Kerry King has revealed that late Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman "wanted nothing more than to come back" to the band before his tragic death due to liver failure.
Speaking with Metal Hammer about the 10-year anniversary of his late bandmate's passing in May 2013, King shed a bit more light on the circumstances surrounding Hanneman's place in the band during his final days.
Between 2011 and 2013, Hanneman had missed several Slayer tours due to a combination of health issues related to his heavy drinking and a 2011 spider bite that had necrotized flesh on one of his arms. Exodus guitarist Gary Holt was filling in for Hanneman during those years, and would ultimately end up taking the co-founding guitarist's place in the band after his death.
However, King now told Metal Hammer that Hanneman, who had been battling alcoholism for years, was actually on the mend during a portion of his time away from the road, and always planned on returning to Slayer once he got better.
"It's crazy because he was actually getting better," King said. "Personally, I think that had he gone forward for a couple more weeks and not been drinking, maybe he would have gotten back to where he needed to be to do an entire Slayer show again. We always thought he would come back. It just never materialized."
"He wanted nothing more than to come back and be onstage and perform," King said elsewhere in the interview. "And he was progressing, but not far enough to where he could nail the fast stuff.
"We were like, 'Listen dude. Everyone wants you to be playing with us, but we gotta have you performing at the level that everybody's used to seeing you at.'"
In 2011, Hanneman returned to the stage to play two songs with Slayer in Indio, California, which sadly ended up being his final performance with the thrash legends.
