Jeff Hanneman Quotes

I've always liked music that has a darker vein to it. I come from such a safe upbringing - very stable, classic family, everything's nice and good - I was always looking for something different.

My tastes lean toward the more negative, angry and eclectic.

I think rock should always stay a little bit outside the pale; I think it should remain a little bit dangerous - a little bit ornery, as the Americans say.

I love things that people hate. I hate middle-of-the-road stuff. It never really interests me.

I like to shock people.

When you're thirteen and listening to punk, the aggressive nature of music can sway you to the dark side.

To me, rock music was never meant to be safe. I think there needs to be an element of intrigue, mystery, subversiveness. Your parents should hate it.

The biggest misconception about me is the bad-boy image that everyone stuck me into due to my tattoos, drug days and the constant changes I make with my hair color.

I hate the word 'hippy'. I hate a lot of people, and hippies don't do that!

I've always been attracted to things that are taboo. I've never been afraid to go to that dark place.

My whole life is punk.

It was not a good thing in my family to be a 'personality.'

I'm like a renegade and that rubs people wrong.

I did what I did. I went against the grain. And I understand that I would be criticized. Those were all choices.

You can't be a punk all your life.

I tend to be attracted to material that has a tough edge to it - darker material.

I was anti-conformist.

We don't want to be the standard thing. We're more interested in having people hate us than glaze over us. We'd rather have a reaction than be in the middle.

My attraction to the Church of Satan... is the same thing that initially attracted me to punk rock. It was something that wasn't very entirely popular, and it was sort of like the adversary to mainstream culture and beliefs.

I remember at school one day there was a vocabulary list on the chalkboard, and the word 'nonconformist' was on there, and it said, 'Someone that doesn't appeal to society, someone who doesn't fit in.' We had this whole conversation about it, and I realized it cohered to the punk-rock world that I was into.

We want people to know they shouldn't feel like social pariahs just because they want to dress differently or listen to rock n' roll.

I've been anything but an establishment kind of guy.

I don't see it as a bad thing that I surround myself with edgy people. Because they're interesting.

I mean, maybe I'm alternative in that my stuff's not mainstream, doesn't want to be mainstream, could never be mainstream.

We're a band that's never been okay with the status quo. In a way, it's allowed us to be more open and confrontational in our music.