SLAYER Frontman Comments On Third GRAMMY Nomination
With at least one foot planted firmly in Hell, National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences members have nominated SLAYER, the acknowledged kings of extreme speed/thrash/punk-metal, for their third Grammy Award. The SLAYER track, "The Final Six", from the band's 2007 limited-edition "Christ Illusion", was nominated in the category of "Best Metal Performance."
"The Final Six", written by SLAYER's vocalist/bassist Tom Araya and guitarist Jeff Hanneman and produced by Josh Abraham, is a chilling look at an hypothesized end of the world. The song made its debut last July as the "Single of the Week" on MySpace where it has since accumulated some 750,000 plays, an astounding number for a song that received no commercial airplay.
"When I first got the word, I thought someone was playing a joke," mused Araya. "But obviously, we've made an impression on the industry. The people at the upper levels have taken notice of what we've done, and that's awesome."
SLAYER's two previous Grammy nominations were for 2002's "Disciple" from the album "God Hates Us All", and last year's "Eyes of the Insane", for which they took home the Grammy Award.
Right after the New Year, SLAYER plans to start working on new material for their eleventh studio album, intended for a 2008 release, and will tour the world to support it.
"I'm excited to see where the new music will go, how it's going to sound, what the total writing and recording experience will be like," Araya said. "I'm sure it will be like the one for 'Christ Illusion' — great!"
"Christ Illusion", which debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard chart, has sold around 175,000 copies in the United States since its Aug. 8 release, according to Nielsen SoundScan.