Back in the early 80’s there was a time when two bands named Slayer coexisted. One band was based
out of Los Angeles and it’s the Slayer that most people are familiar with while the other Slayer
was based out of San Antonio, Texas. Both bands though shared striking similarities. They both
played trash metal, featured two lead guitarists, and they both formed in 1981 and released albums
literally around the same time.. Not only that, but both bands played together on the same bill.
One band would go on to dominate the metal world, while the other would fall apart.
The san antonio based slayer or SA slayer as their known as
consisted of Chris Cronk on vocals, Robert Catlin and Art Villareal on dual lead guitars,
Don Van Stavern on bass and Dave McClain on drums. The band’s influences included iron maiden and
judas priest. And In fact the SA slayer opened for metallica during their tour of texas in 1983.
Robert Catlin would tell the San Antonio current about the band revealing:
"We were real show-offs. The double-lead thing was what really grabbed us by the nut and was probably
our second claim to fame after the super high vocals ... That was always part of the formula:
double leads, high vocals, double bass drum kit." Prior to releasing their first EP, Cronk was
replaced by Steve Cooper and Villareal was replaced by Ron Jarzombek. It wasn’t long
before S.A. slayer became one of the most popular bands in the Texas Metal scene. They would sign
a record deal with indie label rainforest records who was supposed to put out their first release an
EP titled, Prepare to Die. It was around this time though, the band ran into trouble with their label
who simply sat on the EP for six months. It’s not clear why nothing happened with the EP, but
one source claims it was the fact that the label knew about the other slayer in los angeles, who
was on a bigger label and worried about a possible lawsuit.. Catlin would tell the same publication
"The whole Slayer controversy has to do with ... I'd say diplomatically ... mismanagement
on Rainforest Records. The EP was finished and it sat waiting to get pressed for six months.
In that ensuing six months, the famous Slayer put out their first record. But ours would have
come out first and it would have changed everything, but it didn't, so theirs did.
L.A. Slayer or the Slayer we're familiar with , released their first LP Show No Mercy in December
of 1983, months after S.A. Slayer EP was finished. S.A. Slayer would find a new label to dsistribute
the album but it was too late. It was around the time that Prepare to Die came out that the
san antonio slayer got a cease and desist letter from the LA slayer’s label metal blade records.
With the threat of legal action looming over their head, they changed their name to S.A.
Slayer short for San Antonio Slayer ,but it didn’t matter because the band would soon
enough breakup after it’s members pursued other musical projects. But who was in the right?
In the 2009 book The Bloody Reign of Slayer Doug Goodman who was Slayer’s original tour manager
feared that the San Antonio slayer could have been catastrophic to the metal band’s career
telling the author “Nobody ever gives the san antonio slayer credit for the fact that they
owned the name. They could have made a big stink about it. They owned the copyright on the name and
LA Slayer didn’t have any money they would had to choose a different money. But what the san
antonio slayer did was they looked around and realized that nobody gave a shit about them
and everybody thought that LA slayer was great. But that wasn’t the end of SA slayer.
They would share the stage with the LA Slayer at a gig in san antonoio a few months after the band
broke up. There is in fact a bootleg floating around on youtube for you guys to check out.
Billed as slayer vs slayer. The gig was organized by a booking company founded by two
high school students who were trying to attract national metal acts to san antonio music scene
while having local bands open for them. When the gig happened Catlin, was an
employee of of a local record store where the LA Slayer had actually stopped by. He would in fact
party with the LA slayer band for the day. He would tell the San Antonio Current:
"Later [that] afternoon, Kerry King looks at his watch and proclaims to his bandmates,
'Well, I guess it's time to go downtown and meet this other f Slayer band,' looks me right in the
eye and goes, 'What do you know about 'em?'" "I said, 'Well, I'm the original guitar
player.' Jeff Hanneman looks at me and goes, 'But you're cool.' I said, 'Man,
we're all cool. Y'all won, we lost, it's over.'" "So these guys kind of freak out because they were
expecting all this aggro bS But, the fact that I had spent the whole day with them kind of diffused
all of that ... and here it is almost 31 years later and people still talk about that gig."
So is Catlin bitter all these years. Well he would tell the current that he is not bitter
as he is proud to have street cred revealing "As we were walking off the stage somebody
jumped on my back, licked my ear and yelled 'You guys kicked ass! You guys kicked ass!' ... I
threw off said person, all UFC-style... it was Jeff Hanneman from Slayer. I don't know
too many people that can brag about giving a suplex to the cool guy from Slayer he'd say."
The members of SA Slayer would go on to pursue other musical projects while in 2018 Slayer
frontman Tom Araya would commemorate the infamous gig by wearing a shirt on stage
during a concert in San Antonio. that does it for today's video guys thanks for watching. Be sure
to hit the like button and subscribe and we'll see you again on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.