Lichter´s Slayer Page - Jeff Hanneman interview

Jeff Hanneman of Slayer

Don't be too quick to judge SLAYER just because they're doing "punk album." It's not what you think. This is real punk from the 80's, 32 minutes of the real punk experience.
Don't just believe me, listen to what T.S.O.L.'s Jack Grisham says about the record. "Jesus fuck. I thought we were hard. All the blood, all the violence and all the mindless hate that makes being a punk so much fun and it's all delivered by Slayer.
This record's going to make all these wanna-be new punks run for the shelter of their mother's skirts before Slayer kicks their asses." Enough said.
Whether if you like or not, Slayer has always been the band you can not ignore and once again they prove it with "Undisputed Attitude."
By Mikki Taka
Why did Paul Bostaph quit the band?
J: Uh...I guess he basically said from the beginning that he really wanted to do his own project. And he kinda just used this, you know, as a
stepping stone. We kinda went into thinking that after a while he was gonna stay in the band , but after he fulfilled his obligation with everything,
he took off. Nothing personal at all. I mean, we got along with him great. But he wanted to do that Fish band [Paul's new band is called Truth
About Seafood] that he's doing now. (laugh) That's all there was to it, 'cause like I said I thought, well all of us thought he was gonna stay. But
he determind to do that fish band. (laugh) That's fine. Like I said, nothing personal.
So you were surprised...
J: Yeah,in the end. We were all surprised. It's like, "Are you really leaving??"
Too bad, he was a great drummer...
J: Oh, yeah. He was awesome.
Have you heard his new stuff yet?
J: No. I read some of the lyrics, though. They're kinda silly... But it's fine as long as he likes it and obviously he does.
But to me, it's a complete change, from going Slayer to fishy.... (laugh), but that's what he wants, so it's cool.
How did you find new drummer, John Dette (ex-Testament)?
J: Basically we tried out about six or eight drummers in the period of a week or two weeks. And we heard ahead of time actually from Paul that this guy is gonna be the one. But we just tried out, I think, six or eight I don't remember what. But he showed up and he was it. Kerry [King] and I both knew it like "Yup! this is the guy." Because he was, I mean he was warming up and he was playing the songs as he was warming up. I told Kerry, "Hey, we don't even have to go in there and play. He can play the songs by himself!"(laugh) We just knew he was the guy.
People has been asking me,"Are you making this punk record because you hate what they consider punk now?"
But it wasn't like a master plan or anything. We've been listening to punk since we were in high school.
So it was gonna happen sooner or later.
Why did you make this album?
J: You know what? Everybody's been asking this. The way we do things is kinda hard to explain or even to understand. We don't really
think about what we do. We just do it. And it wasn't really like a master plan or like people say, "Are you doing this because you hate
what they consider punk now?" you know, stuff like that. I've been always into punk even before Slayer so we've been listening to it
since we were in high school. So it was kind of like something is gonna happen sooner or later and it happened to happen now, I have no
idea why.(laugh)
Who originally thought of the idea of making this album then?
J: I have no idea! (laugh) It's kinda hard to explain. Because...well, when we did talk about it in the beggining, we are thinking about
covering some old bands that we used to do or at least listen to, you know like a Priest and Maiden or Black Sabbath... But seems like
lately everybody else is doing that. Bands like Megadeth are copying that, so nah... and plus we played that and like nahhh.(laugh) When
we played punk stuff we like that alot better. So "Yeah, let's stick with the punk stuff that we like." There's a few songs that I've been
wanting to do for years and I guess there's one or two that Kerry wanted to do and so we ended up doing just punk songs.
There must be a ton of songs that you like. How did you choose the songs for the album? Did you guys vote?
J: No, we didn't vote. I basically left it to Kerry. Because there's just too many songs that I like. So I said to him, "You pick 'em. I'll say
Yeh or Nah." (laugh) There's just too many songs, I mean there's still at least ten songs that I can think of that I wish we would've done.
But there's too many. There would've been a hundred songs on the album. So basically that's how we choose it. Before we knew it, I
think there's sixteen songs or whatever, so we said, "Let's record it!" And actually we were surprised at the result. Cause we weren't sure
what we were getting into. Like I said, we didn't really plan, just do it, done. We were even kind of worrying about Tom [Araya] singing
it, because alot of the bands we did it have kinda westcoast beach slang, and Tom really doesn't have that. So we were like, "How's that
gonna sound !?" But Tom just came in and screamed. It was like, "Perfect!"
So the songs are more like Slayer sounding song than...
J: I would say it's definetely Slayer doing covers of punk songs. As soon as you hear it, you go, "That's Slayer."
