SLAYER's TOM ARAYA On JEFF HANNEMAN's Death: 'I Lost A Good Friend'

Fuse spoke to SLAYER members Kerry King (guitar),Tom Araya (bass, vocals) and Paul Bostaph (drums) prior to the band's November 27 concert at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City. You can now watch the chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On Kerry King's appearance at the Revolver Golden Gods awards show the day of Jeff Hanneman's death (May 2) at Club Nokia in Los Angeles, where he said that Hanneman would have wanted "noise" rather than a moment of silence and then drank two shots in his bandmate's honor:

Kerry: "The Internet is a good and a bad thing, as we all know. And I remember when I did the [Revolver Golden Gods] award show the night Jeff died. And I actually — which I don't usually do; I don't usually go look up things — but I looked up on YouTube, because I was a mess and I wanted to see how I did, really, see what I said. I was up there presenting [an award] with Zakk [Wylde], and I scrolled down a little bit and people were really giving me shit because I didn't show enough sorrow, I wasn't exuding condolence. And my only thought to that is, I'm, like, 'You don't know me. You don't know how I mourn, and you're judging me from a fucking computer. Get over yourself. That's ridiculous.'

"I'm, like, 'What am I am gonna do?' 'What would Jeff wanna do?' 'What would Jeff wanna have done?' 'If the ghost of Jeff is sitting over there, how am I gonna impress him?' And that's what I came up with. It's an award show; it's not a funeral, it's not anything like that.

"Did the day suck? Damn sure it sucked. I did what I thought was the best thing I can do to give Jeff a little… I don't know… Make people enjoy the fact that he gave us 30 years of great stuff."

On returning to the road so soon after Jeff Hanneman's passing:

Tom: "Three weeks after Jeff passed, we were out on the road. It's all about... You've got contractual obligations, so you can't really just… you can't really drop the ball.

"We've been at this for a fucking long time; 33 years is a long time to be doing what we do. It's not something you really think about. 30 years later you just find yourself sitting here talking to you, thinking time sure flies."

Kerry: "[People say] 'It's not SLAYER without Jeff.' 'It's not SLAYER without [drummer] Dave [Lombardo].' If you shut your eyes and went out there and listened, you wouldn't know the difference. And that's as good as I can present SLAYER; it sounds just the same. You don't notice who's not there if you're not watching. And I think that's as good as you can do it, really. It's not work to do SLAYER; it's work being good enough."

On paying homage to Jeff on stage:

Tom: "Me and Jeff, we always worked really well together, which was really, really cool, and I think that that's… I'm gonna miss that."

Kerry: "I think every show we've done since May, we've had his Hanneman guitar on stage, we've got the Hanneman backdrop for the last couple of tunes. There was a video that Tom put together that went over in the last song or two when we were in South America [on] video screens and stuff."

Tom: "I wanted to do more [to honor Jeff], I was hoping to do more. But the nature of the business… The management gets involved in anything we do, and they fucked it up. I'm throwing them under the bus, and it realy upset me, 'cause it would have been more than just that."

Kerry: "We'll probably be doing that for awhile, because I think it helps the fans deal with it as well. 'Cause it's not just us; I mean, he touched tons of people."

Tom: "But in all honesty, we pay homage to him every fucking night we play. 'Cause every fucking song on this setlist was written by Jeff, and every fucking song that we ever play in our lifetime, 99 percent of the songs we play are Jeff, all influenced by Jeff, written, musically or/and lyrically, by Jeff. So every night we pay homage to him, and we celebrate his music. So… I think that says a lot.

"You know… I lost a good friend."