“I jumped down at the end of the show and asked if he had anything to say now – he didn’t”: Gary Holt recounts experience with hecklers after he joined Slayer
Most touring musicians who have done so for years will have come up against some unsavoury characters in the front row of their shows, and Slayer guitarist Gary Holt is no different.
As he recalls in a new interview with Ultimate Guitar, when he joined the thrash metal powerhouse in 2011 – replacing founding guitarist Jeff Hanneman – not every fan was thrilled, and a couple even made their feelings known.
READ MORE: “I’m not looking to play it live any time soon!”: The Slayer song even Kerry King is scared of
“In all the countless shows I did, I’ve only had two hecklers. Two hecklers that I noticed,” he recalls. “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.’”
Remembering specific instances of hecklers that he had to deal with during his early shows with Slayer, Holt continues: “I had two genuine hecklers, one in Germany, this guy with this awful skullet. He was down there flipping me off the whole show.
“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 realised 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?”
Holt also remembers an occasion in which he actually confronted another heckler, which led to said heckler capitulating pretty quickly.
“We played a show in Milan, and they had a guy front row, dead centre 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 to the 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.”
Slayer called it quits in 2019, but came back out of retirement this year for two festival appearances at Riot Fest and Aftershock in the US. The band are also booked to play at Louder Than Life festival in 2025.
The post “I jumped down at the end of the show and asked if he had anything to say now – he didn’t”: Gary Holt recounts experience with hecklers after he joined Slayer appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
