METAL HELL: How’s everything?

GARY HOLT: Good, we’ve been busy. We’ve been on a tour for close to a year now & this tour has been fucking great. I’m having a really good time. After this tour is done we’re home for like 2 weeks & then we go to Europe for 1 final headlining run & then we’re home for the holidays & then we’ll get started on the next album. We’re all really excited about the next one. Lee & I both have been working on some stuff. It’s gonna be heavy as fuck, that’s for sure. It’s hard to even describe the material it’s so heavy & it’s fast.

MH: How would you compare jamming with Lee to Rick?

GH: Well Lee has been one of my best friends for almost as long as I’ve known Rick. There’s already chemistry there just based on friendship. Lee’s just one of the best guitar players in the world. He’s also one of the best rhythm guitar players in the world, something Rick wasn’t. Now live it’s just so tight it’s not even funny.

MH: Do you write on the road at all?

GH: We try to, in between bouts of binge drinking, but we’ve actually been getting some work done too.

MH: How would you compare your style to Lee’s?

GH: Lee is more of a melody guy. I have my moments but I kind of banshee out, we’ve got the same influences but Lee puts a little more of his Ulrich Roth influences into the solos.

MH: What guitars & amps are you using lately?

GH: Lee & I both use Peavey triple X heads. He uses Boogie cabs, I use Peavey cabs & he plays an ESP. I play Bernie Binco Juniors. We just start from the ground up & work until it’s crushing enough.

MH: What inspired the classical intro to “No Love”?

GH: It’s hard to say, “No Love” was just this little classical thing I wrote & everybody wanted to use it as an intro to the song & we did. It’s pretty well known now, the piece. They know it’s coming.

MH: How does it feel to look back at Bonded By Blood from 2006?

GH: It’s hard to believe that it had such an impact cause we were just a bunch of kids making what we believed was gonna be a killer album. We didn’t know that 21 years later people would be citing it as one of their primary influences to what they’re doing. It was just a bunch of kids who didn’t know what they were doing.

MH: Do you think there was an element to that album that couldn’t be re-captured?

GH: I still think we do because we still love playing this style of metal as much as we did then.

MH: Paul Baloff’s performance on that was insane.

GH: Well Paul was insane!

MH: Was the fun vibe on Fabulous Disaster intentional at all?

GH: Yeah, cause we were having a lot of fun but now I’m miserable & angry all the time so (laughing), I’m always in a good mood but musically I like my anger level up.

MH: How do you rate Impact Is Imminent & Force Of Habit?

GH: I think Impact is the greatest collection of riffs this band’s ever written.  I think timing wise it was bad, you had the whole grunge thing come along & people were expecting more radio friendly stuff & we made a really brutal album. I think that album would have done a lot better in 2006 than it did in ’91. You look at bands nowadays with downloading & stuff nobody sells the albums they used to. If it came out right now & did the same business it would have us in the top 20 of Billboard. It sold 150,000 albums & it’s been out of print for years. No one could for-see what was gonna happen to the industry.

MH: Did you get any flack for covering “Bitch”?

GH: No, I love the Stones. I love it. I thought it came out great. It wasn’t what most people expected out of Exodus but I don’t concern myself with that.

 

MH: Are you doing any covers lately?

GH: We do B-sides for Japan because the cost of albums over there is a lot greater so you give them bonus stuff to give ‘em an incentive to buy it & not mail order it. That’s why everybody does bonus tracks in Japan. On the last album, Shovel Headed Kill Machine, we did a Sex Pistols song for ‘em, “Problems.”

MH: Who are your favorite guitar players these days?

GH: My favorites have always been my long standing favorites; Richie Blackmore, Michael Schenker, Uli Roth, Ted Nugent, Frank Marino & shit like that.

MH: Do you listen to new albums from bands like Venom & Celtic Frost?

GH: I have the new Venom, the first song I thought was really good but I’m so busy I never got to finish listening to it. I heard the Celtic Frost last November. I thought it was great & I thought people looking for To Mega Therion part 2 were gonna be disappointed. It’s very goth metal.

MH: When you realized there wasn’t much money to be made in extreme metal did that change your outlook at all?

GH: No, I just do what I do. I make a living doing it, I don’t have to work when I go home but it’s a struggle sometimes. It’s feast or famine.

MH: How would you compare the early chemistry with Kirk Hammett on guitar to how it was with Rick?

GH: Well Kirk & I were best friends when we were in the band together but I was only in the band for a short time (with Kirk) & I was in the band for years & years with Rick so obviously the chemistry was greater with Rick. Kirk was very influenced by Maiden & stuff like that (at that time).

MH: Were any of Kirk’s parts used on the first album?

GH: No, he never wrote a note of any of that.

MH: You wrote part of “Creeping Death” right?

GH: Well they stole it yeah, from “Dying By His Hand.” It was Kirk’s riff but it was my lyric, so they probably owe me about a million dollars but I’m not holding my breath.

MH: What do you think is the key to a long lasting creative relationship?

GH: Friendship, respect, you’ve got to enjoy each others company, otherwise you’re gonna be miserable out on tour.

MH: Did losing Paul Baloff make you look at life any differently?

GH: Well it made me clean myself up off of drugs, that’s one thing. It was a wake up call.

MH: Are there any plans for a new DVD?

GH: We’ve got some DVD plans coming up, like a historical view of the band from the beginning to the present.