The Band Name Kerry King Wanted to Use Instead of His Own Name

Kerry King was the guest on Full Metal Jackie’s weekend radio show, and while he’s got a new solo album out under his name, King tells Jackie that wasn’t the original plan. The longtime Slayer guitarist had been working on potential band names almost up to the point of announcing touring, but in the chat below he reveals exactly how his name ended up adorning he and his band’s first album.

King and Full Metal Jackie also get into the specifics of putting his all-star band together, and why Mark Osegueda ended up being the vocalist for the record. King also breaks down the challenge he put to the singer before joining the band.

The discussion also includes talk of Kerry’s love of pyro, why the Mastodon / Lamb of God tour was the perfect stage for his live return and Kerry also shares an update on where he stands with music beyond this current album.

Check out more of the chat below.

It’s Full Metal Jackie and I am thrilled to welcome back to the show for the first time in a very long time, the one and only Kerry King.  We’re here to celebrate the release of your new record From Hell I Rise. It is one of the year’s most anticipated releases and you’ve got an all-star band playing alongside you.

Kerry, after Slayer’s last show, you knew you’re going to continue with music. What was the most challenging thing about putting your band together and how much did they have a hand in shaping the music on what would become this album?

The music, Paul [Bostaph] and I had rehearsed. Kind of like in the Slayer days, Paul and I would rehearse. If I had new material, I’d get together with Paul because there’s no reason for everybody to come in if it’s my idea. So it’s business as usual on this record.

I brought in the music. He and I would go back and forth about arrangement and stuff like that. And then I would send demos of me and Paul to Phil [Demmel], for instance, Kyle [Sanders], for instance, and later on, Mark [Osegueda]. And then we started working with Mark off and on. He’d come down every six, seven weeks and do scratch vocals on our demos. Every time he’d come in, he would just make them better. If there’s new material, sing the new material. So Mark’s the only guy we ever had do that.

Of course there’s been rumors of everybody under the sun singing with me, but Mark’s the only guy we actually tried.

Was it fun to see people contemplating who could have been in your band?

Oh, yeah. As soon as I didn’t talk for like four months, somebody would bring it up. This is the rumor of who’s in Kerry’s band this week. I just kept my mouth shut and chuckled in the corner.

Kerry King, “Idle Hands”

Kerry, given that it’s your name adorning this album, did that give you a blank slate on where you could take this music. I mean, sure, there’s some expectations, but did this impact your approach now that it’s solely your name on the music?

The funny part about that is it was never supposed to be. It was never supposed to have my name on it and I was adamantly against it. But let me tell you something. You try to make up a metal band name, right, and see how far you get.

I worked on that for four years, and every time I land on something, we’d start running down the copyright trail and there was always a roadblock. So what happened was the festivals we’re going to be playing on were getting ready to announce and they had to announce something, so my name got attached to it and here we are.

So, yeah, no, it didn’t have any bearing on the music.

Was there like a whiteboard or a notebook that had a bunch of potential band names and logos that you were working on?

Oh, I’ve got probably a list of 40 to 50 names on my phone. Just anything that would conjure an idea of another idea that would come from that. And that’s where the logo came from.

It was gonna be King’s Reign. And I can’t remember why we couldn’t use that, but we couldn’t use that. So then, we just … Kerry King. That’s my name.

READ MORE: Kerry King Reveals Solo Song He Never Would Have Done With Slayer – ‘That’s Not a Slayer Lyric’

Kerry, it’s been really great to hear “Idle Hands” and “Residue” pounding away and signifying your return musically. And Mark sounds great on this. Is it weird to be writing to a different voice after all this time? I mean, given that this is your music, there had to be a lot of consideration given to who the voice would be. That’s something you have to really get right. What made Mark the right voice for your solo band?

Probably working with him. Just when we were in the demo stages, I told him very early on, I said, “I don’t want Death Angel Mark, I want grown up Mark. Let’s see what you can become. Let’s see where we can get to, let’s work on your enunciation, let’s work on your cadence. Let’s work on everything under the sun.”

I thought, or Josh Wilbur, the producer, thought, or even Mark thought if there was anything we could fix, we fixed what we could try. I think the Mark we got is just the most forceful Mark I’ve ever heard.

Some of these performances on this album are just off the charts in my book. I think it was “Residue” actually, when he sang “Residue,” I was in another room in the studio working out leads or lyrics or something, and I came in and Josh played it back for me, and I’m like, how did you guys end up at this register? I’d never heard it this intense, ever. I immediately went into Mark and I said, “Listen, dude, you can reproduce this, right? Because I don’t want to play two shows and then you cancel the next three because you blew your voice out.” He swore up and down he could.

So I had that conversation with him three times. I kept going back in there. I’m like, you can reproduce this, right? Yeah, we’re tight. We’re friends and everything, but I don’t know him that well, so I just had to make sure he wasn’t shooting himself in the foot.

Kerry King, “Residue”

Kerry, you were talking about the song “Residue.” The video is quite something. It’s obvious there’s been a love of pyro for you there throughout the years. Is there ever such a thing as too much pyro?

It has to be fun to see how you’ve been able to incorporate more and more fire to the live shows and videos from your early days of performing to the production you can present now. Where did that love for pyro start? And what types of things do you most like to see out of a live show production?

I enjoy seeing everything in a live show production, not necessarily in my own show. But video screens are also very effective. I think that’s a very common go to. I don’t think that every time you see video screens, the video content’s that great. Sometimes it looks like they mailed it in, so I didn’t want that fire.

It is what it is, and you know what you’re going to get. There is no mailing in fire. It’s there. It’s awesome. It is what it is. It heats the place up. It goes hand in hand with this kind of music, you know? And I think fire, I think of bands like Sabbath, I think Venom. I think Slayer. That being part of my pedigree, that’s where my love of fire comes from, I’m sure.

Kerry, the touring and festival dates keep adding up. Why was the Lamb of God / Mastodon tour the perfect bill for you to play your first major tour on?

I’ve got a lot of history with both those bands. When Mastodon came out, they were on a tour with us off and on for probably the better part of two, three years. The Lamb of God guys were on most of our last run, if not all the last run, I can’t remember, but they did a lot of our final tour, so we’ve got a lot of history with both those guys.

So them being on tour and giving me the opportunity to play with them, it’s kind of the whole idea coming full circle. So, yeah, I’m looking forward to it. Those decisions of what are we going to play in the show … 45-50 minutes. I’ll be barely getting sweaty and then it’ll be time to go have a beer.

At one point, there was talk of potentially two albums worth of material being worked on for your solo debut. Songs may fall by the wayside, but where do you stand on material beyond this first album? Do you start fresh after, or does some of what you already have start to form the basis for what comes next?

Honestly, there’s still three or four songs I have left over from Repentless that I’m working on for record two. There’s songs left over from From Hell I Rise that I’ve been working on for record two. There’s songs I’ve written since From Hell I Rise for record two, so there’s plenty of material.

I just think I probably have to come up with one or two more because I’m not sure I have the opener yet. Once I’m convinced I got the opener, I think we’ve got more than enough music, so there’ll actually be leftovers for record three.

Thanks to Kerry King for the interview. The From Hell I Rise album is out now and you can pick it up and see all of Kerry’s tour dates through his website. You can also stay up to date with Kerry King through Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Spotify. Find out where you can hear Full Metal Jackie’s weekend radio show here.