Testament‘s drummer Gene Hoglan, one more for the right and healthy diet, told Metal Messiah how he gets in shape and his healthy habits.
“I keep myself in shape by not touring. [Laughs] I have so much discipline throughout all my life. I don’t drink. I don’t do a lot of stuff, but I tell you, those endless pizzas that you get as after-show food, and things like that…
“And when you’re on a killer Slayer tour and there’s killer catering, you see all these guys getting salads, and it’s like, ‘Look at all that meat right there! Holy moly!’ I tend to fluff up a little bit on tour, but when I’m off tour, my wife Laura is such a health advocate that I’ve completely absorbed that.
“I’ve expressed this many times to many people, that I intend to be playing brutal thrash metal, hauling double bass deep into my 70s – like, no problem. So I’m preparing for that.
“I’m 51 now, and I look and feel better than I did 25 years ago. I’m 51, [but] I feel 27. I’ve lost 160 pounds from my largest size.
“I figure I can get away with this carriage that I have at 51, but in my 70s, maybe I can’t get away with looking like this in 20 years from now, so it’s my intent to be this cut, ripped, 70-year-old dude, hauling the double bass and just crushing the drums.
“So I figure I’ll be cut, I’ll be ripped, I’ll be super-duper in shape and then, when I’m 70, I might feel like I’m 22. Right now, I feel 27. Laura does not believe in aging, and if you look at her, she’s a baby.
“And I have a baby face, but I’m able to hide it behind shades and goatees and hair and stuff like that, but I have a total babyface, and I’m gonna have this baby face when I’m 70. I don’t have any wrinkles. And I smoke. That’s my one gnarly non-health thing, but I quit all the other junk.
“I don’t eat a lot of junk food. I eat a lot of salads. But I don’t have any wrinkles. I’m looking decent. I feel better than ever. I’m working out. And all of this is in order to maintain my lifestyle of being a touring, wielding, dominating musician in my 70s, in my 80s. So, that’s not gonna be a problem at all.”
Asked on what he misses about the early days of Dark Angel and Death, Gene replied:
“There was a lot of innocence. There was a lot of flying by the seat of the pants. We had no idea what we were doing back in the early thrash days, like, back before there were albums coming out from all these bands.
“Back when thrash was forming, back in ’83, ’84, in LA, and through ’85 and even ’86, there was no scene. There was no, ‘Wow, we have this great scene that we’re all involved with.’ There was no scene in ’83, ’84, ’85. There wasn’t.
“There was a handful of metal bands that would show up to shows, and then that started growing. You might be able to have upwards a couple of thousand fans at your shows. And these are including the same fans that were there a year ago when you were playing in front of 30 people.
“Now it’s grown a little bit. Just having that sort of innocence and not having any… There was no business plan. There was no long-term anything back then. We had no idea how long we were gonna last.
“I always had a feeling that I would be… I always knew I would be involved in the music scene, involved in the metal scene, playing drums for a bunch of different bands — I always felt that. But that doesn’t mean everybody else was able to do that.
“I suppose there’s just that innocence that you might look back fondly on. Like, ‘Boy, we sure did not have any clue what we were doing, but something came out of it.’ Now, when you go and do a tour, you know exactly what you’re doing.
“You know what you’re gonna make. You know what problems are going to arise and all that sort of thing. And back then, we learned as we went.”
