In a new interview with Shawn Ratches of Laughingmonkeymusic, EXODUS guitarist and main songwriter Gary Holt spoke about the various guitar-related injuries he has sustained over the course of playing the instrument for more than four decades. The 60-year-old San Francisco Bay Area-based musician said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): ”You get 60 years old, you’re dealing with arthritis and your fingers hurt. And I had to go through personal therapy for my elbows. I had chronic tennis elbow in both arms. I had so many cortisone injections I can’t count and I basically fried and shredded my tendons and I couldn’t even play at all.”
Asked when this happened, Holt said: “Well, it was during [my years of touring with] SLAYER, before the end. I just started developing some right-elbow pain, and then shortly after, the left elbow decided it wanted to join the party. And I got a cortisone injection. That was great for six months. And then, fast forward a couple of years of that, every six months getting a needle stuck in each elbow to keep it going, and then finally, it got so bad by the time I finished [recording EXODUS‘s latest album, 2021’s] ‘Persona Non Grata’ and after tracking [the song] ‘The Beatings Will Continue’, that’s when I kind of blew out the right one. And then I’d play and my elbows would lock up, like they’d almost get stuck. And I went and got MRIs. And I have a friend who’s a San Francisco Giants team hand surgeon, and he looked at my MRIs and said I look like someone who’s been throwing 99-miles-an-hour fastballs for fucking their whole life, like shredding. And it looked initially like I needed Tommy John surgery [which involves replacing the torn ligament with a tendon from elsewhere in the body or from the cadaver], where they fucking replace the cadaverous things in there. But then he sent them to their elbow guy, and he said, ‘No, he can avoid surgery, but he needs never again cortisone shots and just physical therapy.’ So I did a lot of work with one-pound weights and stuff. And I got back. Occasionally I’ll get a little tender, but you put a bag of ice on it. Don’t put a needle in it… I keep stretching. You’ve gotta do all this shit to stretch that fascia that runs through everything. And my fingers, my left knuckles sometimes really hurt. It’s getting old. We’ve been repetitive motion injuries our whole lives, basically.”
Holt went on to say that even guitarists who are considered the masters of downpicking — like METALLICA frontman James Hetfield — “cheat” at those parts. “We all cheat,” he said. “We’re fucking 60 years old. I also say James is the undisputed GOAT, he’s the greatest of all time, and even he cheats live.”
He explained: “James is still the best ever, but you watch that middle downpick section in ‘[Welcome Home] (Sanitarium)’, which is just brutal, and they add some chunks in there, and those chunks give you all the break you need to keep going. It’s a cheat. It doesn’t mean he’s not the best.”
Holt previously discussed his picking-hand technique, in particular the downpicking technique that helped define thrash metal as a genre, during a July 2023 question-and-answer session at Diablo Guitars in Seattle. He said at the time: “Right-hand picking, it’s an art form. It’s more important to me than anything else, [more important than] soloing shit. If someone said, ‘You can play rhythm for the rest of your life or leads and be really good at one and terrible at the other’ — get rid of the solos. I don’t care. It’s all about the riffs.”
He continued: “It’s all about learning how to apply maximum velocity with technique still. And as I get older, things are harder for me to do. I’ve suffered through really horrific tennis elbow on both arms, like countless cortisone injections and arthritis and all that. So certain things are slow, but you learn to cheat.”
Holt added: “Everybody cheats — even Hetfield cheats, and he’s the best of all time. When you see a guy in the middle of a downpick, baddest riff ever, and he throws in one of these [slides down the fretboard], sometimes that’s the reset. That’s all you need. We all cheat. And he’s the best that ever lived to do it. And he sings at the same time, which is fucking ridiculous. I can’t sing and play at all. Not at all. I mean, I’d lose it. One of ’em’s gotta go.”
Circling back to his own “cheating” with downpicking, Holt said, “But my cheat is like a down-up-down-down… And that little up and down, also live, allows me to rock really hard when I do it. If I wanna really just all downpick a part, sometimes I’ve gotta, like, kind of not move too much. And I’d rather move.”
Last month it was announced that EXODUS had parted ways with singer Steve “Zetro” Souza and had been rejoined by Rob Dukes.
Souza joined EXODUS in 1986 after previously fronting the band LEGACY (which later became TESTAMENT). He remained in the band until their hiatus in 1993, but rejoined them for two years from 2002 to 2004. Dukes had joined EXODUS in 2005 (following Souza‘s departure) and remained until 2014, when Souza rejoined.
Dukes joined EXODUS in January 2005 and appeared on four of the band’s studio albums — “Shovel Headed Kill Machine” (2005),“The Atrocity Exhibition… Exhibit A” (2007),“Let There Be Blood” (2008, a re-recording of EXODUS‘s classic 1985 LP, “Bonded By Blood”) and “Exhibit B: The Human Condition” (2010).
EXODUS recently announced two very special “Bonded By Blood” 40th-anniversary shows, falling upon late original vocalist Paul Baloff‘s birthday weekend (April 25). Taking place in Berkeley, California on Friday, April 25 at UC Theatre and Anaheim, California on Saturday, April 26 at House of Blues, the shows will feature EXODUS performing “Bonded By Blood” in its entirety, plus more hits, and each show will feature direct support from DEATH ANGEL. BLIND ILLUSION and NUKEM will open the Berkeley date, and HIRAX and NUKEM will open the Anaheim date. Special-edition “Bonded By Blood” merchandise will also be available.
Although EXODUS rarely gets mentioned alongside the so-called “Big Four” of 1980s thrash metal — METALLICA, MEGADETH, SLAYER and ANTHRAX — the aforementioned “Bonded By Blood” LP inspired the likes of TESTAMENT, DEATH ANGEL, VIO-LENCE and many others to launch their careers and is considered one of the most influential thrash metal albums of all time.
Hachette Books has set an April 1, 2025 release date for Holt‘s upcoming memoir, “A Fabulous Disaster: From The Garage To Madison Square Garden, The Hard Way”. The foreword for the book was written by former EXODUS and current METALLICA guitarist Kirk Hammett.
Holt joined EXODUS in 1981, shortly after the band’s formation, and has been the group’s main songwriter ever since. Holt has performed on every EXODUS album, and is considered highly influential in the world of thrash metal.
Holt began filling in for SLAYER guitarist Jeff Hanneman at live shows in 2011, and became the band’s full-time co-guitarist as of 2013, while remaining a member of EXODUS. Holt played on SLAYER‘s final album, “Repentless”, which came out in 2015.
Source: blabbermouth.net
