Slayer Guitarists Hated Recording Covers of “Born To Be Wild” and “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”

Throughout their brilliant career, the legendary Thrash Metal band Slayer has recorded covers of other artists’ songs. Among the covers recorded by Kerry King and his gang, two stand out: “Born To Be Wild” and “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”, songs by Steppenwolf and Iron Butterfly.

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Kerry King and the late Jeff Hanneman, guitarists who founded Slayer, hated the two covers mentioned above, as shown in an article published on the Metal Hammer magazine website in May 2024.

“O [produtor Rick] Rubin chose this song, and a week before I went into the studio, I was very unhappy. And today, she is the bane of my existence. I hate that damn song, but it ended up on the radio and that opened the door for the release of ‘South Of Heaven'”, recalled King, during an interview with Revolver Magazine.

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Jeff Hanneman, in turn, hated the idea of recording “Born To Be Wild”, a soundtrack present in bars and motorcycle gatherings throughout Brazil. The late guitarist, who wrote many of Slayer’s hits, explained in more detail his hatred of Metal Hammer.

“Kerry hates it so much [‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’], but I hate that cover of ‘Born To Be Wild’ we did even more. This version came out on a compilation for a TV show we were doing. I’d rather listen to ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’ than this song. I can’t believe we did that,” Hanneman said.

In fact, Slayer’s version of “Born To Be Wild” is one of the tracks on the CD “NASCAR On Fox: Crank It Up”, which was released in 2002 and brought together names like Machine Head, Type O Negative, Rob Zombie and Slipknot . And apparently, it wasn’t just Jeff Hanneman who hated the end result.

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“We were asked to be on a compilation and we couldn’t think of a song. Time was running out, so we just made it. After it aired on TV, I got calls from my friends saying, ‘What the fuck is this?’ . I said, ‘Shut up. It was just a last minute thing. I didn’t have time to think straight, right?'” added Hanneman, who passed away in May 2013.

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