

Tom: And to me, you can hear it in the melodies of those albums, you know what I mean?

OT: Yeah I think one of the things that I’ve noticed on the last few albums is that your vocals have been a bit more aggressive, y’know, heavier and you’ve kind of toned down on the melodic aspect that was more prevalent on some of the earlier Slayer material, especially during the Seasons era. Is this a conscious decision on your part?

Tom: No, that was, trying different vocal styles is something that we’ve kind of done period. We’ve tried different things but it’s usually very open. Like on Divine, that was a conscious effort at changing my vocal style. The same with Diablos, Diablos was doing something different. And then on God Hates, God Hates was the only one…, I would have done a lot of the stuff different on God Hates, vocally. You can hear ‘em when we do ‘em live. The songs that we play that are off of God Hates, when we sing them, when I do them live I sing ‘em how I would have recorded them. That’s how I would have recorded them in the studio ‘cause they’re done differently. I would have done that whole album, let’s just say there are a lot of songs where I would have done things differently, and that’s the one album to me that was just so far off-base as far as what we were as a band; when it comes to the studio and being creative in the studio. That, to me, I found was trying to mimic other bands that were screamin’ and yellin’ and that wasn’t us.

OT: I hear what you’re sayin’ and I remember some of the comments from people at that time and for a band that has always prided themselves in not being any kind of a sell-out…

Tom: Yeah and that one pushed it, vocally pushed it towards that and I didn’t like that. I would have definitely, like I said, that album would have been done differently if I had a little more control. And then on this album, I obviously did. (Laughing) You can hear that I had a big influence on the outcome of how the vocals were done on these songs. I may not have come up with the melodies for Kerry’s tunes, but, in my opinion, I think I made them listenable! (Laughing)

OT: (Laughing) Kind of made ‘em your own as much as possible.

Tom: Yeah, made ‘em my own and it wasn’t a bunch of yellin’ and screamin’. Which a lot of bands do; they use technology to scratch up their voice and then all they do is yell and scream. And to me, there’s more to a song. If the song is intended to be screamed and yelled, well yeah, then you make it work that way. But you don’t do that to every f*ckin’ song, just for the sake of screamin’ in every song.

OT: Right, don’t be aggressive just because you’re Slayer, because you’re so aggressive.

Tom: Don’t just be aggressive, yeah.

OT: And I’ve always respected that about the band. Especially when you do the more melodic aspect of it because you guys have always been heavy and that’s something that’s never been lost. But I think that having just that touch of the melodic in your vocals there just really enhances the music and opens it up.

Tom: Yeah, yeah. That was my objection to God Hates.

OT: Right, right. Now you guys have never really been without controversy but I recently read that you guys don’t do anything to be controversial. What then are you attempting to do by writing on such controversial topics?

Tom: Yeah but it’s not intended to be controversial, you know what I mean? “Angel Of Death” wasn’t intended to be controversial. Jeff says, ‘Hey, I got this song it’s called “Angel Of Death”, hear the words.’ I’m like, ‘Aw, cool.’ We didn’t think that somebody would sit there and think, ‘You guys are Nazi’s.’ We’re like, ‘What?’ ‘Nazi’s, why are we Nazi’s?’ ‘Because you wrote a song about the angel of death.’ So to me, people create controversy, we don’t. You know, the one and only time that I can honestly say we did something on purpose, I mean completely just flat-out on purpose? Was the first album. Every song title on that album had to do with satanic, Satan that, Satan this, you know, this whole satanic image. Its like, “666”, Jeff’s got this upside down cross and he’s usin’ it as a slide-bar. That album, in its entirety, was done intentionally. That was the only thing that we’ve ever done intentionally, everything else is just sort of people creating controversy and throwing it upon us.

OT: So what are you attempting to do with the writing then, are you just trying to…, I mean a lot of the stuff tends to be… especially today like you mentioned, that it’s real world stuff, real life stuff. Are you trying to just kinda shed some light on certain areas of human nature that don’t normally get spoken about?

Tom: No, we’re normal people just like anybody else. Our gift is that we came together as a band and we can create music and write songs as a band. And we’re taking what we find that’s of interest to us and if we feel that it’s important to share, then we share it. And that’s basically what you do, you can make a statement, which is what people like to do with music and in songs, they like to ‘say something’. We do too, but we don’t like to preach to people, we like to say, ‘Hey I found this really interesting, I wrote a song about it.’ And that’s basically how we come about with a lot of our stuff, its like listen, ‘I found this book about Ed Gein interesting, enough so that I wrote a song about it, what do you think?’ You know what I mean? Pretty creepy song huh? Pretty creepy dude right? That’s the attitude we take. Jeff came up to me and said, ‘Yeah, I really like this song, this music and stuff and I wanta call it Jihad.’ And I’m just like, ‘You wanta what?’ (Laughter) He says, ‘I wanta call it Jihad.’ And I was just like, ‘Well how are you gonna approach it? What’s the angle, how ya gonna write this?’ He goes, ‘Y’know, from the terrorist’s perspective.’ And I’m like, ‘Aw, dude, that’s an awesome idea.’ You know what I mean? And that was it, nothing more, nothing less; ‘that’s an awesome idea.’ And then for a brief nano of a second, milli-nano, whatever, the teeniest point of a pause, the shortest span of time you can think of - I looked at him and went, ‘We might get shit for it.’ But it was like a brief second, and then it just went away; kind of like, well whatever, great idea, let’s work on it.

