Slayer 66 2/3: The Jeff & Dave Years. A Metal Band Biography.
Read Slayer 66 2/3: The Jeff & Dave Years. A Metal Band Biography. Online
Authors: D.X. Ferris
Slayer 66 & 2/3: The Jeff & Dave Years, A Metal Band Biography. From Birth to Reborn, Including Slaytanic Profiles, a New History of the Thrash Kings' Early Days,
Reign in Blood
Tours, a European Invasion, the Palladium Riot, the Seat Cushion Chaos Concert, the Whole Diabolical Discography, Newly Unearthed Details From Dave Lombardo's Turbulent History With the Band, Artwork and Some Photos You’ve Probably Never Seen Before, Jeff Hanneman’s Hard Times, the Big Four’s Big Year, Lombardo’s Final Exit, the Top 11 Hanneman Tributes, the Mosh Memorial Service, Untold Stories, Updates, Relevant Digressions, and More Scenes From the Abyss
By D.X. Ferris
Click here to skip all the wordy stuff and just start reading the metal part.
6623 Press
Akron
November 2013
6623 Press
Text copyright © 2013 D.X. Ferris
All Rights Reserved
“Slayer 66 2/3…” and 6623 Press are not affiliated with Bloomsbury,
Bloomsbury Academic, the
33 1/3
series, or Continuum.
Cover photo by and copyright ©
Harald Oimoen
:
Slayer at Ruthie’s Inn, Berkeley, CA, 1984. Previously unpublished. Black and white.
Original sketchbook images and December 1982 flyer by & © Albert Cuellar (unless otherwise noted), reprinted with permission.
“Slayer Killing It” early photos by & © Harald Oimoen, reprinted with permission.
Live at the Ritz 1986 photos by & © Georges Sulmers, reprinted with permission.
Kerry King 2009 photo by & © Johnny Angell Multimedia/Photography/Music Production, online at
ClevelandFrequency.com
and
soundcloud.com/ohno216
Dave Lombardo 2007 Download photo by & © Ester Segarra, reprinted with permission.
www.e-segarra.com
.
Jeff Hanneman 2009 photo by & © Amy Weiser Photography, reprinted with permission.
www.AmyWeiser.com.
Slayer Brazil 2011 photo. Courtesy of Guilherme Nozawa, reprinted with permission.
www.gbnozawa.com
.
Jon Dette 2013 photo by & © Cameron Edney, reprinted with permission.
www.Facebook.com/WickedPixPhotography
Gary Holt 2013 and Hanneman backdrop photos by & © Sean Benedict, reprinted with permission.
www.IronCityRocks.com
Slayer 2013 lineup photo by & © Tim Tronckoe, reprinted with permission.
www.TimTronckoe.com
Cleveland
Scene
articles reprinted with permission.
www.CleveScene.com
Physical edition:
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ferris, D.X.
Slayer 66 & 2/3: The Jeff & Dave Years, A Metal Band Biography / Ferris, D.X.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-0-615-92030-6 (pbk..: alk. Paper)
ISBN-10: 0615920306 1. Slayer (Musical group). 2. Rock Musicians—United States.
3. Heavy metal (Musical genre) 4. Thrash metal (Musical genre)
5. Crossover (Musical genre) I. Title
OVERTURE
In darkness, Slayer forms. A Friday night, 1982. Tom Araya is the oldest of the young men at a raging party in a doomed neighborhood. If the police show up, he’s the one who will be in the most trouble. Jeff Hanneman is passed out on the stairs. Kerry King is home, practicing guitar. Dave Lombardo is out with his girlfriend and future wife. And so it will remain for decades. Details evaporate, but the legend grows.
Summer 1983, a newspaper ad self-declares Slayer “THE HEAVIEST, FASTEST, AND LOUDEST BAND IN THE UNITED STATES!” It’s a bold statement, but the group’s imminent debut LP will make good on the boast.
January 1984, Slayer head north, to the Bay Area. They take the stage dressed like sadomasochist vampires. They head home in denim.
