Jeff Hanneman

I remember in 1988 I was at Camp Ocoee for the summer. I was 12 years old and I had just really gotten into music. I remember sitting on my bunk in my cabin with my Walkman on listening to AC/DC on cassette. We had a junior counselor there who I sadly can't remember his name but he was a metal dude with long hair and I thought he was super cool.

He had just gotten the latest record from Slayer, (South Of Heaven) and played me my first song that would change everything for me. It was "Behind The Crooked Cross". I'll never forget it. It sounded like fast horror movie music and it excited me, scared me, and made me feel something grand like I never had before.

From there, I wrote my friend, Will, and told him he had to check the record out, which he did and when I got home Slayer was basically all we listened to for the rest of the summer. This is a funny tid bit but I was so freaked out and overwhelmed by Slayer's awesomeness and evil at the time, I tried to like the ultra Christian band Stryper just to counteract my obsession with Slayer. Thankfully, that didn't work.

Anyway, Slayer has been a part of my life ever since and I have to say that they are my favorite band of all time. They made a few albums that not only stand the test of time but still have the same emotion and fury that they had twenty years ago. Pretty amazing, especially for a metal band.

My point to this is that one of Slayer's guitar players, Jeff Hanneman, died yesterday and so did one of the godfathers of the metal genre. Without Jeff Hanneman, the world would not be the same today. Pretty amazing legacy if you ask me. RIP Jeff.