Speed-Metalists Slayer Still Rocking Against the Grain

“Baa, baa.”

Jeff Hanneman, guitarist for the Los Angeles speed-metal band Slayer, is sitting in a fast-food restaurant imitating the sound of barnyard animals.

On a break from final production work on the group’s coming album, he’s talking about the “sheep factor” in pop music--the reason, he feels, for the enormous popularity of such polite, quasi-heavy metal rock acts as Bon Jovi and Whitesnake.

“People get into those bands because it’s what they hear on the radio every day and because everyone else seems to like it,” Hanneman, 23, says disdainfully. “That’s a whole different world to me. Rock ‘n’ roll was never supposed to be polite.

“Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith weren’t polite. They were against the grain in (their day). And that’s what we want our music to be: rude, aggressive . . . like real life.”

No one has mistaken Slayer’s music for polite.

The L.A. quartet’s last album, 1986’s controversial “Reign in Blood” on Def Jam Records, became a cause celebre when Columbia Records refused to even release the LP, even though Columbia has distributed such other controversial Def Jam albums as the Beastie Boys’ “Licensed to Ill.” Among the recurring themes in Slayer’s album: sadism, satanism and death.

Though Columbia hasn’t commented publicly on its reasons for divorcing itself from Slayer, industry insiders speculated at the time that the company was uneasy about an album with such song titles as “Necrophobic” and “Raining Blood” at a time when the record business was under attack by parent groups.

The album was eventually released by Geffen Records and climbed to No. 94 on the national pop charts--despite almost no air play on rock radio stations.

The question as Slayer returned to the studio last month in Los Angeles with producer Rick Rubin (who also worked with the Beastie Boys) was whether the band--now that it has attracted so much attention--will follow the path of so many heavy-metal bands and tone down its music in hopes of picking up some radio air play, the key to wider sales.

After all, Slayer’s one foray into the rock mainstream--a remake of Iron Butterfly’s “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida” on last year’s “Less Than Zero” sound-track album--did get some radio exposure around the country, though it was the Bangles’ winsome version of “Hazy Shade of Winter” that turned the LP into a best seller.

Hanneman, however, denies that there’s any retreat in the new album, titled “South of Heaven” and due in stores July 12.

“I’d like to think we will get more air play with this album, but I’m not counting on it because it has the same attitude and lyrics,” Hanneman explains.

“We write the songs that we do because that’s what we like. But they are just stories--not things we actually do or recommend anyone else go out and do.

“Take the song ‘Piece by Piece,’ about chopping up somebody. To us, it’s like a horror movie. It’s fun because (the songs and movies) shock you. The kids get into it on the same level we do. They know it is just a story and just fun.”

But what about “Angel of Death,” a song about Nazi death camps that reportedly led some pop journalists in Europe to accuse the group of being fascist.

Replies Hanneman, who wrote the song: “I’m into German history and Nazi Germany. . . . It fascinates me. It’s not that I am one of them or that it’s a sympathetic song. It’s more like a documentary.”

Slayer bassist Tom Araya, who was in town to work with Rubin and Hanneman on the final album mixes, says the controversy over the band--especially in England--bothered him at first, but he has adjusted to it.

“We’ve always been outsiders,” says Araya, 27. “I remember the first review we ever got in L.A. They said it was the w-o-r-s-t. I felt really bad. But then I thought, ‘Who cares what they say--as long as we like what we’re doing and fans come to the shows?’

“In England, I did an interview with one writer and he brought up the fact that I was (born in) Chile and he wanted to know what my politics were and I said, ‘There aren’t any politics in the band.’ ”

Smiling, Araya adds: “He looked at me for a while, and I decided to have some fun. I told him, ‘We just write songs that disgust people.’ ”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Asked in the June issue of England’s Q magazine about continuing complaints by critics that he changes musical styles too much, Neil Young replied: “If Neil Young did do the same thing over and over again and wasn’t a weirdo, then the critics would be going, ‘Oh, Neil Young, he’s so boring.’ You can’t win. One week, I’m a jerk, the next I’m a genius.”

LIVE ACTION: Barry Manilow will be at the Greek Theatre on Sept. 15, 16 and 19, and at the Pacific Amphitheatre on Sept. 23. Tickets for both shows go on sale Monday. . . . Emmylou Harris will be at the Universal Amphitheatre July 24, and Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens will be there July 30 with K.D. Lang. Tickets go on sale Sunday. . . . Tickets also go on sale Sunday for George Thorogood’s July 28 appearance at the Long Beach Arena. . . . Megadeth will headline the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on July 2. . . . Loudon Wainwright III returns to McCabe’s on June 24.