OT: Well it’s not like you guys haven’t gotten shit for stuff before, so…

Tom: Yeah, but you know what I mean, it was just a great idea.

OT: Not to mention that nobody else has done that. It was something completely original.

Tom: Well nobody, nobody would, you know what I mean? Nobody would. When the idea first hit us and I just looked at him - that was the way we approached that. We’re like, ‘You know what? Nobody would ever think of doin’ a song like this, so why not do it? It’s a great idea; it’s a great way to approach the song.’ And that was it. It wasn’t like, ‘Let’s create controversy, let’s write a song.’ It was more like, ‘I wanta write a song and call it this.’ I was like, ‘Awesome idea.’ And that was it. A lot of the stuff that we do is based on, ‘This looks cool.’ or ‘This sounds awesome.’, ‘This is great.’ If we don’t hear any of that involving stuff we’re working on, it’s not gonna get past us, it won’t even make it to Ruben, let’s put it that way!

OT: Right, right on.

Tom: I’m serious, I’m serious. Unless we are happy and completely content with what we’ve done nobody listens to it, not even Ruben. And Ruben sometimes will say, ‘Well I want to hear what you’re doing.’ We’re like, ‘No, we didn’t like ‘em so you’re not gonna listen to ‘em, there’s no need for you to hear ‘em!’ (Laughing)

OT: (Laughing) I think that’s the safe way to play it, honestly. Otherwise, ‘cause God forbid that you would let anything out that you would regret putting out.

Tom: And that’s the way it’s always been with us and Ruben. If Ruben wants to hear more we tell ‘em, ‘No, this is what you’re going to hear!’

OT: Right on. Y’know it’s interesting, obviously you guys are expanding your topics to some degree, but a lot of the stuff that you guys have done over the years tends to be along the same lines, if anything it’s definitely not the most positive-minded outlook on things. Do you ever feel limited in what you’re doing, in your writing?

Tom: No, no because your imagination is endless. It’s when you’ve got writer’s block or a creative block, then it might be an end for you, maybe you might want to check into another area of focus because you’ve lost focus on that one. Once you’ve started losing focus, or sight of what it is, you know, of how your creative processes do something, I think it’s time to change and go in another direction, or you need something to recharge your creative batteries.

OT: Right absolutely. I hear that, nothin’ like a good attack on U.S. soil by terrorists to bring that out, huh?

Tom: Yeah. Well y’know, we told ourselves we wouldn’t write about that because everybody was, but I guess you can’t help but be affected or influenced by your surroundings. Like “The Eyes Of The Insane”, that song, I knew that Jeff wanted to write that “Jihad” song, so that was something that I always kept my eyes and ears open for, anything that had anything to do with terrorists or anything, you know what I mean? So if a news program came on that discussed certain things I’d turn and watch it, to get informed, just to get my creative ideas goin’. So I did a lot of that, you do a lot of research, I guess you would call it, because you wanta be able to make sure that you’re not talkin’ outta your ass!

OT: Oh yeah, absolutely.

Tom: So I do a lotta that, there’s a lot of that that I do whenever we discover a topic that we want to write about I find myself reading about it or finding things to help me understand and look at it from different angles and different views; to be very open minded about certain areas that we tend to write about.

OT: That’s cool, man. So I know that Kerry has made numerous guest appearances on other artist’s albums, the rest of the band have pretty much remained faithful to Slayer. Have you ever desired to do something outside of Slayer on a musical level?

Tom: Yeah, actually I’ve done some vocal stuff, I did something with Max Cavalera on the Soulfly album, I sang a song with him. But other than that, no, because this is what’s happening now, this is what’s working now. I’m the kind of person that when I focus, I have to focus completely; I can’t be part of one thing and then part of another at the same time. I would rather just focus my energies on one thing at a time kind of thing. I would rather do that than try to do a million things at once, you focus your energy on one thing as opposed to a million things.

OT: Yeah I hear ya, definitely. Now you guys have way more than enough material to put together a good, solid anthology. How come this has never been realized, like a greatest hits-type Slayer thing?

Tom: I would think now, after twenty five years, I think they’ll probably do that now. We have one more record to do with Ruben so if they decide to put something like that together that would be cool ‘cause then we wouldn’t have to do anything! (Laughing) Then we could just sit back and push stuff out…. Slayer’s Greatest Hits Volume 1, Slayer’s Greatest Hits Volume 2, yeah, The Anthology, The Double Anthology. The Slayer box (Laughter)

OT: (Laughing) yeah I think that’s why a lot of bands, they’ll do like ten years and then put something out. I get tired, actually, of getting all these…, it’s like another greatest hits from the same bands.

Tom: The same bands and they’re the same songs.

OT: Yeah, the same songs, maybe they put an extra three songs on there because they did two more albums, but it gets a little ridiculous.

