For a man who has sung some of the most brutal and vicious songs in recent rock history, Slayer’s Tom Ayara is a suprisingly mellow sort of guy. Ensconced in the tour bus that has been his home from home for the last month, his air is one of decided congeniality. That this might have had something to do with a few days off and a visit to Amsterdam is possible; this is not the descent into Hades that one might have expected.

Outside of the bus, however, the vibe is a little more charged and a touch darker. Slayer are here as part of the ‘Tattoo The Planet’ European tour, alongside Cradle Of Filth and Biohazard. It’s a trip that has not had the smoothest of rides. Originally due to kick off in Dublin in mid-September, it was rescheduled with a slightly different bill (no Pantera or Static X this time) before seeing Sepultura pull out. Not that this seems to have dampened the enthusiasm of the gathered tribes here this evening, for whom this is most definitely the gig of the year.

Ayara, although clearly enjoying the experience, is a man whose thoughts frequently return to home. In a couple of weeks, he will be back with his family. In the meantime he has to entertain yet another journalist, one who wants to delve into the themes behind the band’s latest album, the snappily titled God Hates Us All.

“Some of the songs are on the theme of religion, there’s a few that aren’t,” he reflects. “‘Seven Faces’ is based on the capacity that everyone has for the seven deadly sins. When you look in the mirror, sometimes you can see one of them. ‘Disciple’, ‘New Faith’ are very much on the religious theme. When we were finishing up the album we didn’t have a title that we could all agree on, so Kerry suggested ‘God Hates Us All’, because it’s the chorus part to ‘Disciple’. We all thought it was a cool title. That was it, there was no theme or hidden meaning. It’s a coincidence that some of the songs were in that theme, there was no big plan.”

While it may have all come together more through luck than judgement, the Slayer machine has manifestly been running with the religion idea. The CD comes with two different covers, one a fairly innocuous outer image featuring four crucifixes on a white background. But a look inside and the imagery is a little more shocking – a Bible covered in blood, nails driven into it and the distinctive Slayer logo burnt into the cover. If they’re not looking for controversy they may well find it anyway.

“We had a great idea for an album package so we gave it to Sony, “ says Tom. “They went, ‘oh, that’s great’ and when they did the ideas they went ‘oh, we can’t do this’. Then Rubin moved over to Universal and they did the same thing, we told them our ideas. They sent us pictures of four bibles and we picked the same one.”

Do we detect an artist frustrated by the constraints of the music industry, we wonder?

“No. It’s OK. They say you can’t do something but you find a way around that. It’s being practical. They’re the ones who came up with the idea of the defaced bible and then they also chose to put the covers on. This was something that they came up with and we thought it was a cool and now they wanted to cover it. Their point was that in America new releases go at the front of the store and they felt that if the Bible was on the cover it would just be put it in its own little slot and leave it there. We were like ‘sure, whatever’. They’re the company, they have to work out how to make money on the record and how to sell the record. For them it’s a business, we did our part.”

One recent review of God Hates Us All described it as an ‘ugly’ record. Would Tom see that as a compliment?

“I guess. It’s more angry and hateful than ugly. They’re very one on one type songs. I think that people can really relate to the songs because they’re pretty much everyday language. For me, reading and singing these songs… I’ve felt like this. Anger and hate are easy emotions, words can instil them very quickly.”

How then does it feel to see thousands of people, night after night, singing those words of anger and hate back at him?

“What’s tripped me out about this whole run is when we do ‘Disciple’ and get to the ‘God hates us all’ line the entire crowd sings it. It trips the shit out of me. I think it strikes a nerve with a lot of people. The minute we landed on these (European) shores, everybody wants to know what we mean by the album title. What are we trying to say? It was a last minute decision for an album title, only to find out that there would be a two month gap while we changed record labels.”

Yes, but you’re tackling the last great taboo here, aren’t you? Everything else has pretty much been done, but God, well, that’s still quite a shocking subject – especially on these shores.

“I know exactly what you mean. Ireland is a religious culture, just like where I grew up in Chile. Certain countries have that culture to them that’s instilled in everyone. As years go on it’s not as strict but it’s an underlying thing. It’s always there. When Kerry suggested that as a title it struck a nerve with me. I’ve felt like that at times, like someone’s let me down real bad sometimes.”

While everyone is probably sick of pop and rock stars offering their opinions on the worsening political and military situation, you can’t ignore the fact that the album’s lyrics have taken on a deeper resonance over the past few weeks. ‘Strive through peace through acts of war’, ‘self-destruct human time bomb – and that’s just the first song.

“The album came out in America on September 11th,” says Tom. “We did a listening party the night before, at midnight we did a record signing for four hours. It took me an hour to get home. I went to sleep and I got a call from my sister saying turn the TV on, the tower is burning. It wouldn’t register for a while. Then it dawned on me that we were supposed to fly out that day and that we weren’t going nowhere.”

Can Tom see a perhaps more ambivalent, if not openly hostile, attitude developing towards religion because of all this? He pauses, then leans forward in his seat.

“Do you know what I think?” Another pause. “ I think that out of what happened, people will end up finding – I don’t want to say a new religion – but they’ll be finding something. There are a lot of people who had no idea where to turn to or what to do with themselves. I think a lot of them are searching and they’ll find things that will help them. It’s obvious what’s been going on in New York as far as community goes, they’ve been real tight, so maybe they’ll find something there. Maybe out of that will come something that everyone can relate to.”

“What’s going on might make people more aware or even curious about this Muslim religion that everyone keeps talking about, why they’re so fanatical, why some others are saying that it’s just about love. Maybe it will spark an interest, maybe people will start reading about that and just by discovering it realise that ‘hey, I can believe in that’. People can connect with things where they have similarities. Religion is all based on one concept, on the one same idea. The core of all these different religions is the same.”

All right – enough of the heavy stuff, onto the heavy music and one final question. Is this album a case of Slayer marking their territory in light of the Slipknots and Mudvaynes of this world?

“We ain’t marking nothing”, he says defiantly. “We’ve been around for fucking twenty years. We have an album out that has been accepted very well, which has surprised me. There are other bands out there, other ‘new’ metal bands that just don’t fucking come close, in my opinion. Sounds a little big headed but I don’t think it is.”