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The Lowdown

Can you imagine Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain” without John McVie’s iconic closing line?

How to know when your bass playing becomes composition and what to do about it.

When you first picked up the bass, did you know you would end up being your band’s secret badass? Admittedly, it’s a strange kind of badassery, in that you don’t need to brag or be cocky. It’s simply the quiet confidence of knowing that you’re not just driving the musical train, you’re the engine.

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As one of the lead guitarists of Slayer, the outspoken, opinionated King has also bred snakes off and on since the late ’80s.

Photo by Annie Atlasman

Four and a half years after Slayer’s last performance in 2019, guitarist Kerry King returns to the throne with his first solo outing, From Hell I Rise.

When Slayer played their last show in November 2019, Kerry King already knew he had no intention of slowing down musically. What he didn’t know was that the pandemic would be the conduit to a second act. But, as German theatrical director, dramaturge, and playwright Bertolt Brecht once astutely observed, “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.”

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