You can take Slayer off the road, but you can't take Slayer out of Kerry King.
That's the lesson of the thrash guitarist's debut solo album, From Hell I Rise, which he describes as an "extension" of his work with the "Raining Blood" metallers.
"This is what I see myself doing, this is what I'm a fan of," King tells ABC Audio. "So not only do I get to make up music, I get to make up music I'm pretty sure fans of Kerry King are gonna be into."
Still, King takes a few left turns on From Hell I Rise, especially lyrically.
"Say for instance if I had blinders on in Slayer that went completely forward, maybe they opened 5 percent," King says. "There's definitely some lyrics I never would've wrote in Slayer, but in the context of the songs I put them in, they're perfect."
King also experiments with repeated imagery with the cut "Where I Reign," the first song on the album following the opening instrumental, and the closing title track, both of which play with the lyric "from Hell I rise."
"It's kind of prophesizing the end of the album," King says. "The beginning of the album, you say, 'from Hell I will rise,' then the end you say, 'from Hell I rise,' it's like the completion of thought."
"I'd never done anything like that, so I thought it was kinda cool," he continues. "I like the way it works its way out to be a premonition and then a reality."
From Hell I Rise is out now. King will launch a European solo tour Monday.
Slayer, meanwhile, will reunite for a trio of festivals later in 2024, marking their first performances since the conclusion of their farewell tour in 2019.