During a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Kerry King shared an insight into Jeff Hanneman’s final years with Slayer. King confirmed he had concerns about Jeff regarding his involvement in the Big Four show. Slayer guitarist explained:
“I think the last year he toured with us was 2010. He wanted to come back. And I told him, ‘If you’re not a hundred percent, people are going to know immediately.’ We had that conversation before the Big Four when he came back. He’d learned four songs. I talked to Tom [Araya] about it, and I said, ‘Listen, it’s in our best interest and Jeff’s best interest to play two songs because people are going to be so stoked to see him, they’re not going to hear him play anything.'”
Even though Hanneman’s condition wasn’t promising, King still wanted to have him on stage so that the fans could enjoy his playing one more time. However, he had to limit Jeff’s involvement to prevent anyone from realizing he couldn’t play as he used to. Kerry recalled their painful conversation by stating:
“I went to Jeff with this, and he’s like, ‘Yeah, but I learned four songs.’ I said, ‘You are going to be excited, so you’re going to be extra intense, and by the third song, people are going to start realizing that you’re not playing at a hundred percent.’ It’s probably the hardest conversation I have had in my life. I said, ‘That’s how it is, man. I’m doing you a favor.’ And in hindsight, no one ever had anything bad to say about that show because they never had a chance to.”
King insisted he had no bad intentions about making Hanneman play a shorter set. However, he didn’t clarify how Jeff reacted to his decision.
Hanneman’s Final Years
Back in 2011, Hanneman was diagnosed with a flesh-eating disease caused by a spider bite. The disease started to impact his guitar playing, which eventually caused Slayer to hire Gary Holt to take his place.
Soon after he died in 2013, his wife talked about Jeff’s psychological battle following his disease in an interview with Guitar World. Apparently, Hanneman refused to go to rehab and tried to overcome his state by simply playing the guitar. However, his wife confirmed that Jeff lost hope when he realized he couldn’t play anymore. The late guitarist’s wife explained:
“I couldn’t get Jeff to go to rehab or therapy. I think he was letting the visual of his arm get to his emotions, and it was messing with his mind. I think he thought he could do this on his own — that he would just go to rehearsal and play and that that would be his rehab. But I think he started to learn, once he tried rehearsing, that he wasn’t playing up to his ability and that he wasn’t able to play guitar at the speed he was used to. And I think that really hit him hard, and he started to lose hope.”
Gary Holt Received Backlash From Slayer Fans For Taking Jeff’s Spot
The Exodus’ Gary Holt was initially offered to fill in for Hanneman temporarily. However, when the guitarist passed away, Holt took on the role of permanent guitarist for Slayer. In a 2021 interview with Death Angel, Gary revealed that some Slayer fans weren’t happy about him replacing Jeff. Some of them even insulted him during the shows by flipping him off. The guitarist recalled the negative reactions:
“I hadn’t. Two real hecklers the whole time I was in Slayer – and that’s a pretty fucking good ratio considering how many people played for how many shows. I had one guy, this guy in Germany with some bald skull, he was just flipping me off the whole show, and I went over to our production manager, ‘Get that motherfucker out of here,’ and he bailed.”
You can watch Gary Holt’s interview about joining Slayer on YouTube below.