Was the recording much more easier than usual?
J: Oh, it was e-a-s-y! (laugh) When we record our own records, we were more picky. We tried to make things the way we think they
should be. And this was like, "Who gives a f**k?? This is a punk record!" (laugh) It's more relaxed, and the whole thing was done like in
no time. And we heard the end result and we're like, "Yes! This is good."
Tell me about the new Slayer songs on this album. "Drunk Drivers Against Mad Mothers" is your song, isn't it? Did you write
this song for this cover album?
J: They were written, I don't know maybe like '84, 85.
I didn't know that is an old song.
J: Yeah, that was me and Rocky, the oldest guitar player from Suicidal [Tendencies] and [Dave] Lombardo, our old drummer, I guess
that was about '84, we had this big time off. We just got done with the record and we have this big break, and like I said I've been
listening to punk for years and we have about ten tunes that we were gonna actually record, and the band was gonna be called Pap
Smear. (laugh)
What?
J: (laugh) Pap Smear.
What is that?
J: You don't know what it is?
No. What is it?
J: (With a dissapointing voice) Oh.... Ask some of your female friends.(laugh)
OK. I'll do that.(laugh)
J: It's a female stuff. Anyway, That was the name of the band and I played bass and sang, Rocky played guitar, Lombardo played
drums. But having two bands was just too much. And we were practicing at the same place, so it was like, we were practicing with
Slayer and then Pap Smear... so after a while we just said, "Forget it." But like I said, we got like ten, twelve songs or I don't know how
many songs, but we just decided to do it cause we were doing this record, why don't we put a couple of my songs on there.
How about "Gemini"
J: That was, I think, Kerry who wrote the music and Tom had the lyrics, just the song we were working on it. 'cause we were intended
to put at least one Slayer song on the album. It's kinda for a preview for the next album. So two other songs are my old songs, but
"Jemini" is a new Slayer song.
British heavy metal and punk is what we are.
It is fusion of two styles. We said that from day one.
But why do you make punk cover record now? Fans might get a wrong idea. Especially the ones who consider Slayer as a metal
band would go, "Why Slayer's doing punk??"
J: I can understand that, but if you see old interviews and stuff like that, we've always said our two main things were British heavy metal
and punk. And we said that from day one. And are two guitar players, Kerry and I , Kerry was more into British heavy metal, and I was
more into punk. So when we started writing our own songs, I don't know what year it was (laugh) whatever, the speed aspect of course
was my influence cuz they were punk, and we both loved heavy riffs of metal, you know old British stuff. It was fusion of two styles,
we said that since day one that British heavy metal and punk is what we are. And I guess when we started, they called it thrash... but... I
don't know.
You also covered Minor Threat. They are a straight edge band. Did you like their style even back then?
J: Well, the music is fine. They wanna be straight edge and I guess that is kind of all political way of thinking and a lifestyle, which as
you probably know, well most people know that Slayer is not straight (laugh). I mean we do drinking and whatever, ah, we are very
good at it. (laugh) But if they wanna live that way, I don't care, you know. To us, it's not a mental way of thinking that, it's just music. If
it's sound heavy and aggressive, then good. I don't care what they do in their spare time. Of course Slayer loves drinking and everything
so we can't even come close to straight edge, but we have no problem with it.
Well, I guess you can't tour with straight edge bands then.
J: Well...(laugh), we can tour with them, and it would be, uh, I guess we get all their beer.
Are you planning on any tour for this record? If not, are you gonna play any of these songs on the next tour?
J: Well, right now, we are currently working on the new album. We got about three or four songs done, but we are planning on playing
Europe, possibly Japan. Just a short little tour. , I think in Europe it's gonna be just festivals. And we'll probably play about three songs
off this record.
Which ones?
J: I think we're gonna do "Richie hung himself" by D.I., possibly "I hate you" by Verbel Abuse, I don't know, we're still undecide. Like
when we practice right now, we play about six or seven songs, but we haven't really decided what we wanna play live.
"When we get together for rehearsal,
we usually start talking about sports."
By the way, you didn't do any covers of bigger band such as Sex Pistols, Exploited or Black Flag.Why is that? Did you pick up
more unknown bands to make it look more undergroud?
J: Well, we did do Exploited with Ice T. [Judgement Night soundtrack] Black Flag, I wanted to do, but like I said....
It just didn't happen.
J: (laugh) yeh. I wanted to do Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Circle Jerks...but.
There's too many songs already, right?
