Kerry King says that “it will be great to play for the fans again” as part of SLAYER‘s upcoming festival shows.

Five years after SLAYER played the last concert of what was being billed as the band’s farewell tour and just weeks after the SLAYER guitarist unveiled the details of his solo project, Kerry and his longtime bandmates announced that they will play at the Aftershock, Riot Fest and Louder Than Life festivals in September and October.

King addressed the SLAYER reunion while speaking to Revolver magazine about his upcoming debut solo album, “From Hell I Rise”, which will be released on May 17 via Reigning Phoenix Music. Asked if he had known about these shows well before they were officially announced, King said: “If you ask promoters, they’re going to have another answer. If you ask booking agents, they’ll probably have a third answer. But to me, it kind of came out of nowhere. Have we been getting offers the past few years? Yeah, we turn down offers every year, probably every month of every year. These three festivals are right around the five-year anniversary of our last tour, which I thought was kind of cool. So, I thought this might be the right time to test the water. It will be great to play for the fans again.”

Regarding whether the upcoming SLAYER shows will steal some of the thunder away from the touring his solo band will do in support of “From Hell I Rise”, Kerry said: “Well, time will tell, and my answer would be, ‘hopefully not’. The funny thing is, it never occurred to me until the day the SLAYER announcement came, but (Phil) Demmel (guitarist in Kerry‘s solo band) said, ‘Dude, is this real?’ And I’m, like, ‘It’s just a few weekends and that’s it.’ Of course, Paul (Bostaph, SLAYER and KERRY KING drummer) knew. But I didn’t tell Phil, I didn’t tell Kyle (Sanders, KERRY KING bassist) and didn’t tell Mark (Osegueda, KERRY KING singer) — and I said to the guys, ‘There’s no master plan here.’ I didn’t want anybody to start getting cold feet. I said, ‘This is a little moment in time, and yeah, KERRY KING is going to be touring, you know, hopefully later in the year, as well. But SLAYER is an entity and I’m just a person.’ But hopefully, we drive on with the solo project.”