Top 50 Quotes & Sayings by Jeff Hanneman

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician Jeff Hanneman.
Last updated on December 21, 2024.
Jeff Hanneman

Jeffrey John Hanneman was an American musician, best known as a founding member and rhythm/lead guitarist of the thrash metal band Slayer. Hanneman composed both music and lyrics for every Slayer album until his death in 2013 at age 49. He had his own signature guitar, the ESP Jeff Hanneman Signature model.

I love hockey, and I go to a lot of the games.
I hang with my woman, and with some friends that have nothing to do with Slayer. I also like to watch sports and go to hockey and football games.
I don't like politics in music. — © Jeff Hanneman
I don't like politics in music.
The whole nature of war is both stupid and fascinating. It's this big game, except people die. Yet we still keep on playing it because of the big power struggles that exist all over the world. It's really amazing to me that people really do that.
That gets me upset- you're jamming along, checking out the crowd and having a good time, and then your equipment goes down. You can't just stop the show and say, 'Oh, Jeff's got a guitar problem.'
During our first year, we were playing Priest and Maiden cover tunes all the time while we figured out what we wanted to do as a band. At the time I was getting out of metal and into punk. That's how Slayer's sound came together - it's the speed of punk combined with the big riffs of metal.
L.A. has got to be the poser capital of the world. Around here Quiet Riot, Motley Crue, and Ratt are the heaviest in the world. So if that's heavy we must be molten steel.
I used to be totally into Steve Vai and Joe Satriani and other shredders, and I tried to emulate what they did and really grow as a guitarist.
Pro Tools rules. You get the opportunity to try more things because you don't waste so much time trying to get the perfect take.
Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith weren't polite. They were against the grain. And that's what we want our music to be: rude, aggressive... like real life.
It's nice to be respected, but it doesn't really matter. What's important is that if I wasn't in Slayer, it's still the band I'd want to see.
We don't like preaching, we don't like love songs, we don't like fun songs. We just like the dark side.
I knew that if I were ever in a band it would be all about being heavy and dark. — © Jeff Hanneman
I knew that if I were ever in a band it would be all about being heavy and dark.
If you're living a nice lifestyle and you have no problems, you put on our record, you won't get it.
I actually have only one Jackson! ESP makes all of my guitars now. But that Jackson was probably the last one I paid for, which is why I used it so much; I had to get my money's worth. That's why, for the longest time, it was in all of our photos.
We read a lot from the Satanic bible. It's not quite the opposite of the normal bible - a lot of its principles are just about being yourself, if you want to do something you do it, if you wanna have affairs you can. But we never hold daily rituals or anything.
My fascination with war is because my dad was in World War II, and my brother was in Vietnam.
I read a bunch of books about Mengele because he was pretty sick. That was how 'Angel Of Death' came about. I know why people misinterpret it, just because we don't say Nazism is very bad. They get this knee-jerk reaction to it.
We've met so many people you'd never even suspect of being Slayer fans: suits, lawyers, and people like that.
I pretty much started the lyrics and I hit a roadblock and I think Kerry finished them up. Then I came back and did the ending part. The whole 'Raining Blood.' That part. But it pretty much came together easy. It's a short song.
I guess Zeppelin is some happy stuff compared to us. It's pretty hippy, too.
I was really into metal when I was growing up. It was just something I thought I could do and wanted to try.
I feel you should be able to write about whatever you want.
I'd rather play in front of people who wouldn't listen to Slayer. That to me, is more like, 'Hey, listen to us.'
Everybody has a dark side. It's just we are very in touch with it.
Since we did 'Angel of Death,' I've had three occasions where someone will go 'Psst, hey. I'm part of this Aryan World Nation group and we're thinking of having you speak.' I'm like, 'Why?' And they'll go, 'You know.' I'll be like, 'No, why?' And they'll go, 'Aren't you... ?' I'm like, 'What? No. Go away. You don't get me at all.'
Don't overthink things. Make the next record, and keep rolling with it.
It's kind of weird to think about our fan base now, where our hard-core fans have kids, families and jobs.
The intent of Slayer's musical and lyrical content has always been selfish. We feel very strongly about the importance of staying true to ourselves.
Play as much as you can. That's what I had to do because of my inexperience. And don't get frustrated.
When we started, I was just having fun with it I didn't even know about doing it for a living. It was a new style of music, a combo of punk and metal.
I have a method of working on music: I'll get up in the morning and throw down some drums on my drum machine, and then I'll come back later and try to pop off rhythms to it.
There's always a need for our kind of music. It's an outlet. You can only listen to so much pop and you just have to listen to something heavy. — © Jeff Hanneman
There's always a need for our kind of music. It's an outlet. You can only listen to so much pop and you just have to listen to something heavy.
To us, being the bad guys is cool, because we always root for the bad guys in the movies.
I'm pretty much an atheist, so I'd say this world is the only thing we got.
I like playing guitar I don't like talking about it. I like writing riffs, I don't like explaining them.
My first guitar was a Les Paul that I bought off a friend for 500 bucks. I worked a long time to save up enough money for it.
Me and my dad were so much alike that we would just butt heads. I pretty much hated him from the age of 16 to 24 for no real reason.
I remember in the days when we started, when we first went on the road, we went to Berkeley and played with Exodus. We couldn't believe another band was playing the same kind of music we were playing because there was only a handful of bands that were doing it.
'Angel Of Death' was a big problem. I remember getting a phone call after the album was done: Sony wasn't going to release it.
The majority of our fans are dudes. And the chicks you do see at our shows are probably there because of a dude. Slayer shows are nothing but sausage fests. We always joke that we really need to write some love songs or something.
Angel of Death' is like a history lesson, but as soon as we released it everybody was calling us Nazis. Our singer's a dark-skinned Chilean, there's no way we're fascists.
We've never been a political band. — © Jeff Hanneman
We've never been a political band.
Rock 'n' roll was never supposed to be polite.
We write the songs that we do because that's what we like. But they are just stories - not things we actually do or recommend anyone else go out and do.
I don't listen to much rap outside of Run DMC and the Beasties, but then I'm pretty burned out on most new music.
We're not, obviously, as rich as Metallic, but we don't have to worry about money.
Lyrics are always the last thing to get done.
When we started writing this kind of music in the beginning, I didn't think that many people would listen to it, but over the years our fan base just kept growing and growing. Now, it's like we do it for us and our fans.
I'm sticking with the Heinekens, but doing a few shots here and there.
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