Fear, Emptiness, Decibel: The Extremely Extreme Magazine Pays Tribute to Jeff Hanneman

Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

It’s impossible to be hyperbolic about the legacy of Jeff Hanneman. The Slayer guitarist’s outrageously premature passing in early May is something we’re only just beginning to process. We’ll leave it to a lamer magazine to argue his band’s standing on some theoretical “Mount Rushmore of Metal.” Our own Justin Norton says it just right in this month’s cover story: “Every band ever featured in this magazine owes [Slayer] something.”

That’s why, despite the fact that this terrible story broke less than a week before we were to send the July Decibel to print, we felt obligated to tear down nine pages of preexisting real estate and erect a (fittingly) lightning-speed tribute. Hanneman and Slayer have coursed through this magazine’s lifesblood from the onset, in the form of two Hall of Fames (Reign in Blood, South of Heaven) and two cover stories, one a then-exhaustively comprehensive oral history in 2006. So, we culled some of Jeff’s most biting quotes from those pieces, a moving long-form obit courtesy of Mr. Norton and a litany of heartfelt tributes from the likes of At the Gates, Metallica, Testament, Metal Blade, Autopsy and many more to give the man the wake he so richly deserves. It’s in the webstore now. One last time: R.I.P.

The July 2013 issue of Decibel also features Gojira, Children of Bodom, The Black Dahlia Murder, and an awesome Royal Thunder flexi disc. You can purchase it here. But why not just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss an issue?