Slayer

Kerry King trades guitar riffs for flipper hits in lifelong pinball obsession

SLAYER’s Kerry King walks through his enduring fascination with pinball, tracing it back to his teenage years spent at miniature golf arcades. Long before tour buses and guitar solos, he was already mastering flipper timing and shot nuance across early machines.

He credits his technical musical ability—specifically rhythm and hand coordination—for translating well to Stern’s rock-themed tables. The music-based ones, by his admission, strike a particular chord, combining two of his longest-running fixations into one steel-and-glass cabinet.

Slayer clocks back in at Cardiff with riffs, not retirement plans in sight

At Cardiff’s Blackweir Fields, Slayer resurfaces for their first UK show in six years, delivering a set shorn of pleasantries—no ballads, no interludes, just relentless velocity. They arrive not with fanfare but with a montage chronicling their infamy, and South of Heaven’s infamous riff roars out before the crowd gets a chance to brace for impact.

Tom Araya surveys the pit like a war general recounting youthful carnage, invoking War Ensemble with enough ferocity to unseat fillings.
Drummer Paul Bostaph’s double-kick launches chaos, confirming retirement, for some in metal, is more of a hobby than a final act.