SLAYER’s Setlist For Upcoming Tour: ‘You Might Hear A Few Things You Haven’t Heard For A While’

On February 9, Rustyn Rose of Metalholic.com conducted an interview with SLAYER drummer Paul Bostaph. You can now listen to the chat in the YouTube clip below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On the setlist for SLAYER‘s upcoming tour with TESTAMENT and CARCASS:

Bostaph: “I’m not sure if you’ll see anything that’s totally obscure per se, but we have so many songs that are at our disposal right now in terms of just what we can play as a band that you never know what we’re gonna come up with. We’re dusting off a few songs, I think, this week. Kerry [King, guitar] and I are getting together. And you might hear a few things you haven’t heard for a while.

“I always says it’s a great problem to have, but what song do you take out of the setlist to put something obscure in? You know, you take one song out and people are ticked off that you didn’t play that song that night. What I mean by it’s a great problem to have is the band has so many great songs, from a fan’s perspective, which I’ve had that perspective. I mean, Jeez, over the course of time, it’s like… you take ‘Seasons In The Abyss’ out, and that would be the song you wanted to hear that night, ’cause you put in something else. So it’s a good problem to have.”

On the making of SLAYER‘s latest album, “Repentless”:

Bostaph: “It was a little strange. Part of it is that it was kind of business as usual in a way. The strangest part about it was probably… it wasn’t technology or anything. The things that were familiar was the fact that I’ve done it with this band before. I know the drill per se. But the other side of it was, in my absence from the band, I’d recorded albums with TESTAMENT and EXODUS and been a bunch of different places, jammed with a bunch of different people, and I was able to draw from all those experiences on this record, which I didn’t have on any previous record I’ve done with the band before. And those experiences, I think, have made me a better drummer than I have been in the past, in my opinion. But also, the obvious thing was we didn’t have [late SLAYER guitarist] Jeff [Hanneman] with us. So typically, when I’d be in the studio in the past… I knew how to read what was making the guys excited about my drum tracks. And since Jeff wasn’t with us, at times I’d have to… I was thinking of Jeff more than I probably ever would have. If he was in the room, I probably wouldn’t have thought about him at all until he said something. You know what I mean? But now, he’s always in the back of my mind. Part of it was I wanted to do honor to the album to honor Jeff. And then part of it was, ‘Well, what would Jeff think about this?’ He was still in the room. So that’s probably what was the strangest part about it.”

On whether he feels like he had something to prove on “Repentless”:

Bostaph: “You know, I don’t think I had something to prove on this album; I didn’t feel like I did. I just felt like this was an important record. And I felt like, again, since we lost Jeff, to honor Jeff. I don’t think I had anything to prove. Personally, I think I don’t have to prove anything to anybody but myself. I think that whole attitude about having something to prove, that’s when I was younger, and I did. And don’t get me wrong: I’m not resting on my laurels. I think now I approach it differently. Instead of having something to prove, I think I wanna have fun playing drums, and I think that’s the difference. I want that to define my playing now. Because, for me, I started out playing drums, and it was fun; I was excited about it. And, you know, along the way, you’ve got something to prove. It’s this journey or emotion and what we as people sometimes do. I think ultimately, I think, the guys that I really enjoy playing look like they’re having a blast while they’re doing it and it looks fun. And though all the time I’ve been playing, and my journey in being in other bands and being with this band and then coming back to this band, I think ultimately the one thing I want out of playing the drums is to have fun. My opinion has always been, if you’re not having fun doing something, don’t do it.”

SLAYER‘s tour with TESTAMENT and CARCASS is scheduled to kick off on February 19 in Chicago, Illinois.

SLAYER‘s latest album, “Repentless”, debuted at No. 4 on The Billboard 200, having shifted 50,000 equivalent album units in the week ending September 17, 2015.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA).

In terms of pure album sales, “Repentless” opened with 49,000 copies, marking SLAYER‘s highest-charting album yet.

“Repentless” was released on September 11, 2015 via Nuclear Blast.