Meeting your musical heroes can be a double-edged sword, and the same adage applies even to well-established musicians. When Slayer‘s Kerry King was asked by Metal Hammer Greece’s TV show “TV War” about any negative experiences meeting musical idols, Kerry’s response was refreshingly honest: “Yeah. Only once. And I won’t even tell you who, because he doesn’t deserve it. But nine times out of ten…”
King continued to recount a more positive experience with Tony Iommi, the godfather of heavy metal and founding guitarist of Black Sabbath. Despite having met Iommi before, King found himself starstruck and unable to approach him. “The last one that I’ll say I got over the hump with… was Tony Iommi,” he admitted. “It was very late in our careers, but it’s fucking Tony; he’s the godfather of all this shit.”
The breakthrough moment came at the 2006 Classic Rock Awards in Britain, where King was tasked with presenting Iommi with an award: “I was nervous as f**king all hell. I’ve done metal shows, I’ve done the Revolver Golden Gods billions of f**king times, but at the Classic Rock Awards, I was out of my element.” King confessed.
“F**king Steven Tyler‘s out there, AC/DC‘s out there, Def Leppard‘s out there — people that I’ve admired in my history but didn’t know any of them. So I’m f**king shaking up there. I hit the mic when I’m talking. And I was just a f**king idiot.” But once he had the opportunity to give Iommi his award and take a photo with him, King’s nerves melted away. “Then I felt like we were bros. I was over the Tony hump, and that was cool.”
King’s reverence for Iommi is clear when he adds: “I’ve had a lot of heroes, be it from Priest to Sabbath and whoever the hell, Ritchie Blackmore. But, yeah, Tony was the one. I had to climb that mountain and get over it.”
But it’s not just about meeting his idols. Kerry King’s love for Black Sabbath runs deep and is equally fascinating. During a recent interview with Australia’s Wall Of Sound he was asked which Black Sabbath album he would take with him if the world were coming to an end, and King didn’t hesitate.
He chose the 1975 album “Sabotage”, a record that has always stood out for him: “I would take… It’s easy and it’s hard ’cause I’m a super Dio fan. But I would take ‘Sabotage’. Something about the vibe on that record. It’s cool. I mean, they’re all cool, but something about that one. Maybe ‘Symptom Of The Universe‘. I don’t know. It’s nonstop badassery.”
