Tom Araya

Tomás Enrique Araya Díaz (Viña del Mar, Valparaíso Region, June 6, 1961) is a Chilean naturalized American musician, known for being the vocalist and bassist of the band thrash metal Slayer.

His family moved to the United States when Tom was five years old. At eight he got his first bass and began playing music by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones with his older brother, who played guitar.

Araya got a job in 1980 as an inhalation therapist, his salary was used to co-finance the production of Slayer's first album, Show No Mercy. Most of his lyrical contributions to the group's songs deal with serial killers, a topic he finds interesting. His first lyrical contribution was on the album Hell Awaits (1985), in the song "At Dawn They Sleep."

Araya is married with two children, a boy and a girl, and lives in Buffalo, Texas, with his wife, Sandra Araya, whom he met at a Slayer concert. His brother, Juan Araya, better known as John Araya, is the bassist of the melodic death metal band Thine Eyes Bleed.

Biography

Araya was born in Viña del Mar, being the fourth child in a family of nine. At the age of five, his family moved to the city of South Gate, California. Rumors circulated on the Internet stating that He and his family would have left Chile for political reasons, which was denied by Araya himself: "Actually, it was like 1966 when we arrived in the United States."

Tom's older brother played the guitar, and it was he who taught him to play bass at the age of eight, with which he learned several songs by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. In the early 1980s, Araya's older sister advised her to work as an inhalation therapist, so she took a two-year course.

In 1981 he met Kerry King, who offered him a position in his band, Slayer. Araya immediately accepted, and thanks to his work as a paramedic she was able to finance what would be his first studio album, Show No Mercy . In 1984, Araya requested permission from the hospital where he worked to be able to go on the European tour that Slayer had prepared, to which the hospital refused. After more than a month without going to work, the hospital fired him.

In 1991, on the "Clash of Titans" with Megadeth, Anthrax, Suicidal Tendencies and Alice in Chains, Dave Mustaine, Megadeth's controversial frontman, told Araya: "I like it when you suck my dick." In response, Araya called Mustaine "homosexual" while they were on stage. The insults between both bands caused relations between Megadeth and Slayer to weaken to this day, although previously, Mustaine had insulted Kerry King after he decided concentrate on Slayer instead of Megadeth, where he remained a member for a month.

During this tour, Araya became friends with Jerry Cantrell, guitarist of Alice in Chains, which caused Araya to collaborate on the song "Iron Gland" from the album Dirt: "I just screamed on it. Jerry called me to yell and that's what I did."

Araya resides on a ranch in Buffalo, Texas, along with his wife Sandra Araya and two children, where he helps take care of the animals the family owns, in addition to teaching his wife to sing. In 2006, Araya underwent surgery on his gallbladder, which is why he had to postpone the start of the tour "The Unholy Alliance" a week later. Furthermore, because of this operation, the Chilean vocalist was unable to finish recording the song "Final Six", which was going to appear on the album Christ Illusion. However, the song appeared on the deluxe version of the album. For his part, he took his son on tour with him for the first time: “It's good to expose them at this young age. "My first concert was when I was 17."

Araya also appeared in Sam Dunn's documentary Metal: A Headbanger's Journey, "Hate is a cool title."

Song lyrics

Araya's first contributions were on the lyrics of "Hell Awaits" and "South of Heaven." His interest in serial killers inspired many of Slayer's song lyrics, including the songs "213", about Jeffrey Dahmer, and "Dead Skin Mask", about Ed Gein, who murdered seventeen people. «Why? I'm trying to see where these guys are coming from so maybe I'll understand. It was always a topic that intrigued me."

Araya wrote the lyrics for "Eyes of the Insane" from the album Christ Illusion, which won a Grammy Award in 2006. The inspiration for the lyrics came from an article in Texas magazine Monthlyabout the civilian casualties of the war, and the experiences of soldiers trying to cope with the traumas caused by their missions. Araya stated: "At points in their mission in Iraq, the military needs help, and they tend to reject it. They try to hide it and hope that everything goes well. They try to make everything seem like it's going well, when in reality there is a lot of cursing that people can't stand. There are a lot of soldiers who come home with mental anguish. And the sad part is that we hear about post-traumatic stress after the Vietnam War and the Gulf War and the military seems to want to forget about everything with each new war.

Equipment

• Netherlands Signature ESP, Hill, Ltd and B.C. Rich series.^{[chuckles]required]}
• SVT amplifiers.^{[chuckles]required]}
• EMG and Bartolini tablets.^{[chuckles]required]}
• D'Addario strings.^{[chuckles]required]}

Discography

• Show No Mercy - 1983
• Haunting the Chapel (EP) - 1984
• Hell Awaits - 1985
• Reign in Blood - 1986
• South of Heaven 1988
• Seasons in the Abyss 1990
• Divine Intervention 1994
• Undisputed Attitude 1996
• Diabolus in Musica 1998
• God Hates Us All 2001
• Eternal Pyre (EP) - 2006
• Christ Illusion - 2006
• World Painted Blood - 2009
• Repentless - 2015

Collaborations

• Alice in Chains - Dirt Iron Gland)
• Soulfly - Primitive (vocalist and bassist in the song Terrorist)
• Black Flag - Rise above: 24 black flag songs to benefit the west memphis three (vocalist in the song Revenge)