April 1985. Promoting an album called
Hell Awaits
that features raging songs like “Necrophiliac,” Slayer hit the road, supporting black metal icons Venom, playing sets that, with increasing frequency, drive fans into a blood frenzy. Later, they take the show to Europe. The trek looks like it will be a disaster, but…
October 1986. Improbably, Slayer sign to major-label rap stronghold Def Jam records. Under the wing of producer, impresario, and hip-hop wunderkind Rick Rubin, they release
Reign in Blood
, one of the definitive statements from the thrash metal movement.
December 1986. Drummer Dave Lombardo’s status is rapidly rising in the metal world, but he quits the band. He’s ready for a fight, literally. Instead, they let him walk.
March 1987. Lombardo returns.
August 1988. Promoting the
South of Heaven
album, Slayer dismantle America, staging concerts that are widely remembered as riots. King, once a
de facto
straight-edge kid, is now half of a team of hard-drinking guitarists known as “the Drunk Brothers” with Hanneman. On tour, King throws up on his partner in crime, who thinks it’s hilarious.
January 1989. After a massive album and short tour, Slayer disappear for over a year.
October 1990. The group return with a hat trick: their third consecutive classic album,
Seasons in the Abyss
. Tom Araya, the band’s frontman, cements his role in the band’s lyrical voice.
Summer 1991. The Clash of the Titans tour teams three of the Big Four thrash bands. Somehow, no backstage violence ensues.
August 1992. After a heated confrontation, Dave Lombardo and the group part ways again. Drummer Paul Bostaph is added immediately and stays.
Spring 1995. Guitarist Jeff Hanneman is playing hurt. He can’t make it through entire sets. He regularly sits out a song, and Slayer play as a trio.
Spring 1996. A lawsuit against the band and its lyrics tests the limits of free speech.
May 1996. Slayer acknowledge their roots in hardcore punk with a covers album, agitating plenty involved, from fans to songwriters. Drummer Paul Bostaph leaves and misses much of the fray, but returns in short order, displacing replacement drummer Jon Dette.
Not much to talk about in 1997, and it’s better that way.
The divisive
Diabolus in Musica
arrives in 1998. Metal has seen better years.
Slayer continue to work hard in 1999 and 2000.
God Hates Us All
arrives on 9/11/2001, with King firmly holding the reins.
December 2001: Bostaph exits in a haze. Lombardo returns as a special guest star for an already-scheduled tour. He sticks around over a decade.
In 2004, Lombardo has officially rejoined the group, and the band celebrates by not only performing their acknowledged classic,
Reign in Blood
, but filming a performance of it.
2007: Slayer, the undisputed kings of old-school thrash, win a Grammy.
2008: The band win another.
2009: Slayer’s classic lineup release the band’s tenth original full-length album, World Painted Blood. Things are looking up. But offstage, all is chaos and attrition.
2010: Slayer join their compatriots in the Big Four thrash bands in a worldwide stadium tour.
2011: Hanneman takes ill under shadowy circumstances. Exodus guitarist and metal hero Gary Holt steps in as an ongoing substitute for the group’s co-founder.
2013: Slayer’s personal apocalypse: For the third time, Lombardo and the band part ways, and the split is uglier than ever. Then Hanneman passes away, shocking the metal world. Slayer regroup with the help of one former drummer, before settling on another. And the saga continues.
Parts of Slayer’s story have been told before, but the band’s personalities and motives remain mysterious. Guitarist Kerry King, with a life-sized demon face tattooed on the back of his shaved head. Singer-bassist Tom Araya, a faithful Catholic with a library of books about serial killers. The late guitarist Jeff Hanneman, the poet of the group, and also the president of its Obnoxious Asshole Club. And drummer Dave Lombardo, Slayer’s most acclaimed musician, his contributions always discounted by the rest of the band, always the victim — or so it seemed to outsiders.
Over the course of 32 years, time and circumstances bury incidents, cast illusions, and leave crucial episodes untold. Looking for some new answers? Read on.
AWESOME PHOTOGRAPHS IN
SLAYER 66 2/3: THE JEFF & DAVE YEARS
ARE MADE POSSIBLE BY GENEROUS UNDERWRITERS LIKE…
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