Last week, the metal world got excited when a new interview with Tom Araya surfaced in which he said that a song written by late guitarist Jeff Hanneman would be on the new record, including parts Hanneman performed. At the time, Araya was quoted as saying:
“There is one track on there that we recorded with him, that he did play on, which was completely done except we hadn’t finalized the vocals for it. So we were fortunate to have something that he had participated in.”
But this was all a confusing misunderstanding. In a new interview with Loudwire, guitarist Kerry King clarifies Hanneman's role on the new album:
Jeff Hanneman isn’t physically playing on this record. Somebody reported some bullshit. People say shit when they don’t know what’s actually going on. Even though Jeff’s song, “Piano Wire,” was recorded during the last album cycle [World Painted Blood], I played all the guitar. I’ve been doing that for years. Since he has no lead on that song, he’s not on it.
Well, Kerry, unless Araya was misquoted, nobody was reporting bullshit.
King went on to say that in addition to "Piano Wire" appearing on the next, 11th studio record, there are already plans for a 12th studio record and there is one leftover Hannamen-penned track that will appear on the follow-up to whatever they release this year.
So we have plenty of Slayer to look forward to the next few years.
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