Slayer Honored With Polish Traffic Sign ‘Jeff Hanneman’s Circle Pit’
When Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman died of liver failure last year, the band’s fans mourned alongside Slayer’s peers in Megadeth, Black Sabbath, Guns N’ Roses and more. Now, two of the band’s fans have honored the guitarist by renaming a roundabout in the small Polish town of Jaworzno (population: 94,000) after him.
The sign for the newly rechristened “Jeff Hanneman’s Circle Pit” – whose “circle pit” puns off the favored moshing style of Eighties-era metal bands – was erected yesterday, according to Blabbermouth (via CentrumDruku3D.pl). In its English translation, the street sign was subtitled “unforgettable Slayer guitarist.”
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Slayer fans Joannę and Krzysztofa Czuszek bid 15,800 Polish złoty (approximately $5,100) in an auction to rename the intersection. It’s the second time the traffic circle has been renamed, with the roundabout previously called Ronda Smoków, or the equally metal-sounding “Dragons Roundabout.”
The tribute, located one hour west of Krakow, comes one month after Grammy organizers failed to include Hanneman in its “In Memorium” montage.
Slayer guitarist Kerry King recently told Rolling Stone that the band intends to put out some previously unreleased songs that Hanneman wrote before his death. “There was a song left over from the last album that Jeff finished as an afterthought called ‘Piano Wire,'” he said. “It wasn’t on the album because it wasn’t as good as the other songs. I knew Jeff was gonna work on the lyrics and get it done. He was always talking about reworking the song. . . . I know there are two other ones, which are incomplete things, which he had for 15 to 20 years. Those will come out.”
Watch a two-minute video of the sign’s unveiling here.