Background and career
Kerry Ray King (born June 3, 1964) is an American musician, best known for being the co-lead guitarist and songwriter of thrash metal band Slayer. He co-founded the band with Jeff Hanneman in 1981 and is one of two members to stay with the band for its 45-year existence (with the exception of their 2019–2024 breakup), along with the frontman and bassist Tom Araya. King is also currently a solo artist, with his debut album From Hell I Rise released in May 2024.
The youngest of three children, King was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. His father was an aircraft parts inspector, and his mother worked for a telephone company. He started learning guitar at the age of thirteen at his father's urging, saying "...my dad was trying to get me out of the wrong circles and give me a hobby." King attended three different high schools and had very good grades, even winning an award as his school's top math student in junior high. As the youngest child in the family, King says he was "spoilt" growing up. He learned guitar on his father's Gibson ES-175 and later had a Fender Stratocaster which he traded for a BC Rich Mockingbird, beginning a long relationship with BC Rich guitars. The first song he ever learned was Ted Nugent's "Cat Scratch Fever" and he soon became a fan of Van Halen and Judas Priest, which had a major influence on his guitar playing.
King formed his first band with another guitarist who had been teaching him lessons, and this guitarist introduced him to Tom Araya. He discovered that he and Araya lived only a block away from each other, and they agreed to start jamming together. "Everything began from that point", King has said of Slayer's origins. In 1981, King was at an audition for a southern rock band which Jeff Hanneman was also auditioning for. King heard Hanneman playing guitar near the reception desk and approached him, soon learning that they liked a lot of the same music, and they decided to jam together. The pair enjoyed playing together and decided to start their own band with Araya and a neighborhood drummer named Dave Lombardo, which would soon evolve into Slayer. King, along with Araya, remained in Slayer for the entire length of the band's career, from 1981 to 2019 and since 2024.
In 1984, King was invited by former Metallica guitarist Dave Mustaine to join his new band Megadeth. Slayer's future was briefly in doubt as King played several shows with Megadeth, though he ultimately did not join full-time due to his commitment to Slayer. He still lived with his parents and has said that the desire to not spend time at home with his family caused him to spend more time rehearsing with the band, which helped his musicianship improve tremendously. King says at that time their music was viewed simply as heavy metal and the term "thrash" emerged later. He was becoming heavily influenced by the band Venom, which helped shape Slayer's dark image. King says that after releasing Haunting The Chapel and Hell Awaits and seeing the band's audience grow steadily, he knew Slayer would be his career. The controversy surrounding Slayer's 1986 song "Angel Of Death" fueled King to dedicate himself to songwriting. "I think, on the whole, that mankind is full of fucking idiots. In a nutshell, our lyrics just say 'think'. That's it", he said of the unwanted "Angel of Death" attention. Slayer fared better than most bands after heavy metal's decline in the 1990s, which King describes as "the fuckin' Limp Bizkit era". King almost stopped writing music entirely due to how offensive he believed the music scene had become at that time. "I couldn't understand why anybody would make music like that, let alone like it. That was definitely my darkest time as a musician, and that definitely showed up on Diabolus in Musica... through my lack of involvement", he has said.
In March 2020, when interviewed by Guitar World about his endorsement with Dean Guitars, King hinted that he would be working on new material for his first project since Slayer's disbandment, simply saying, "Dean didn't sign me for nothing!" King stated in an August 2020 interview on the Dean Guitars YouTube channel that he had "more than two records' worth of music". It was later confirmed that he and then-former Slayer bandmate Paul Bostaph were working on a new project that would "sound like Slayer without it being Slayer — but not intentionally so." In November 2023, King hinted that he was going to release the debut album by his new project in 2024; this project was later revealed to be his solo debut album, From Hell I Rise, released on May 17, 2024. The lineup on the album includes King, Bostaph, Death Angel vocalist Mark Osegueda, Hellyeah bassist Kyle Sanders, and Vio-lence and former Machine Head guitarist Phil Demmel. On May 7, 2024, he played his first solo show, which took place at Reggie's Rock Club in Chicago, Illinois. He then launched a European tour later that year. In early 2025, he embarked on his first North American headlining tour with Municipal Waste and Alien Weaponry serving as support. As early as February 2025, King revealed his intention to work on a second solo album, confirming that he and Bostaph "have got 10, 12 songs demoed already" and that the "realistic goal" is to release it in early 2026. In an April 2025 interview with Rolling Stone Brasil, Kerry said, "What the plan is, is whenever [the] cycle [for From Hell I Rise] is done, and right now that looks to me like October, Paul and I have always talked about going straight from playing live, taking maybe a week off and go right in the studio to keep your tour chops, so you're firing on all cylinders — you don't gotta practice to get good; you're already good — and get in there and record it. During the Summer of that year his band toured throughout Europe. He also played the guitar in the newest version of WWE wrestler Damien Priest's theme song and has performed the song live at Wrestlemania. He will appear in the 2026 video game Grand Theft Auto VI as the radio co-host of The Chamber 106.6 with Araya.
In addition to appearing on Slayer's albums, he has also made several guest appearances for other artists. While lending production to 1986's Reign in Blood, Rick Rubin was also helping with the production of the Beastie Boys' debut album Licensed to Ill. Rubin felt the track "No Sleep till Brooklyn" needed a guitar solo, so he called in King to lay down the part. King has since commented that his playing ability "certainly wasn't that of a virtuoso". The video for "No Sleep till Brooklyn", whose title was a spoof on Motörhead's 1981 live album No Sleep 'til Hammersmith, was originally intended to feature King being knocked offstage by a gorilla, but King refused. King replied, "If there's gonna be anyone knocking anyone offstage, it'll be me knocking the gorilla", which was what subsequently happened. On Licensed to Ill, King also played the guitar solo on the song "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)". King contributed the main lead guitar solo and outro part to Pantera's song "Goddamn Electric", which appeared on the 2000 album, Reinventing the Steel. King's rig was set up in Pantera's bathroom backstage just after Ozzfest 1999 in Dallas, as the group still did not have their own dressing room, on top of not appearing on the festival bill. King has also made several guest appearances on Marilyn Manson's Rape of the World Tour, joining the band to play tracks such as "Little Horn", "1996" and "Irresponsible Hate Anthem". Many fans noticed elements of King's own style used on these occasions. He also appeared on an episode of Daniel Tosh's television series Tosh.0, alongside Corey Taylor of Slipknot. Both playing themselves as audience members. On October 21, 2010, the final date of the Jägermeister Music Tour, King joined Megadeth on stage at the Gibson Amphitheater in Hollywood to perform "Rattlehead" which was the first time in 26 years that King had shared the stage with Megadeth (King had been a touring substitute for a few months in 1984). King contributed a guitar solo on the title track for the 2010 album Witchkrieg by the Swedish blackened thrash band Witchery. He also appears in the music video playing his solo. He made an appearance in the 2009 movie Brooklyn's Finest as a member of SWAT team led by Ethan Hawke's character. In 2022, he appeared in the comedy horror film Studio 666 as Krug. In January 2025, King played on the theme song to professional wrestler Damian Priest. On April 20, 2025, King performed Priest's theme song live at WrestleMania 41.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
