8.

Black Sabbath – We Sold Our Soul For Rock & Roll

I’ve picked this over their other releases because this was the one I came into contact with when I was a pubescent teen, that was the album that I held in my hand, that’s the one I remember when I was stoned out of my mind in my friends bedroom and he was playing it for me and I was like, ‘Damn! This shit’s heavy!’ I knew of Black Sabbath but there were some songs at the time that I had still not heard and when I heard the likes of ‘The Wizard’ or ‘N.I.B.’ I was just blown away by how heavy it was; by how dark it was – so can you imagine what taking the love of that energy that I was talking about earlier, where it’s like energetic and fast, and adding the tone of Black Sabbath would do – if you added them to some kind of band… Maybe you’ve got Slayer! Kind of. I don’t actually think Sabbath had much of a direct influence on Slayer though. When it came to that dark imagery I feel possibly that Venom and Merciful Fate had a little more to do with it than Sabbath.