Kerry King of Slayer spoke with Spotlight Report about why he decided not to invite Gary Holt to join his solo band.
“I always thought Gary would move on with me but the closer it came to actual being, like, ‘Man, that’s three-fourths of Slayer and that’s too much.’ It’s too much,” King explained. “People already compare me to Slayer righteously because I come from there, but if I had three of the four it wouldn’t have worked. I knew I had to have Paul [Bostaph] because Paul and I work real well together.”
The rocker continued: “So I just wanted to get somebody that had the same pedigree and turned out [that] Phil had left Machine Head and came in and filled in four shows for Slayer when we were in Europe in 2018. He basically told me he wanted to be a part of my future. So that’s pretty much the last [time] we spoke about it and just waited for pieces to fall into place.”
King’s solo album ‘From Hell I Rise’ was released in May this year, and he almost invited Holt to record it. For the project, King recruited Death Angel vocalist Mark Osegueda, former Slayer drummer Paul Bostaph, former Vio-Lence and Machine Head guitarist Phil Demmel, and former Hellyeah bassist Kyle Sanders.
In another interview, King explained why Holt did not make the lineup. “I started to realise that the more pieces I take from Slayer, the more it’s gonna be called ‘Slayer Lite.’ I mean, of course it’s gonna sound like Slayer; I wrote 90 percent of the last record. But if I take less with me from Slayer, there’ll be less for people to stand on, as far as making lazy comparisons.”
He added: “If I had to do Slayer over again after [Jeff] Hanneman [who died in 2013], 110 times out of a 100, I would pick Gary Holt. He was the right guy. But the perception of people, it weighs on me, and I don’t want to deal with that.”
He also added that he already had a member from Slayer, and Phil Demmel impressed him when he learned about 20 songs on short notice.
