Slayer’s Kerry King has named the most “overlooked” guitar player in metal.
The 60-year-old makes his pick while listing his top five guitarists of all time. Talking on the Lipps Service With Scott Lipps podcast, he names Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore, Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi, Van Halen’s Eddie Van Halen, Ozzy Osbourne player Zakk Wylde and his personal “favourite”, Glenn Tipton of Judas Priest.
“And I think he’s the most overlooked,” King adds when talking about Tipton (via Blabbermouth). “’Cause if you look at the leads he was doing and when he was doing ’em, he kind of innovated a lot of that stuff.”
King, who co-founded Slayer in 1981, has never been shy about expressing his love for Judas Priest. Talking to the Phoenix New Times in 2017, he called the Birmingham metal legends his “idols”.
“Rob [Halford, frontman] is what I call a vocal ninja,” he said. “The stuff he does in the 70s, 80s, even 90s, and even today, he can’t hit the notes from his heyday, but he goes out and puts on a hell of a show.
“But the thing he does, the shrill crazy Rob Halford scream is I think what got me. It wasn’t about wearing leather and chains, but, of course, Priest are idols of me, and I think you spend the early part of your career emulating your idols, and we were definitely guilty of that.”
Slayer retired in 2019 but announced their return in February and have played two US festival shows since then. They’re set to perform at Louder Than Life in Kentucky next September.
This month, King ruled out the band touring or making another studio album ever again. “Mark my words: we're never gonna make a record again, we’re never gonna tour again,” he told Metal Roos.
“Because that [final world tour from 2018 to 2019] was the last thing. We said, ‘This is our final tour.’ It [then] took five years for us to come and say, ‘Hey, here’s a couple of shows, five-year anniversary.’”
Though Slayer won’t be especially active going forward, King will keep himself busy with his new solo band. He released debut album From Hell I Rise this year before touring extensively, and he’s already set to play across North America, South America and Europe in 2025. See dates via the official Kerry King website.
Meanwhile, Judas Priest are set to tour Europe in the summer on the Shield Of Pain run, which will celebrate material from new album Invincible Shield and 1990’s Painkiller. The jaunt will include a blockbuster show at London’s O2 Arena, co-headlined by shock rock master Alice Cooper.
