Gary Holt has made it clear that he is not part of the new project led by SLAYER‘s founding guitarist Kerry King. According to Holt, he is too busy with his own commitments to be involved with Kerry King‘s new band.
EXODUS guitarist, who toured with SLAYER for nearly nine years, addressed a question about Kerry‘s new band at a pre-concert meet-and-greet before EXODUS‘s November 17 performance at Club L.A. in Destin, Florida.
Gary reportedly told MJ Tibbedeaux at the event: “I’m not involved. I haven’t heard anything written. I haven’t heard anything recorded. I’m not part of it. I’m too busy.”
In an interview Australia’s Riff Crew back in 2020, SLAYER drummer Paul Bostaph has confirmed to be working on a new musical project with Kerry King.
When asked to describe the musical direction of the music he has been working on with the founding SLAYER guitarist, Bostaph responded: “I guess the best way to put it is Kerry writes what he writes. Is this gonna be a rock and roll record? No. Is it gonna be what you want it to be? Yes. Is it gonna be what you expect it to be? Yes. It’s not gonna be some rehashed stuff…
“It’s gonna sound like SLAYER without it being SLAYER — but not intentionally so. I mean, Kerry‘s been writing songs in SLAYER his entire career, and he has a style. And that style, as a songwriter, you just don’t change your style because your band is done. But that’s what you love to write.
“Are things gonna maybe morph over time? Yeah. I would imagine so. I don’t think the first song Kerry wrote as a kid is the same as the last song he wrote for [SLAYER‘s final album, 2015’s] Repentless. Songwriters do change over time based on their influences and how they feel at the time.
“Kerry‘s on fire right now,” he continued. “So, all I can say is if you like heavy music and you like SLAYER, you’ll like this. Is it gonna be SLAYER? It’s not gonna be SLAYER — SLAYER is done. They retired.
“The thing about it is that we don’t wanna sound like ‘Baby SLAYER,’ you know what I mean? There is SLAYER. But it’s gonna be good — it’s gonna be really good. I’ve been listening to the music and I just cannot wait to get into the room and start jamming with Kerry.
“Part of it for me is that I don’t have to… And this is not an insult; it’s definitely a compliment… I don’t have to drum under the show of Dave‘s [Lombardo] drumming badassery,” Bostaph added. “That’s a good thing to do, but I might be able to stretch out a little bit and do some things that I like to do and still make it fit within the framework of what we’re doing. I’m looking forward to trying some things that I’ve wanted to try within SLAYER but couldn’t, just because I didn’t have it developed well enough. And we’ll see if I can make some of that stick in some of the new music.”
Kerry King has recently announced first show with his new band and it will take place at Welcome To Rockville in Daytona Beach, Florida on May 9-12, 2024.
SLAYER played its final show of their farewell tour in November 2019 at the Forum in Los Angeles. One day later, Kerry King‘s wife, Ayesha King, said that there is “not a chance in hell” that the thrash metal icons will reunite for more shows.
