What would late Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman have thought of Kerry King’s new album? “He would have ****ing loved it”

Kerry King says his late Slayer bandmate Jeff Hanneman would have approved of his new solo album, From Hell I Rise.

Speaking in the brand new issue of Classic Rock, King says: “I did think of that when I was doing this record. And I thought to myself, ‘Jeff would fucking love this album – there’s plenty of anti-religious stuff on there, there’s plenty of war stuff, there’s plenty of hate.’ He would have dug it.”

The guitarist’s first album since Slayer originally split in 2019, From Hell I Rise is released on May 17 and sees King joined by ex-Machine Head/Vio-lence guitarist Phil Demmell, former Hellyeah bassist Kyle Sanders and Slayer drummer Paul Bostaph, as well as Death Angel vocalist Mark Osgueda.

Asked if he was tempted to sing himself, King says: “I have conviction but I don’t have great pipes. If it had have worked out to where I had to be the singer, I could have done it, but I can’t sing and play either, so that would have a big problem.

I did do scratch [rough] vocals [on the demos], so if Mark had said, ‘Hey, why don’t we both sing this part’, I might have said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ It would have been two pissed-off, angry guys fucking screaming away.”

King announced the release of From Hell I Rise before it was revealed that Slayer were reuniting to play three US festivals later this year. In an interview in Classic Rock’s sister magazine, Metal Hammer, King insists that the reunion “is not going to translate into recording and it's not going to translate into touring. For me, it's three shows marking five years since our final shows, a fun, 'Hey, remember us from before the pandemic?' celebration.”

Read the full interview with Kerry King in the brand new issue of Classic Rock, on sale now. Order it online and have it delivered straight to your door.