Deuteronomy 4:42

That the slayer might flee thither, which should kill his neighbour unawares, and hated him not in times past; and that fleeing unto one of these cities he might live:

When I was 12, Slayer was scary to me. That was some real demonic shit right there. It was blistering fast, by far the fastest of the Thrash bands in the day. It was poorly produced, which I knew back then as I struggled to hear any bass guitar in the mix, but man they were awesome.

Who doesn't remember the first time they heard Hell Awaits? It was then, and remains today, one of the best, if not the best, Metal openers ever. Da da da.

My bro Hinkle really loved Slayer. He was a huge fan. He would spend hours playing any Slayer riff he could muster on his crappy little one knob Charvel which plugged into a Boss Metal Zone pedal and amplified through a 1x12 bass amp. It was cool. We would practice Slayer riffage all day. I was still attempting to play drums back then, and asking me to play anything from Slayer was equal to asking me to break dance. It was above my pay grade, so we just stuck with the basics. The main drum pattern in Seasons in the Abyss was 4/4 easy (minus the fills), so we rocked that mostly. We even kicked around starting a thrash band. Jason Blake, who went on to sing for Domicile MK1, would scream his face off trying to sound like Tom Araya. We sucked bad, but it was fun. We called ourselves “Cheap Whore”.

Chris was not the only Slayer fanatic in my circle. John Muroski and I would write entire verses about dog food to the tune of Angel of Death. Kibbles and Bits, march through the kitchen to the bowl...Infamous, Supper, KIBBLES AND BITS! We used to make ourselves cry with laughter writing the silliest shit you could imagine. I never laughed so hard in my life. I miss that dude sometimes. If you see him, tell him I said ‘sup.

I have written about the Clash of the Titans before: how a bunch of high school kids piled into vans and headed out to see Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth. The sad part is, it remains the one and only time I have seen Slayer.  I took them for granted. I figured I would see them again eventually.

I was talking with an old friend yesterday morning that went with me to the Titans show. He too never saw Slayer again after that show. He said that it was ok though, as it punctuated that period of his life and he can look back fondly on it. I am adopting that mindset as my own (thanks Seth).

It has been a week since we all learned the news of Jeff Hanneman’s death. It is an unbelievable story. A weird spider bite  in 2011 that caused necrotizing fasciitis, a Slayer fan Doctor that recognized the venom for what it was, a constant state of recovery and therapy that kept Jeff off the road and unable to play. A brief appearance at the Big Four, then not much news at all…. He was recovering, or so we all thought.

In the end it was liver failure that killed him.  It's safe to assume that the spider bite was the cause. He was 49. Not gonna lie, when I heard, I welled up. It took the wind out of my sails for a moment.

 

RIP Jeff. Thank you my brother.