Starting to sound like Slayer is dead, at least to me, No Jeff & Dave, no Slayer:
On the health status of SLAYER guitarist Jeff Hanneman, who is still recovering from necrotising fasciitis, a flesh-eating disease, which he is believed to have gotten from a spider bite:
Kerry: "I don't have an update. I haven't seen Jeff in forever. He's always been a recluse, and he's even been more of a recluse since he's not going on tour with us. But our manager talks to him from time to time and sees him in L.A. just randomly. But I'm far from L.A., so I'm not in that loop. But I guess he's just getting better. It's just one of those things where he can do anything in life. He could be hanging here having a good time with us. He can probably play 'South Of Heaven', but he's not gonna be playing 'Jihad', you know what I mean?! So it's just a muscle memory kind of thing, I guess, at this point."
On whether Jeff has been involved in the songwriting process for the new SLAYER album:
Kerry: "It's just all my stuff for now. But I did that just in case, 'cause I don't know what Jeff's intentions are. So I wanted to have SLAYER covered in case he doesn't come to the party. If he comes to the party, then we've got tons of songs."
On whether contingencies have been made in case Jeff doesn't make it back to SLAYER in the near future:
Kerry: "I think Gary [Holt, EXODUS guitarist who has been filling in for Jeff for the past couple of years] is in for the long haul. I haven't really discussed it with him. But he keeps his schedule free when he knows we're on tour. And I'm pretty sure, if Jeff all of a sudden came back in June, we would probably pay Gary for freeing up his time. I don't wanna treat somebody that's bailed us out for two years badly. But if Gary played with us forever? I'm OK with that. But if Jeff got better and said, 'Hey, man, I'm ready to play,' and he came to rehearsal and showed us he was good enough, that's his show."
The whole thing can be found here:
http://www.blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=187872
