Slayer have officially reunited and announced their first shows, which will take place later this year at Riot Fest and Louder Than Life Festival. Slayer played their final show at The Forum in Inglewood, Calif. on Nov. 30, 2019, but they’re officially back, and Tom Araya, Kerry King, Paul Bostaph and Gary Holt make up the lineup. Riot Fest is set to take place in Chicago, Ill. from Sept. 20 through the 22, and it will mark Slayer’s return to the stage after nearly five years.

The thrash legends also one of four headliners set to perform at Louder Than Life, which will take place over four days from Sept. 26 through the 29 at the Highland Festival Grounds at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, Kentucky. Slipknot, Motley Crue and Korn are the other three headliners for the event. So far, these are the only Slayer performances that have been announced, so it’s unclear whether they’re going to tour or release new music again. Their last album, Repentless, came out in 2015. King  recently announced his new solo band and his first album, and also shared that he hadn’t spoken to Araya since their final show in 2019. However, it seems that has changed.

Slayer has had issues with drummers in the past, having gone through 3 during their tenure starting off with original drummer Dave Lombardo leaving the band twice due to issues with finances and later due to wanting to be with family, the second time being in 1992.  He was replaced with Paul Bostaph who himself left in 2001. Slayer asked Dave if he wanted to play a few gigs with them, which led to him joining full time and stayed till he as fired in 2013. Once again he was replaced by Paul. Also they lost founding member guitarist Jeff Hannemann in 2011.

In early 2011, Hanneman contracted necrotizing fasciitis on one of his arms, which was reported to be due to a spider bite while he was in a hot tub of a friend. He had surgery which led to a few weeks recovery but then Hanneman died of liver failure on May 2, 2013, in a Southern California hospital near his home. The official cause of death was announced as alcohol-related cirrhosis. For a while the band did not know if their fanbase would approve a change but eventually Exodus guitarist Gary Holt, who had filled in for Jeff when he was ill, was announced as a full time member. Repentless, the band’s twelfth studio album, and so far final abum, was released on September 11, 2015.

Despite the long farewell world wide tour, and most fans feeling like it was the last we would see of the band, we now get this announcement. Since the end of the tour Tom Araya has stayed out of the spotlight, not attending events or giving interviews. Recently Kerry King had announced his solo album and band, so this comes a s surprise.

1984 – Van Halen : 1984 (stylized in Roman numerals as MCMLXXXIV) is the sixth studio album by American rock band Van Halen, released on January 9, 1984. It was the last Van Halen studio album until A Different Kind of Truth (2012) to feature lead singer David Lee Roth, who left the band in 1985 following creative differences. This is the final full-length album to feature all four original members (the Van Halen brothers Eddie and Alex, Roth, and Michael Anthony), although they reunited briefly in 2000 to start work on what would much later become 2012’s A Different Kind of Truth. 1984 was well received by music critics. Rolling Stone ranked the album number 81 on its list of the “100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s”. It reached number two on the Billboard 200 and remained there for five weeks, kept off the top spot by Michael Jackson’s Thriller, on which guitarist Eddie Van Halen made a guest performance.  1984  produced four singles, including “Jump”, Van Halen’s only number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100; the top-20 hits “Panama” and “I’ll Wait”; and the MTV favorite “Hot for Teacher”.

Defenders of the Faith – Judas Priest : Defenders of the Faith is the ninth studio album by English heavy metal band Judas Priest, released on 13 January 1984 in the US and on 20 January 1984 in the UK. The album was certified platinum by the RIAA, and spawned the singles “Freewheel Burning”, “Some Heads Are Gonna Roll”, and “Love Bites”.

Bon Jovi – Bon Jovi : Bon Jovi is the debut studio album by American rock band Bon Jovi, released on January 21, 1984, by Mercury Records. Produced by Tony Bongiovi and Lance Quinn, it is significant for being the only Bon Jovi album in which a song (“She Don’t Know Me”) appears that was not written or co-written by a member of the band. The album charted at number 43 on the US Billboard 200. Aside from the hit single “Runaway”, songs from the album were rarely performed live after Bon Jovi released Slippery When Wet in 1986.

Slide It In – Whitesnake : Slide It In is the sixth studio album by British hard rock band Whitesnake. Originally released on 30 January 1984 in Europe, by Liberty/EMI, it was remixed for the American market, later issued on 16 April 1984 in North America by Geffen. In Japan, it was issued a “European” Mix release date on 23 March 1984, and an “American” remix on 29 December 1984 by CBS/Sony. Widely regarded as a moderate success, it helped the American market to open up for the band’s sound and breakthrough throughout the later 1980s. Historically, it was the final Whitesnake recording to use the band’s original “snake” logo. The album peaked at number 9, marking their fourth Top 10 appearance in the UK. In the US, it peaked at number 40 at Billboard 200. In 1988, the album re-entered the US charts due to the success of the self-titled Whitesnake album (1987), and would be eventually certified double platinum, among the album with the most weeks spent on the Billboard 200 chart. The album has sold more than six million copies worldwide. The album spawned four singles to promote the album: “Guilty of Love”, “Give Me More Time”, “Standing in the Shadow”, and “Love Ain’t No Stranger”.