J: Plus actually we just wanted to get this done and over with and leave [the studio, then] start fresh because we already got three or four
songs started on the new album. So we just wanted get this out just as quick as possible. It's just a fun project that we wanted to do,
really. So we wanted get it done quick because like I said, we were starting a new record already.
When will it be out?
J: We're trying to be done like by August. But probably it won't come out til '97, early '97.
So what is the next album going to be like?
J: Well, it's kinda going back to that planning thing, we don't plan. Right now, I have three songs done musically. there's riffs that I
happened to come up with, I thought the're great, putting together as a song and we're doing 'em. There's no lyrics or anything yet.
That's where we are at right now. We're just doing what we do. We don't sit down saying, "This is what we going to do for this album."
We never do that on any of our albums. It's always just pops out (laugh). If we like it, it goes on the record, basically there's no talk, like
when we practice, everybody shows up, right now we don't have any lyrics so Tom doesn't show, just me, Kerry and John, we usually
talk about sports cause we all love sports. I'm a total hocky fan, I love football, Kerry loves football, he loves baseball, I hate baseball
(laugh). We all love boxing. When we warm up on guitars and John's warming up on drums, talking about sports, talking about weird
things that happen, and I go, "I got this song idea." And I show it to Kerry, show it to John, we play it, and we all like it, there. The
song's done, musically. Eventually the lyrics will come in.
You spend a lot of time together before making music, then.
J: Yeah, like I said, we all like sports, so... There's an article that "all we do is watch TV", which is not true. It's true to the sense that we
watch sports, but we hate regular TV. We hate the news, especially oh god, news on America is shit. But we hate whatever but sports.
everything else on TV is crap. We don't watch it.
How about "X-files"; or "Sightings"?
J: Well... that's not too bad...Okay, you got me on that one.(laugh) I think Kerry is really into "X-files". I like "Sightings". It's trippy.
(laugh)
I like those shows. (laugh)
J: See? But we just kinda hung out and if we got these three songs done they are done. make some inprovements here and there,
suggestions... But there's really no talk about what we want or write about it, we just do it and if it's good, here you go. If it sucks, bye.
(laugh)
Sounds very simple. (laugh)
J: Well the only reason I'm saying this is like so many people ask me like, (with a solemn voice)"What is your focus on this album?" I'm
like, "What are you talking about?", "Uh... I know that the hocky game is on in an hour." (laugh) But it's easy. if it's great, we play it. If
it's sucks, throw it out and start it again. and as far as like people said about this punk thing, because I found out that after that because I
don't watch MTV at all, because I don't like somebody else telling me what I should watch. If I like the band, I go buy the video or I'll
play it. I don't listen to the radio because I wanna choose what I wanna listen to. Anyway,a few month ago, I hear everybody was saying
Green Day is punk, so I heard it and it's not punk. It's like some new wave f**king corporate suit music. It was kind of ironic because
we happned to be thinking about this punk thing. Well, this is punk. This is what I grow up with. This is what people... I mean...well,
when you think of heavy metal, you think of old stuff like Black Sabbath. You know those types of bands. You don't think of....Well, I
don't consider us heavy metal, really. I hate that label idea. We're a little bit beyond heavy metal because we're fast and we don't sing
about ghost and goblins and stuff. We sing about hate and murder. But I just get sick of everybody labeling everything. Shut the f**k up.
If you listen it and you like it, great. You don't, then don't listen to it. Don't label, don't put it in a category.
Have you had chance to hear Slayer tribute record?
J: Oh yeah. I think somebody gave it to me when we played at Donnington.
Did you like it?
J: Well, I hated everything except... well, I didn't hate it. that's extreme, OK? I'm exaggrating. It's just whatever, whatever. The only
song that actually I like is the last song, "Spill the Blood", which pisses me off. Because like a f**kin' year ago, I wanted to redo this
song and these guys did it, so it's like, "You f**k." But we probably will end up doing anyway. I think we're gonna do it on the new
album. But, I wanted to do it a long time ago.
Why do you like this song?
J: Because the vocals are all like, (imagine a death metal growling voice). this one's too, but this is not as bad as some of the other ones.
And what did Tom call them...ah, "Cookie Monster voice" (laugh) You know, listen to all of it they feel they have to like "Aaghaaargh"
to everything.
Would like to hear different version of Slayer? Like pop'y Slayer songs?
J: No! No, forget it. (laugh)
That's it , folks. There's so much more.
Why they changed the album title to "Disputed Attitude" from the original title "Selected & Exhumed" What's his opinions about
trends? Plus, his comment on all the bands they covered on this album and the episode about the each song. If you want to find out,
just E-mail us, we'll give you the entire story.

E-mail me at: [email protected]