Tom: Yeah, yeah. An anthology album would be cool because that would include everything that we’ve ever done or recorded in the studio, which I think would be cool. But how many greatest hits albums do you really need, you know what I mean? And then, obviously, greatest hits, what’s the greatest hits from? We didn’t have a radio station playin’ our songs to say, ‘Look this is Slayer, they’ve got like ten hits here!’ You know, greatest hits would mean that these are songs that we think are our best.

OT: Right, well I mean, fan favorites. There are certain songs that you guys play in every set, if you’re gonna play a show you can not get up there and not play “Raining Blood”?

Tom: Yeah. and “Angel Of Death”. Those are a must.

OT: Yeah, yeah they’re definitely ones that are essentials. It’s funny because recently I was reading about people criticizing the set list from this last tour, ‘Oh they should’a done this instead of that.’ And they’re saying you guys should give these songs a rest, I’m like, there’d be such shit if you guys didn’t play these songs. But I know a lot of people were hoping you’d guys would play a little bit longer, but obviously with so many albums, realistically you can only play so long before you’re gonna get worn out.

Tom: Yeah but if it was our own show, like on the Unholy Alliance tour, that was kind of like our tour so we play an hour and twenty, usually an hour and a half. We used to play two hours, we used to play an hour and forty, but we realized that in all the times in our career, the attention and tolerance span of the music that we play is an hour and a half. (Laughing)

OT: (Laughing) yeah.

Tom: Any more than that and people get burned out, any less than that and people feel like they’re cheated. And it’s always the same, we will play an hour and a half and it’s always the same, ‘You guys should play more.’ Its like, ‘You guys wouldn’t be able to tolerate more.’ We’ve come to understand and learn that so we stick with an hour and a half whenever it’s a show that we do. If we ever do decide to play more than an hour and a half, in other words expand to a two-hour set, we would have one opening band because two hours of Slayer is a lot, we cram in a lot of songs in that two-hour span.

OT: No, I was looking at the set and even though it wasn’t an hour and a half you played like 14-15 songs.

Tom: Yeah we played 15 songs in an hour and ten.

OT: That’s incredible man.

Tom: That’s a lot; most bands don’t play that many in a set!

OT: No, no I know, that’s why I was surprised. Everybody was saying it was too short but I’m like, f*ck, look what they played.

Tom: Yeah, we played fifteen songs or so. That to us is plenty. And like I said, most bands will play less songs than that, they do the twenty minute pep rally in between every song, you’ve got three hours of song time. And I’m not a cheerleader, I’m not gonna go out there and, ‘Ok the girls, ok the guys, ok now everybody!’ (Laughter) ‘The short people, the tall people, the fat people, the skinny people, ok everybody all together at once!’ To me it’s great, but…..

OT: Right, yeah… not for Slayer.

Tom: Not for Slayer. We come here to play and demand your attention. If you don’t wanta pay attention to us…, ‘Fine.’ That’s about it, whatever, we’re here to play and you don’t wanta hear …..

OT: Absolutely. So, last question.

Tom: Yeah.

OT: I’ve heard it said that you guys don’t know the meaning of retirement. Having toured for so many years do you look more forward to being on, or off the road?

Tom: (Laughing) Oh man. I look forward to being off more so.

OT: More so?

Tom: Yeah, I don’t really spend a lot of time at home, it’s been a long time now. I’ve been married twelve years, yesterday…,

OT: Wow twelve years, congratulations.

Tom: Yeah, yeah twelve years, that’s a long time, especially in this business. And with the way people treat your spouse and family in this business, as pretty much second-class citizen type. So yeah, I look forward to staying home more than I do going out.

OT: That’s cool. Yeah I’m comin’ up on twelve years myself in November.

Tom: Oh, congratulations on that.

OT: Thanks. And my wife goes out and takes pictures of all the bands too so she’s in the same business.

Tom: Oh that’s cool, yeah that’s cool.

OT: But yeah. So I figured as much, I mean it does get hard when you have families and trying to take ‘em out on the road. And just from the last couple of weeks, every time I’ve tried to get a hold of you you’ve been with your family. I’m like, ‘Obviously the guys been missin’ his family.’

Tom: No, no actually there’s been just a lot of stuff since I got home. We’re in the middle of having a pool built and there’s just a lot of stuff goin’ on. There’s a power plant comin’ through our property and there’s just a lot of stuff that needs to get done here because it’s a lot of land; I’ve gotta start acting like a land owner.

OT: So how long have you lived out there now?

Tom: Out here in Texas? About eleven years. We like the area, it’s just really nice; green, trees, it’s coastal. I’ve got a sixty-acre spread so it’s really, really nice. And that’s what I enjoy, I enjoy comin’ home….., I’ve got animals, I like doin’ that.

OT: Right on. That’s cool, dude. Well I appreciate your time so much, it has been a pleasure speaking with you, I’m glad we finally got to do it. See ya out there again.

Tom: Alright cool. I’ll see you again, and we’ll do this again. (Laughter)

OT: Definitely man. Right on.

Tom: Take care.

OT: Thanks Tom.

Tom: ‘Bye.

OT: ‘Bye.