Fistfull Of Metal – Anthrax : Fistful of Metal is the debut studio album by American heavy metal  band Anthrax, released in January 1984 by Megaforce Records (US only) and Music for Nations internationally. The album includes a cover of Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen”. This is the band’s only album to feature original frontman Neil Turbin and original bassist Dan Lilker, who were replaced by Matt Fallon (and eventually by third vocalist Joey Belladonna) and Frank Bello, respectively. Former original guitarist Greg Walls claims that Anthrax “ripped him off” as he claims he wrote the material on the album

Flex-able – Steve Vai : Flex-Able is the debut studio album by American virtuoso guitarist Steve Vai. This was his first as a solo artist, and was created in Stucco Blue, a shed converted into a studio in Vai’s old back garden. It is very different from many of his other albums, and is largely influenced by Frank Zappa. Flex-Able does not rely as much on massive guitar arrangements and shred moments as the rest of his output from the 1990s onwards, with the exception of Leftovers which is a compilation of bonus tracks and remasters from his sessions at ‘Stucco Blue’. The cover of the May 2009 issue of Guitar World features a photograph of Vai in a pose similar to the album’s cover, including the bending guitar neck.

Drummer James Kottak, best known for his stints in the hard rock bands Scorpions and Kingdom Come, has died. He was 61. A cause of death was not given. Kottak’s former band Scorpions mourned the musician’s death in a Facebook post Tuesday. The American drummer is best known for his work with the German hard rock band Scorpions, which he joined in 1996. At the time of his firing from the band in 2016, he was their all-time longest-serving drummer, surpassing Herman Rarebell, who had spent 19 years in the band. Kottak was also an original member of Kingdom Come, of whom he was their drummer from 1987 to 1989 and again from 2018 to his death in 2024, and he had his own band Kottak, formerly known as KrunK. Other bands Kottak played for were Montrose, Warrant, Dio, The Cult, the McAuley Schenker Group, Buster Brown, and Wild Horses.

Prior to joining Scorpions, Kottak was a drummer for the Bob Brickley Band, Nut House, Mister Charlie,  Buster Brown, Montrose, Kingdom Come, The Cult, Wild Horses, the McAuley Schenker Group, Warrant, and Ashba. He gained early mainstream exposure during his time with Kingdom Come, appearing on the band’s first two studio albums, the first of which included their biggest hit, “Get It On”. This track prominently features Kottak’s drumming, culminating in a drum solo just before the song’s conclusion. Around 1990, Kottak joined The Cult, but left after the first batch of demos for their then-upcoming fifth studio album Ceremony, in which the album’s drum tracks were done by Mickey Curry.

In February 1997, he helped Dio on their U.S. tour by replacing Vinny Appice for four or five shows when the latter had pneumonia. He also gave drum lessons at Far-Out Music in Jeffersonville, Indiana, once having as a students onetime Bride drummer, Jerry McBroom. He also played with guitarist Michael Lee Firkins. Prior to joining German rockers Scorpions, Kottak joined Warrant an played drums on their 1995 albu Ultraphobic. With the Scorpions he played on 6 studio albums, 3 live albums including the very popular Acoustica and 1 compilation album. In April 2016 former Motorhead drummer Mikkey Dee replaced Kottak on 12 North American headlining dates, including a run of shows at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas dubbed “Scorpions blacked out in Las Vegas” before the band announcing Kottak’s leaving the band in September.

It is believed that the reason for his firing was due to his alcoholism and some of his controversial statements in April 29, 2014, the National Post reported via the Associated Press that also led Kottak had been arrested in Dubai and sentenced to one month in jail for offensive behavior, insulting Islam, and public drunkenness. After he left Scorpions, he spoke out negatively about immigrants to the US, Black Americans in commercials and against Interracial couples. Kottak was married to Athena Bass, Tommy Lee’s younger sister, who is also a drummer and was a fellow member of Kottak. The couple had three children between them, including their son, Matthew, and Athena’s two children from two prior relationships. Miles is currently the drummer for indie rock band Bad Suns.

AC/DC: Mistress for Christmas

One of the funniest rock Christmas songs ever written? When AC/DC guitarists Malcolm Young and his younger brother Angus saw the tabloid headlines about businessman Donald Trump cheating on his wife Ivana with a beauty queen called Marla Maples (the daughter of an Elvis impersonator) they penned the song “Mistress For Christmas,” which appeared on their 1990 album The Razor’s Edge. Angus Young described the risqué lyrics (“I wanna ride on your reindeer honey/And ring the bells”) as a bit of “the ol’ fool-around” and told Guitar World that “I think the funniest song on Razor’s Edge is “Mistress For Christmas.” That song’s about Donald Trump. He was big news at the time, so we thought we’d have a bit of fun and humor with it.”

Band Aid: Do They Know It’s Christmas?

Solos by such stars as George Michael, Bono, Paul Young, and Boy George are the instantly recognizable highlights of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?,” one of the most momentous charity songs in the history of music. The track, recorded in London on November 25, 1984, and featuring an entire studio full of British pop stars, entered the UK chart at No.1 a few weeks later and stayed there for five weeks, well into January 1985. This Bob Geldof and Midge Ure composition, which sold 3.75 million copies in the UK alone, was written to raise money for famine victims in Ethiopia. The song, which features the iconic lines “feed the world/let them know it’s Christmas time,” has been re-released several times and still makes the streaming charts every Christmas.

Def Leppard: We All Need Christmas

Beautifully crafted acoustic rock ballad kissed with strings, and fueled by hope and optimism – and a final coda which goes up to 11. A seasonal classic-in-waiting wherein Joe Elliott and the boys raise a glass to “all that’s past – and to the future, long may it last!” ’Nuff said.

Bryan Adams: Merry Christmas

Canadian rock icon Bryan Adams recorded an enduring festive song, “Christmas Time,” in 1985. He delivered a second in 2011, in the shape of this yearningly soulful, sleigh-bell-enhanced rock ballad.

Eric Clapton: White Christmas

The iconic guitarist’s new Happy Xmas album got off to a blistering start when it topped Billboard’s seasonal Holiday Albums Chart on release in October 2018. More than capable of warming the cockles is the record’s lead cut: an imperious, Chicago blues-style version of Bing Crosby’s enduring “White Christmas.”