Kerry King’s long-awaited post-Slayer project will finally see the light of day in 2024. While no formal album announcement has been made as of yet, the metal legend’s outfit will release a debut album produced by Josh Wilbur, as King exclusively tells Heavy Consequence.
While we tried our best to get the names of the other band members, aside from drummer Paul Bostaph, who has readily shared his involvement in the group on social media, King did offer up Wilbur’s name as the man behind the boards.
The acclaimed producer has worked with such acts as Lamb of God, Megadeth, Gojira, Trivium, and Korn, among others. And it appears that King was very pleased with his work, already eyeing him for a second album.
“The producer is Josh Wilbur, it’s my first time working with him, and we hit it off great,” the guitarist tells us. “Can’t wait to work on another one with him, and he feels the same way about the project, so hopefully that gets going sooner rather than later. Super easy to work with. The guy is a wizard on the computer. I mean when we’re in there editing stuff or overdubbing anything, I’ll do my part, or the singer or whoever is doing their fix or whatever, and he’ll just go back and forth on the computer a few times, go ‘Here, how’s that?’ I’m thinking, ‘I have no fucking idea where you are dude. He’s so quick, so easy to work with. It was spectacular.”
As far as King’s approach to recording compared with Slayer, the guitarist insists, “It was very similar. First and foremost, I wrote most of the last Slayer record, so people know what I sound like, people know how I write. This one I did one-hundred percent of, so if you’ve ever liked anything I’ve done in the past, there’s going to be something you’re going to like on this one, if not the whole thing. I love the whole thing.”
And as King explains, the music will have a familiar feel to longtime Slayer fans. “My sound is what we’ve done on the last, I couldn’t tell you how many Slayer records. And one thing I feel is that Josh really captured probably the closest to my live sound, because my live sound is very hard to get to tape. I think this is the closest it’s ever been. So that’s very exciting for me. And the rest of it, Paul’s playing, so hell yeah, it’s going to sound like Slayer because he’s got his own style. You know, screamy vocals — new guy — but you know, it’s still definitely got the vibe.”
As mentioned, the album has not been officially announced yet. However, the Kerry King project has confirmed its first two gigs, at Florida’s Welcome to Rockville festival on May 9th, and Ohio’s Sonic Temple festival on May 16th.
Stay tuned for more from our interview with Kerry King, and see his project’s as-yet-untitled LP on our list of the 30 Most Anticipated Metal & Hard Rock Albums of 2024.
Photo Gallery – Slayer’s Final Show Ever in November 2019 (click to expand and scroll through):