Greg Prato, reporting for Ultimate-Guitar.com:
For Exodus guitarist Gary Holt, joining Slayer was not just a huge honor but also the perfect fit for his playing skills. After Jeff Hanneman was forced to step aside from Slayer’s touring duties in 2013 and tragically passed away that same year, Holt became an official member and is once again playing with Slayer at festival shows.
Right before the kick-off of the Exodus tour early this month, we sat down for an interview with Gary Holt, where he recalled some of the hecklers at Slayer shows who, for whatever reason, weren’t thrilled to see him in place of Jeff Hanneman.
Asked if Slayer fans are really as ruthless as some people say they are, Holt reveals: “In all the countless shows I did, I’ve only had two hecklers. Two hecklers that I noticed. Most people looked at my participation like this: ‘Get well soon, Jeff,’ which is how I looked at it, too. ‘But while this is available to me, this is cool. I’ve watched Slayer and Gary Holt play together. Let’s check this out. This is going to be awesome.’
“And I had two genuine hecklers, one in Germany, this guy with this awful skullet. He was down there, like, flipping me off the whole show. And usually, I’m super thick-skinned — this doesn’t bother me. But I sent a production manager down, and he was on the radio, and they were about to throw the guy out because he was starting to fuck up my show. And then the guy realized that, and he booked.
“But you know, dude, you know this wasn’t a surprise fill-in. You knew before tickets went on sale, you still bought the fuckin’ ticket. So, why are you here if it’s that bad?
“And then we played a show in Milan [Italy], and they had a guy front row, dead center stage, just screaming ‘Fuck you!’ at me, the whole show. And at that one, I jumped down on the subwoofers at the end of the show, like a foot from his face, and asked if he had anything to say now. And he didn’t.
“He was pissing me off. Younger me might have thrown a punch. [Laughs] He was stuck. There was nowhere he could have gone. You know, 5,000 people behind him. But he had to get front row to make his thoughts known.
“You paid for the ticket. You’re a fuckin’ moron if you hate it that much. But two people out of, like, countless shows. That’s a pretty good track record, I guess.”
Read more, including what Holt remembers about his first show playing for Slayer, at Ultimate-Guitar.com.
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