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Brian May’s opinion on Slayer
During Queen’s career with Freddie Mercury, from 1970 until 1991, Rock and Roll music changed and evolved considerably, with many different subgenres emerging. As a guitarist, Brian May had the chance to witness the birth of Heavy Metal in his own country, with Black Sabbath emerging in Birmingham, not far from London, and, a few years later, the New Wave of the British Heavy Metal, which became a major inspiration for the American bands that went on to create thrash metal. Over the decades, May talked about some of those groups and shared his opinions on them, including Slayer.
What is Brian May’s opinion on Slayer
One of Brian May’s best friends is Tony Iommi, so he is a big fan of Heavy Metal and even went to the Back to the Beginning festival in Birmingham in 2025, which marked Ozzy’s and Black Sabbath’s final shows. In the line-up there were many Thrash Metal bands, including Slayer, a group he is a fan of and had the chance to meet a few years before.
That first meeting happened because Brian was the one who actually wanted to meet the band. He went backstage at Sweden Rock Festival wanting to finally meet the band and he even took photos with Tom Araya, Kerry King, Paul Bostaph and Gary Holt. At the time he posted the photos with each member of the band and described them as a band with awesome power and expertise. “View from back here watching SLAYER – jeez – Awesome power and expertise. Great meeting Tom Araya, Slayer, in Sweden Rock Festival. How cool is my life? How grateful am I?” he said.
Talking to Chris Jericho in 2017, Kerry King recalled that meeting, confirming that it was Brian May who went backstage to meet them. “He (Brian May) wanted to come and meet us. We all took pictures with Brian May. He came out to meet us on our way to the stage because we had to pass their compound. So he came out when we were on our way to the stage and we all grabbed pics.”
He continued:
“I wasn’t going to and everybody else did and I’m like, ‘Who am I kidding? When am I gonna see Brian May again?’ And after we played I went up and watched like half of their set. I had a setlist in my hand so I can see what was coming up. (So) I got like halfway through and then I bailed because you want to leave before the last band.”
“I thought (Queen was good that day) it was good. The one thing I miss is, and Tom (Araya) agreed, I’m like ‘What’s missing?’ He said, ‘The rasp.’ He didn’t have a raspy voice like Freddie Mercury. He nailed it and I’m like ‘That’s what I’m missing!'” Kerry King said about Queen’s performance with Adam Lambert on vocals.
Brian May once said he might have contributed to the birth of Thrash Metal
Brian is also a fan of Metallica, Anthrax, Testament and he believes that Queen’s classic song “Stone Cold Crazy” might have contributed to the birth of Thrash Metal.
“I think so (It’s the heaviest Queen song). Stone Cold Crazy goes back a long way. It was one of the first songs we ever played together. So it’s interesting that it never made it onto a record until the third album. That’s quite unusual, isn’t it? I think we were playing Stone Cold Crazy in our very first gigs. Freddie had written the lyrics with his old band, and the original riff was very different. It sounded like the riff in ‘Tear It Up’ (The Works – 1984). So that original version of Stone Cold Crazy sounded like a lot of other things which were around at the time, with quite an easygoing riff. It didn’t have much pace to it.”
“But I thought: these lyrics are kind of frenetic, so the music should be frenetic as well. So I put this riff on it, which people are telling me is the birth of Thrash Metal or something! I don’t know about that. But was unusual at the time to play at that pace. That song was a bit of fun, really. I don’t think we regarded it as that serious, which is perhaps why it never made it onto an album until number three. But it’s nice and heavy. I still remember going in to do the definitive version of it. It was faster than ever. We just went for it! There’s a lot of adrenaline: let’s go for it! It really does burn. And I liked the sounds that we had in place by that time.”
He continued:
“Stone Cold Crazy is a good example of us recording in a live atmosphere but in the studio. And we started to have it down by that point. Once you get a grip on that kind of stuff, you can fool yourself into thinking it’s live when you’re in the studio. So it doesn’t sound calculated – it sounds real and spontaneous. And we captured it. I think that’s all one take. It’s not like messing around doing take after take. We just did it. I’d say that’s when we started to master the studio,” Brian May told Guitar World in 2023.
It was the song that James Hetfield joined Queen and Tony Iommi on stage to play at the Freddie Mercury tribute show in 1992. When Brian May was asked by Eddie Trunk if he saw a connection between Queen and Heavy Metal, listing bands like Testament, Anthrax, Dream Theater and Metallica, who had mentioned Queen as an influence, May replied: “It warms my heart. They’re great, ‘cos I love all that stuff. I love the heavy stuff and one of my great friends is Paul Crook. And he’s always reminding me, ‘Hey you don’t realize what it means, you don’t realize…’. He’s great. He’s the Anthrax guy (Was in the band from 1995 to 2000),” Brian May told Eddie in 2014.
Kerry King said Freddie Mercury was one of his favorite singers
Although Black Sabbath and bands from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal were the main influences on Slayer, Kerry King was also a fan of Queen. Talking to Spin in 2025, he said Freddie Mercury was one of his favorite singers.
“I wasn’t into it (Punk when he was young) because I was into what I would call virtuoso singers. Rob Halford or Ronnie James Dio or Freddie Mercury, people with range and super-attack and super-harmonies vocally. When he brought punk in, I was like, ‘Why do you like this? These guitar players are playing like three chords poorly. And the singer was just screaming over it.’”
