THE BEAST

During an appearance on the No Fuckin' Regrets Podcast hosted by Machine Head frontman Robb Flynn, Exodus guitarist Gary Holt looked back on auditioning for Machine Head, a band whose work was strongly influenced by his music.

"You actually tried out for Machine Head," Flynn said, adding, "This was after Logan [Mader, guitar] left [in 1998], you came down and tried out." Gary then said (transcribed by UG):

"It would've been a bad fit. At the time I was like, 'Alright, let's try that.' I mean, I thought I nailed fucking all, killed it.

"I remember 'Ten Ton Hammer.' I forgot to tune that G string back - because you tune it up that quarter-step, and I was like, 'Why is that out of tune? Oh yeah, it's the fucking Machine Head wacky tuning shit.'"

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I think for me, it was like, 'This dude shaped so much of my guitar playing, this dude needs to be in Exodus and not doing jack shit in fucking Machine Head.' I walked away and went, 'He needs to go fucking Exodus going again.' [Laughs]
"At that time, that era of Machine Head, there wasn't nearly enough soloing that would ever make me happy, you know?

"Not that you guys can't shred quite a bit, but then, like, 'Where's the solos?'. I was glad I did it, it was fun."

Somewhere in there, I know you guys reunited with Zetro now [in 2002], is this after Paul [Baloff] passed away [in February 2002]?
"After Paul passed away, we had two shows booked, two nights in some club in Southern California prior to Paul passing away, and it just so happened Zetro had a Disneyland vacation down in Southern California.

"So I called him up, and he said, 'Yeah, I'll do it.' And it was killer. We gave him another try, things got serious once I got sober, as far as the drugs... because I couldn't write until I got clean.

"And then, like, I'm writing riffs in my sleep. So Zetro and I, we kind-of bonded, 'No matter what happens, we're gonna stick together on this.' And it just didn't last, some of the same old problems, so that just didn't work that time."

Via UG