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.

Jeff Hanneman

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.

Jeff Hanneman

Respect Want Till

I love hockey, and I go to a lot of the games.

Jeff Hanneman

Love T Me

Rock 'n' roll was never supposed to be polite.

Jeff Hanneman

Up T Supposed

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.

Jeff Hanneman

Art Whole Who

We've met so many people you'd never even suspect of being Slayer fans: suits, lawyers, and people like that.

Jeff Hanneman

You Us T

I'm pretty much an atheist, so I'd say this world is the only thing we got.

Jeff Hanneman

World Thing Thin

We don't like preaching, we don't like love songs, we don't like fun songs. We just like the dark side.

Jeff Hanneman

Love Us UN

I feel you should be able to write about whatever you want.

Jeff Hanneman

You Write Whatever

I knew that if I were ever in a band it would be all about being heavy and dark.

Jeff Hanneman

Would Were T

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.

Jeff Hanneman

Music Life Were

We're not, obviously, as rich as Metallic, but we don't have to worry about money.

Jeff Hanneman

Money Worry Us

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.

Jeff Hanneman

Music Art Yin

We've never been a political band.

Jeff Hanneman

T Political Never

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.

Jeff Hanneman

Time Money Worth

Don't overthink things. Make the next record, and keep rolling with it.

Jeff Hanneman

Wit Think Things

I like playing guitar I don't like talking about it. I like writing riffs, I don't like explaining them.

Jeff Hanneman

Yin Writing Tin

To us, being the bad guys is cool, because we always root for the bad guys in the movies.

Jeff Hanneman

Movies Cool Ways

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.'

Jeff Hanneman

Death Art You

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.

Jeff Hanneman

Used Use Us

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.'

Jeff Hanneman

Time Men Good

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.

Jeff Hanneman

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.

Jeff Hanneman

Everybody has a dark side. It's just we are very in touch with it.

Jeff Hanneman

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.

Jeff Hanneman

I'd rather play in front of people who wouldn't listen to Slayer. That to me, is more like, 'Hey, listen to us.'

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.

Jeff Hanneman

It's kind of weird to think about our fan base now, where our hard-core fans have kids, families and jobs.

Jeff Hanneman

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.

Jeff Hanneman

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.

Jeff Hanneman

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.

Jeff Hanneman

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.

Jeff Hanneman

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.

Jeff Hanneman

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.

Jeff Hanneman

I was really into metal when I was growing up. It was just something I thought I could do and wanted to try.

Jeff Hanneman

Play as much as you can. That's what I had to do because of my inexperience. And don't get frustrated.

Jeff Hanneman

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.

Jeff Hanneman

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.

Jeff Hanneman

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.

Jeff Hanneman

I guess Zeppelin is some happy stuff compared to us. It's pretty hippy, too.

Jeff Hanneman

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.

Jeff Hanneman

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.

Jeff Hanneman

My fascination with war is because my dad was in World War II, and my brother was in Vietnam.

Jeff Hanneman

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.

Jeff Hanneman

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.

Jeff Hanneman

'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.

Jeff Hanneman

If you're living a nice lifestyle and you have no problems, you put on our record, you won't get it.

Jeff Hanneman

I don't like politics in music.

Jeff Hanneman