Slayer’s Kerry King Unimpressed by Mayhem Festival
Earlier this month, Mayhem Festival Co-Founder Kevin Lyman threw his festival under the bus by 
lamenting how metal has gotten “gray, bald and fat.” He also explained the various money and talent-related issues that Mayhem experienced this year.
During a new interview with Metal Insider, Kerry King of Slayer (this year’s Mayhem Festival headliner!) was asked about Lyman’s comments and didn’t hold back.
“It’s a very generalizing statement and it basically throws his tour under the bus. That’s just…that’s not even Business 101. That’s just insane,” said King of the “gray, bald and fat” comment made by Lyman.
“Do I know this tour wasn’t booked correctly? Absolutely I know this tour wasn’t booked correctly,” he added. “Gary Holt (Slayer’s guitarist) made the comment that usually there’s the main stage, a second stage, a third stage, and then that piece of shit record stage…now what they’re calling a second stage is at best a fourth stage and they’re wondering why people aren’t showing up. I think they waited too long and think all the talent that could have been on this took gigs in Europe. Because there’s nobody here touring. It’s easy to fill these stages but I guess they wanted a different price point, take away the second and third stage which I think had a lot of value. To me a second stage headliner is Anthrax, Machine Head…Whoever booked this made a gigantic error.”
This error, has unfortunately led to ticket sale issues. At the Toronto edition of Mayhem Festival in Toronto last week, a source informed Riffyou.com that only about 3,000 tickets had been sold for the day.
“I understand it from a fan’s perspective. I wouldn’t spend money to come to this either,” King told Metal Insider. “This might be the last time you see Mayhem.”
Riffyou.com recently spoke with Slayer’s Paul Bostaph about the band’s forthcoming album, Repentless. You can read that interview here.
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