Art & Creativity Quote by Tom Araya

Repetition is doing the heavy lifting here: "I write, I write, I always write" sounds less like a brag than a compulsion you can’t switch off. Coming from Tom Araya, the voice at the center of Slayer’s blunt-force mythology, it reframes creativity as endurance work. Not inspiration, not genius, not even catharsis. Just the grind: a muscle kept alive by constant use.

The line’s intent is defensive in a way musicians rarely admit. Extreme metal has long been treated like a machine that runs on aggression alone, as if the songs arrive pre-made by attitude. Araya’s insistence on writing pushes back against that caricature. It asserts authorship, craft, and labor: someone is at the desk making choices, shaping chaos into structure. The subtext is also practical, almost anxious. If he stops, the engine cools; the identity risks slipping. "Always" reads like a vow to himself as much as a message to listeners.

Context matters because Araya’s work lives in a genre that fetishizes authenticity and productivity while punishing softness. Saying "I always write" is a way to claim legitimacy without sentimentality. It’s a work ethic statement that still fits the persona: disciplined, relentless, unsparing. Underneath the brutality is the ordinary, almost tender truth of any long career: you don’t stay relevant by waiting to feel like it. You stay relevant by showing up and making the next thing.