Slayer’s Kerry King Shares Regret Over Collaboration With Beastie Boys

In a recent interview with Border City Rock Talk , Slayer guitarist Kerry King shared how his collaborations came to be with the Beastie Boys and Sum 41. King played on the Beastie Boys’ legendary 1987 track, “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” and on Sum 41’s pop-punk hit “What We’re All About.”

“The simplicity of it is what’s funny about it,” King said of the Beastie Boys track. “We were doing what became the ‘Reign In Blood’ album and they were doing ‘Licensed To Ill’ in the same studio, like down the hall from each other. And Rick Rubin was doing both projects. So they needed a lead on that particular song, ‘No Sleep Till Brooklyn’. So I thought about it, and I went, ‘Yeah, why not? I can use a couple hundred bucks.’ I certainly wasn’t well to do back then.”

King also shared he wished he had asked for a part of the publishing to what became such an iconic song for the rap trio. “So, that’s what I did. I went in there and I did it. And in hindsight, I wish I didn’t get paid. I wish I took a quarter point or something, ’cause now I would be a rich man,” he said with a laugh.

Regarding Sum 41’s “What We’re All About,” King said: “It’s funny. I just ran into Sum 41 in Europe a couple of times. They were on the same festivals with us, and I hadn’t seen them in a long, long time. So they made a way to come out and say ‘hey’, which I was happy about, ’cause I hadn’t seen them forever.”

“How that one happened — I remember I turned it down for months and months and months. I’m, like, ‘My fans won’t get it. My fans won’t get it. My fans won’t get it.’ Then the guy from the record label — here’s another funny story, kind of full circle of what we were talking about — he comes up to me and he says, ‘Well, you did the Beastie Boys.’ And I went, ‘Motherf*cker!’ So I’m, like, ‘You’re right.’ So I did it.”