Jeff Hanneman
Jeff Hanneman (born January 31, 1964, Oakland, California USA) is best known as a guitarist of the thrash metal band Slayer and as the primary author of Slayer's classic song Angel of Death: arguably one of the most famous thrash metal songs in existence. Hanneman also wrote the music for many of Slayer's classic songs such as 'South of Heaven', 'War Ensemble' and 'Seasons in the Abyss'. Slayer's later albums became dominated by Hanneman's song-writing, forming a music/lyrics writing partnership with Tom Araya, which can sometimes over-shadow the creative input of Kerry King into the band. Jeff Hanneman is also a fan of punk-rock music which ultimately led to Slayer's "Undisputed Attitude" album.
Hanneman has long had an interest in Nazi Germany and Nazi war medals. Many people have unfortunately taken this to be evidence to believe that Hanneman as well as the rest of Slayer were Nazis. The song, Angel of Death is based on Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor who committed horrifying and often pointless experiments on prisoners of the concentration camps in Auschwitz.
Hanneman uses Marshall amps, Jackson guitars, Kahler bridges and his own ESP signature guitar.
Contrary to popular belief, Joey Fuchs from the ill-fated american band Killallhumans (featuring John Araya) is not Hanneman's brother (see [1] and [2]). Hanneman and Fuchs were joking when they claimed to be brothers. Hannemans' guitar playing is often overlooked by metal guitar practitioners due to the being the rhythm player in Slayer. However, he is a very fast and a solid guitar player who has never been able to shine.