FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Music

Jeff Hanneman: Always Remember That They Forgot

We should always remember that the Recording Academy does not give a fuck about music.

During the 56th Grammy Awards ceremony on Sunday night, an ‘In Memoriam’ section was shown honoring the many musicians who passed away this year. The list included classic rock guitarist Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers, Lou Reed of seminal glam rockers the Velvet Underground, and Cory Montieth of the television show Glee, among others. One of those ‘others’ was not Jeff Hanneman.

A quick recap: Jeff Hanneman was the lead guitarist of the thrash metal band Slayer, unarguably one of the most important bands within the genre’s history. He was the chief songwriter behind the majority of Slayer’s most revered material, including the game-changing album Reign In Blood. Jeff influenced tens of thousands of musicians with his dark foreboding melodies, breakneck rhythms, and scathing lyrics, all of which leant a diabolical and deadly serious atmosphere to heavy metal. Without Slayer, metal as we now know it—thrash metal, death metal, black metal, doom metal, grindcore, metalcore, noisecore, and sludge—would not exist. But more than that, Slayer have become symbolic of underground music in general, proving that one didn’t need mainstream approval and constant radio exposure to maintain a dedicated fanbase. Slayer were proof to thousands of fledgling musicians of any genre that you could stick to your musical guns and still be powerful, relevant, and loved.

Advertisement

And though Jeff Hanneman passed away from cirrhosis of the liver at age 49 on May 2nd, 2013, the Recording Academy didn’t consider his passing worthy of televised recognition. Many music fans were disgusted by this, but few of them were surprised. And if you ask me, that’s the reasonable reaction. Because we should always remember that the Recording Academy does not give a fuck about music.

Yes, Slayer have been nominated for the Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Grammy in the past; hell, they’ve been nominated five times, and they even won twice, once for “Eyes of the Insane” in 2007 and “Final Six” in 2008. But both of those tracks are from the same album, Christ Illusion (“Final Six” was an additional track added to the bonus rerelease), which was a big industry album. Remember all the fanfare around Christ Illusion? It was after the band had done so well with 2001’s God Hates Us All, and was surrounded with excitement due to Dave Lombardo’s return to drums. There were ads for Christ Illusion on park benches in California; Slayer were finally achieving serious mainstream recognition. The Academy saw that album as a moneymaker, a product not of underground metal but of the music industry.

Slayer are not industry darlings. They never have been, and never truly will be. Unlike peers Metallica, the softest they got was blistering beatdown hardcore, which still contained lyrical references to murder, Satanism, and hellish warfare. Their fans are violent, misanthropic, and distrustful of the music industry, and with good reason. Up until they became “icons” in the 2000s, Slayer saw no respect from mainstream music, which was so concerned with selling polished pop CDs by the millions that they couldn’t be bothered to even glance at the underground; fuck, until 1999, Lou Reed hadn’t won a Grammy, and when he finally got one it was for a movie, not any of his classic material.

Advertisement

It was only when the music industry started changing drastically, and people began downloading albums instead of buying them at a store, that the Recording Academy deigned to consider underground acts like Slayer worthwhile, because they suddenly realized that this band had a rabid fanbase who’d stuck around throughout all the other idiotic trends that the industry had avidly tried to shove down our gullets. And even after the mainstream music industry caught on to Slayer, the band was vocal about their contempt for it. They didn’t need heavy rotation on MTV or Top 40 radio play. They were doing just fine playing “Angel of Death” and “South of Heaven,” whether it was at Toad’s Place or Madison Square Garden.

This all points to the fact that the Metal Grammy is bullshit. Any metalhead worth his salt has known that for a fact since Jethro Tull won the first award; it’s the recognition of a genre that the industry doesn’t understand outside of its bizarre continued ability to make money and bring in new listeners. This year, the Grammy went to Black Sabbath for a track off of their at-best-decent comeback album, which was up against such powerful heavy hitters as an AC/DC cover off of Anthrax’s dad rock covers record (among the nominees, the obvious winner was “Room 24” by Volbeat featuring King Diamond, but come on, does the head of any major label know who the fuck either of those musical acts are?). The majority of us know that list should have included Deafheaven’s Sunbather and Carcass’ Surgical Steel, which, like them or not, were two of the most important records within the genre this year. But these are underground musicians, who have Bandcamp pages and play clubs instead of arenas. The Academy could not give a fuck less about acts that don’t take part in their cycle of greed.

Advertisement

Sure, they care about underground music when the musicians become millionaires, hence Metallica performing Sunday night with pianist Lang Land. Metallica will always be the Academy’s little scrappy darling, the genuine musicians who made it big. Shit, Motorhead won their only Grammy for covering Metallica. These days, Metallica have nothing to do with what’s going on in metal at large. They’re an arena rock band, and one who will always be remembered for doing their best to kill free music sharing in its infancy. Even they didn’t remember Jeff Hanneman, even though Metallica and Slayer are always the first two names in thrash’s Big Four. Kirk Hammett wore a shirt featuring Lou Reed, with whom Metallica collaborated on what was considered maybe the shittiest album of 2011 (the band then played “One”, their first Grammy-winning track, rather than any of their new material. It was a circle jerk).

To be fair, Hanneman was not the only musician slighted in the Grammys’ ‘In Memoriam.’ Former Iron Maiden drummer Clive Burr was also omitted, as was famed DJ Kidd Kraddick. Even Cory Montieth, whose most famed musical accomplishment was singing other people’s songs on a Fox teen drama, had his memory spat on when his name was misspelled. But this only makes the whole fiasco worse. Either the Academy gave so few shits about these dead musicians that they assigned some half-competent intern to design this graphic, or they just didn’t think anyone cared that much about their memories being honored to notice that they didn’t do their fucking homework. Both options are repulsive, and basically boil down to the same thing, which is that dead musicians who don’t have catalogues worth pimping out aren’t important to them.

Slayer is important to me. Slayer has been my favorite band since I first heard South of Heaven at summer camp when I was 14. They opened my eyes to the majority of my favorite music today. Not just metal, mind you: Slayer were more than that, the biggest band your parents had ever heard of, a gateway to the lesser-known spheres of any genre. Jeff Hanneman’s music has helped me in more ways than I can count, and has guided me through some of the toughest times in my life. His passing was, and is, greatly affecting to me; it has changed how I consider the band I’ve loved more than any other, and has resulted in a lot of soul-searching and sadness on my part. Sunday night, the music industry made it clear: they couldn’t give a rat’s ass about him, or, honestly, me.

Once again: is that surprising? Eh. The musicians who are most important to me are small-time guys from Arizona and Norway. They’re incredible artists, with tons of strength and vision, but that means nothing to the dickheads still clinging to the rapidly-fading idea that being a big label means anything. So no, not that surprising. But is it awful? Absolutely. These monumental assholes don’t give a goddamn shit about music unless it fills their coffers.

Jeff Hanneman remembered that his whole career. And that’s why they forgot him.

Christopher Krovatin is on Twitter. Follow him - @ChrisKrovatin