Jeff Hanneman passed away in 2013.
Dave Lombardo , former drummer of Slayer , wrote to Metal Hammer about his former bandmate, Jeff Hanneman . You can read parts of the text below.
“The first time I met Jeff was in 1981, shortly after Kerry King and I formed the band. I think Kerry met him somewhere, they talked, and he took Jeff home. He just seemed like a quiet, surfer kid: long blond hair, living in Long Beach, could have been on a surfboard. I thought, 'This kid is cool.'”
“Jeff was a huge influence on Slayer’s sound. We were into typical metal at the time – Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Rainbow, Deep Purple, you know? Then one day Jeff showed up for rehearsal with his head shaved. We were all like, ‘Oh, Jeff, what do you do?!’ He said, ‘I’m punk.’ And he brought all this music with him: some vinyl, some cassettes – Black Flag, TSOL, Minor Threat, Dead Kennedys, Circle Jerks . I was like, ‘Wow, what rock have I been listening to? This is fantastic!’ Our songs became faster, more aggressive after that. He was the one who brought that element to Slayer.”
“When you first meet someone, especially at that age, everyone else is quiet. But as you got to know Jeff, he opened up. He definitely had that punk, ‘Fuck the world’ thing, especially after a few beers.”
“What a lot of people don’t know is that Jeff was the least musically educated. He was a novice when he joined Slayer. I had already played in two or three bands before, so he didn’t know much, but he developed and learned on his own.”
“I never saw any negative competition between Jeff and Kerry. They both wanted what was best for the band. I’m sure Jeff was inspired by Kerry and Kerry by Jeff, especially in their ability to improvise. But they were both very much inspired by KK Downing and Glenn Tipton of Judas Priest .”
“Like everyone else, you grow up and go your own way. When I joined Slayer in the early 2000s, we were all a bit more mature, but Jeff was still that happy, playful person he’d always been. I was able to reconnect with him. We spent a lot of time on the tour bus and talked a lot, not in depth, just about random things.”
“Towards the end of his time in Slayer, he reached a point where his performance wasn't up to par with the rest of the band. The alcohol was taking its toll, as were the surgeries he'd undergone. It was sad, but we had to make the decision and break the news to him.”
“Before everything that happened, we didn’t know how long Tom Araya wanted to continue, because he was already thinking about retiring at that time. So Kerry and I were talking about putting together a band and we thought, ‘We need to recruit Gary Holt ,’ because we already knew him from Exodus . As it turned out, Gary joined Slayer in Jeff’s place, and that was approved by him. He was a big fan of Gary.”
“If Jeff were still here and in Slayer, he wouldn’t want to retire. He would fight to keep the band going. […] His love and passion was being on stage.”
“If there’s one Slauer song that truly defines Jedd, it’s ‘Necrophobic’ from Reign In Blood. That was one of the fastest songs we ever did: an aggressive, brutal, and almost monotonous sound. I remember him saying, ‘This is fast, brutal, let’s push it to the limit, to the point where we can’t play any faster.’ And that’s what we did.”
“I think about Jeff a lot. Not just when people ask me about him in interviews, but when I’m alone too. When you’re growing up, you have this ‘live fast, die young’ attitude, but secretly you think you’re immortal. Then you stop and think, ‘He’s gone,’ and it leaves an empty space in your heart.”
“In recent years, probably in the last six months that he was touring with the band, he would sit on the bus and reflect on the shows. He would say, 'Man, Angel Of Death was great tonight.' After a few drinks he would say, 'I wrote that, Dave!' He was proud of the classics he created. He was very proud of what he did.”