Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman passed away in May 2013 from alcohol-related cirrhosis of the liver. The album's title track was written by co-shredder Kerry King as a tribute to his longtime bandmate. "I call it the Hannemanthem! I wrote that for Jeff," King told Metal Hammer.
Kerry King said about the writing of the song: "I went with it based on Slayer. Slayer is repentless; Slayer's always been repentless. I said, 'You know what, I should write something about how I think Jeff looked at the world, because he looked at the world exactly how Slayer looked at the world.' Plus little 'Jeff-isms.' It was both easy and difficult. The difficult part was doing it justice; I didn't want to just throw it together. I wanted it to be solid, as deep as it could be without getting personal."
Slayer performed this live for the first time at the opening show of the 2015 Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival on June 26, 2015 at Sleep Train Amphitheater in Chula Vista, California.
See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.
Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.