Slayer’s Kerry King on Jeff Hanneman’s Death: “[It] Weighed Harder on Tom Than It Did Me”
Nearly 12 years ago, the metal world was shocked by the news that Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman had passed away. Fans mourned, metal acts played tribute covers in their sets, and in general, people were super bummed by the news. Hanneman’s death served to highlight the iconic contributions he made to Slayer’s legacy and thrash metal as a whole.
In a recent interview with Cucamonga, Kerry King theorized that Hanneman’s death deeply affected bassist and vocalist Tom Araya, ultimately leading to the eventual “end” of Slayer.
“I think Jeff’s passing weighed harder on Tom than it did on me. And I don’t mean that from any1 kind of friendship perspective. It’s just…my taking wasn’t as bad as Tom took it. Of course, it was horrible, and no one ever wanted that to happen, but it really weighed on Tom, and I think that’s what led to him wanting to retire earlier than me because I think he felt the band was different.
“But then out of nowhere, Tom decided he wanted to play some shows last year, and I went, ‘Well, I never wanted to stop playing shows. So, yeah, let’s try it out.’ But it’s just like it was [before] in Slayer, you know. We don’t talk on the phone. We rarely text each other.”
The fact that King and Araya barely speak to one another is nothing new. We’ve known about that rift since before Slayer announced their “reunion”. We learned about that around the same time we heard King say that ex-Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo was “dead to me.”y they don’t communicate all these days.
“And that’s just because, when you’re together for 40 years, he became a very different person. He’s not the guy I started a band with. Not personally, just him. He’s a different person. I basically stayed very similar to who I’ve been in my twenties.’
“I like Tom, we’re cool. We got together, it wasn’t weird. We did those two shows. He was super happy. We got together after the second one. Had a shot after the show, tequila. He’ll drink tequila, I love tequila. So that’s what we had.”
