SLAYER TAKES HOME METAL GRAMMY

Slayer won for Best Metal Performance at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, and Tom Araya was there and shared his thoughts.

Slayer took home the award for Best Metal Performance for their song “Final Six” at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards Sunday night in Los Angeles. The song off their latest album, Christ Illusion beat out tunes from Shadow’s Fall, Machine Head, King Diamond and As I Lay Dying. Some of the metal award finalists actually walked the red carpet normally reserved for more mainstream celebrities.

Tom Araya took his place at the podium and thanked long-time producer Rick Rubin and the academy.

“It’s…most of all (I’d like to thank) Rick Rubin, who has been with us, been there for us, for the past twenty-three years, twenty-four years, so thank you. My wife, my two kids, Sandra, Errol and Tommy. They’re here with me. Of course our manager who has been with us for a good twenty years now. Well, thank you very much. Thank the academy. Thank you.”

Araya also talked backstage that perhaps with two Grammys they could be considered unearthed from the underground.

“This is awesome. I guess we’re part of the industry now, above ground. None of those tunnel diggings anymore. No, this is our second win actually. It’s kind of exciting. We’ve been fortunate to have been around this long with no radio play. We’ve gotten support from satellite radio recently, MTV gave us minimal support, but it’s all on word of mouth and people liking what we do and passing it on to their friends. We owe a lot of our success to our fans. The industry is great, but the fans are the ones that take the time to look you up to see what you’re doing, wait for the record to come out and buy it so…”

Slayer won for “Eyes Of The Insane” last year (2007), and have two other nominations to their credit.