SLAYER CARRIES ON AFTER DEATH OF GUITARIST
Jeff Hanneman’s death was a blow to the thrash metal band, but it rose to face the loss with ‘Repentless.’
Jeff Hanneman was a master of chaos. It was heard in the thrash metal tunes he crafted with Slayer.
As half of the band’s speedy dual-guitar attack, he composed or co-wrote some of Slayer’s darkest, most brooding songs: “Angel of Death,” “Raining Blood,” “Jihad.”
So when Hanneman died at 49 two years ago from liver failure, the band wondered how it would go on.
“There’s more to a band than just the creative aspect, getting together and making music together,” says singer-bassist Tom Araya, who joined Slayer more than three decades ago. “There’s also your relationship in the band and how we are as partners.”
Yet Slayer managed to make “Repentless,” its first album since Hanneman’s passing, and released it this month. In some ways it’s Hanneman’s ongoing presence, more than his absence, that is felt on the album’s dozen songs. In fact, the record’s title song is a tribute to the late guitarist, describing a life lived without regret:
“My songs relive the atrocities of war / Can’t take society any ... more. Intensity, anarchy, hatred amplified / Playing this ... is all that keeps me alive. I leave it all on the road living on the stage / This is my life where I kill it everyday.”
Now “Repentless” is Slayer’s highest-charting debut, landing at No. 4 on the Billboard Top 200, selling more than 50,000 albums since its Sept. 11 release.
Like Metallica and Anthrax, Slayer was among the originators of an uncompromising assault of noise called “thrash,” mixing the pace of early punk with the new wave bite of British heavy metal. Guitarist Kerry King formed the band in Huntington Park with Hanneman, Araya and original drummer Dave Lombardo in 1981.
There was competition among thrash bands then and between Slayer’s two guitarist-songwriters.
“We would keep each other honest,” King says. “If Jeff wrote a riff that I thought wasn’t going to fly, I could tell him. And he would do the same to me. We’d just make up stuff we thought was cool. I’ve called it the search for the ultimate riff. I’m still in quest for the ultimate riff.”
That search never led the quartet astray from a purity of sound that shared the directness and consistency of Motorhead and the Ramones. The band perfected its approach with producer Rick Rubin, who first suggested eliminating reverb, giving its already brutal metal tunes a cleaver’s edge of immediacy. Lyrics consisted of serial killers, Nazi horrors and the coming war of civilizations. They also attacked religion without mercy, illustrating the “Repentless” cover with a Christ figure decaying amid demons and hellfire.
Changes in the band’s sound have generally amounted to a refinement in songwriting and recording technique, never the Slayer formula of unhinged guitars, Araya’s outraged madman screams and drumbeats throttling at a nightmare gallop.
During the band’s summer tour headlining the 2015 Mayhem Festival, that meant its nightly set list could stretch from 1985’s angsty “Hell Awaits” to three songs from the new album, as flames erupted around it onstage.
“We came together and formed the band, and we all knew what we expected from the band. We all knew what Slayer was about,” says Araya, his beard gray, but his hair still long and dark. He’s somehow more formidable onstage at 54.
Early work on the new album began in 2011, soon after Hanneman was sidelined by flesh-eating necrotizing fasciitis on his right arm and just as Slayer was about to leave for an Australian tour. Recruited to fill in on guitar was friend Gary Holt of Exodus. King decided to begin writing new material because he didn’t know what Hanneman would be able to bring to the next recording project.
“I had to look out for Slayer’s best interest,” explains King, 51, his head shaved and tattooed on the back with a snarling demonic face. “Luckily I did that, because when Jeff passed a couple of years later, had I started writing then, it would have been a gigantic burden. I basically had the luxury of four years to make up this record.”
The years since Slayer’s last album, 2009’s “World Painted Blood,” were difficult even before Hanneman’s illness. Araya had major surgery on his back and neck, abused through decades of intense headbanging. Then Lombardo abruptly left over a financial dispute with the band and its management. Paul Bostaph, who had quit the band twice before, was invited back two years ago.
The drummer knew what he was getting into. “To play with this band is a certain fitness level and energy level and conditioning level,” says Bostaph, 52.
In the immediate aftermath of Hanneman’s death, Araya made initial comments that suggested Slayer’s future was uncertain. Hanneman had been his closest relationship in the group, a big blond in a hockey jersey, playing custom guitars with his name configured to look like the Heineken beer label. “Me and Kerry got along as partners,” says Araya. “But we disagreed more than me and Jeff. We had to get beyond that hurdle.”
For a time, Hanneman’s condition improved, and he’d show up at band rehearsals. But it was never enough for a return to the road. Holt was his ongoing fill-in and has remained in Slayer ever since.
“It’s all thrash metal,” says Holt, comparing his work with Slayer and Exodus. “With Slayer I may be going for more chaos — a little less melody, a little more maniacal. But I just do what I’ve done since I was a kid: Angus Young on methamphetamines and steroids.”
After fashion model Kendall Jenner (half-sister to Kim Kardashian) was photographed in a Slayer T-shirt and stylishly torn jeans, Holt responded by wearing a “Kill the Kardashians” shirt for the entire Mayhem Fest tour. He fits right in with Slayer.
Hanneman’s final live Slayer performance was the Big 4 Festival in Indio in 2011, a thrash concert organized by Metallica. Holt performed most of Slayer’s set, then handed it over to Hanneman for two final songs: “Angel of Death” and “South of Heaven.” They were tunes from the mid-’80s, when thrash was new and at its most dangerous and alarming.
Hanneman performed with his right arm fully exposed, scarred and ravaged, and raised it high to the 50,000 fans in attendance. It was a dramatic and celebratory moment, and it looked to all like a sign that the guitarist was coming back to his place within Slayer.
“He gave me this huge bear hug, I told him I loved him, he told me he loved me, and he went out and I got to crack a beer and watch,” Holt remembers of that night. “I got to sit there side-stage and see Jeff ’s last two songs. Those kind of things aren’t easily forgotten.”