The Crown Guitarist Details Tribute to Slayer’s Jeff Hanneman on New Album

The Crown guitarist Marko Tervonen was our guest on a recent episode of The MetalSucks Podcast to discuss the band’s upcoming album, Royal Destroyer, and a number of other topics.

Marko told us about one song in particular on the new record, “Let the Hammering Begin,” that was written as a tribute to late Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman, who died in 2013. He explained:

“On Cobra Speed Venom [2018], there’s a song called ‘In The Name of Death’ and that was a song Magnus [Olsfelt, bass] did. I remember the working title for it was ‘Hetfield’ ’cause it had that sort of old school ‘Kill ‘Em All’ thing to it.

“I remember when Magnus showed us ‘Let The Hammering Begin,’ he said it’s a tribute to Hanneman. But when we started playing it, I was like, ‘I can’t hear that much Hanneman in here. What is this?’

“Maybe the middle part has a lot of Slayer to it, but I think it became more of a mental tribute to him. Then afterward, [Magnus] told me, ‘Actually, the sort of Hanneman thing comes from that it’s structured the same way as ‘Angel of Death,” so it was sort of from that angle.

“I was expecting those typical Hanneman ‘Dead Skin Mask’ riffs and stuff like that. But I think it became more of a more personal tribute to him because obviously we don’t even need to discuss how important Slayer are for everybody. That was a pure tragedy when he died.”

You’ll be able to hear “Let the Hammering Begin” when Royal Destroyer comes out on March 12; pre-order here. In the meantime, you can listen to the album’s singles, “We Drift On” and “Motordeath” below.

Check out our full interview with Marko here or below.