5 Heavy Metal albums Slayer’s Kerry King loves

One of the driving forces of the American Thrash Metal band Slayer, the rhythm guitarist Kerry King always praised the bands that influenced him. He is a big fan of especially British Metal groups and in an interview with Scott Lips (Transcribed by Blabbermouth), the musician revealed five albums that he loves.

5 Heavy Metal albums Slayer’s Kerry King loves

“If I were to go with Priest, it wouldn’t be ‘British Steel’; it would be ‘Stained Class’. If I were to go with Sabbath, it would be ‘Sabotage’. If I were to go with AC/DC, it would be ‘Powerage’. Maiden gets tough, ’cause it’s a very different vibe between ‘Killers’ and ‘The Number Of The Beast'”.

“I’d probably have to go ‘Number Of The Beast’, because top to bottom, I think it’s stronger than ‘Killers’, just because of the ballady-type tune on ‘Killers’; I can’t remember what it’s called. That’s a hard pick because ‘Killers’ is a great record. And I gotta give props to (Metallica’s) ‘Master Of Puppets’. It’s a great record,” Kerry King said.

Judas Priest “Stained Class” (1978)

This classic Judas Priest album has songs like “Exciter”, the cover of “Better by You, Better than Me” and “Saints In Hell”. At the time the band was formed by Rob Halford, K.K. Downing, Glenn Titpton, Ian Hill and Les Binks.

Black Sabbath “Sabotage” (1975)

Black Sabbath’s sixth studio album, “Sabotage” has some of their heaviest albums but also showed how much they were experimenting around that time.

Some of the most famous songs of that record are “Hole In The Sky”, “Symptom of the Universe”, and “Am I Going Insane”. The band’s line-up was still the original one, with Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward.

AC/DC “Powerage” (1978)

AC/DC’s fifth album, “Powerage” is not only a favorite of Kerry King. The guitarists Keith Richards and Eddie Van Halen already said it is also their favorite album by the Australian group. It has songs like “Rock ‘n’ Roll Damnation”, “Down Payment Blues”, “Riff Raff” and “Sin City”. At the time the band still had their classic singer Bon Scott.

Iron Maiden “Number of The Beast” (1982)

Iron Maiden’s third album “Number of The Beast” was the first one with the vocalist Bruce Dickinson who replaced Paul Di’Anno at the time. Still is Maiden’s signature album and has some of their most famous tracks. Some of them are: “The Prisoner”, “The Number of the Beast”, “Run to the Hills” and “Hallowed Be Thy Name”.

Metallica “Master of Puppets” (1986)

The final album mentioned by Kerry King was Metallica’s “Master of Puppets”, which sadly was the final album the band recorded with the bassist Cliff Burton. Besides the title-track, the album also had songs like “Battery”, “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)”, “Disposable Heroes” and “Orion”.