EXODUS Guitarist: 'The New Stuff Goes Over Every Bit As Well As The Old Stuff'

David E. Gehlke of Blistering.com recently conducted an interview with guitarist Gary Holt of San Francisco Bay Area thrashers EXODUS. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Blistering.com: I saw you on the recent MEGADETH tour and the set was loaded with songs from "Bonded By Blood", but is the temptation there to start putting in more recent songs?

Holt: Toward the end we started putting in newer songs in the set because we were bored. Not like playing the old songs is boring. At first, we just joined in with the spirit of the tour with TESTAMENT playing "The Legacy" in its entirety and MEGADETH with the 20th anniversary of "Rust In Peace", but we said "Fuck it." Let's put "Iconoclasm" in the set. It goes over great live. The new stuff goes over every bit as well as the old stuff. Toward the end, it was predominantly older songs, but we started to spice it up a bit.

Blistering.com: Onto "Exhibit B". It's still early to decide, but which one is better: "Exhibit A" or "Exhibit B"?

Holt: That's hard to say, because I love "Exhibit A". I think they're both very different. "Exhibit A" is a little more progressive; "Exhibit B" has more of that earlier edge to it. Right now, I'm chomping at the bit to play some of the new stuff live. Right now, I'm leaning toward "Exhibit B", it's a more complete album front-to-back. Then again, I think every new album is. And that's always the goal — to top your last album. We don't go to the studio and say, "Let's make an album that's almost as good as the last one." [laughs].

Blistering.com: Another cool thing about the new album is that you've tacked on some melodies in the opening track and "Downfall".

Holt: They really didn't come from anywhere. Everything we do is an organic process. I write the same way I wrote when I did "Bonded By Blood". I don't home-record this shit, but I record so I don't forget shit [laughs]. I'm trying to avoid that nightmare of writing a killer riff and coming back a few hours later and it's never the same riff again. A lot of the earlier stuff in the band had melody, but I think a lot of now has to do with the time spent with Lee [Altus, guitar]. We do more duel-guitar stuff live.

Blistering.com: I know we talked about you and Lee doing a lot of twin-guitar stuff, but if you can, compare Lee with Rick [Hunolt, ex-guitarist].

Holt: Rick was a giant, a giant as a musician. He's a phenomenal keyboardist, amazing on funk bass. You should see the guy! Lee is an amazing lead guitarist and has come into his own, like nobody's business on the new album. With Lee, what comes through live is that he's a phenomenal rhythm guitar player where Rick wasn't. Lee's a lot more accurate. The mix live is not favored to one guitar to the left [where Holt stands] like it used to be. There's more balance, so it's a wall of thunder. Rick was so awesome, just a madman onstage. He's one of the best lead guitarists ever — he just ripped at the stuff. I used to watch him play and go, "Man, that's so good."

Read the entire interview at Blistering.com.