Speaking with VillageVoice.com about their upcoming album, Repentless, SLAYER guitarist KERRY KING says he does not feel the spirit of long-time friend and band co-founder, the late SLAYER guitarist and lyricist Jeff Hanneman – who died in May 2013 from alcohol-related cirrhosis – guiding the band.
“Jeff is worm food,” KING states in his blunt-yet-likable fashion. “When you die you go in the dirt. There is no doubt. Doubt’s called agnostic. I’m not agnostic.”
Over its 34 years of existence, as the album title flatly states, SLAYER has remained unrepentant, both lyrically and musically. That said, in an ode to sentimentality, or perhaps just musicality?, Hanneman has a song, completed for the last album, but not included, that now appears on Repentless. It’s called ‘Piano Wire’.
“I didn’t know this until Tom Araya, singer/bassist] told me recently,” King says of the track. “I didn’t talk to Jeff about that song, because I didn’t really have to police Jeff. If he wrote it, I was pretty sure it was all right. It was about sometime in World War II, because he was a big World War II history buff. I don’t know the exact instance, but apparently the Germans would hang people from buildings by piano wire as a warning to people not to go against them. That’s a very general description.”