Slayer Guitarist Gary Holt Admits Even He Was ‘Surprised’ About The Thrash Band’s Reunion Concerts

In 2024, Slayer rose from the dead and performed a pair of reunion sets at Chicago’s Riot Fest and at Sacramento’s Aftershock festival, but the way guitarist Gary Holt tells it, the band didn’t have those shows planned out “forever,” because even he was “surprised” it happened.

Recently, Holt — who is also the long-time guitarist for Exodus — was a guest on the Talk Is Jericho podcast, and he opened up about what it was like for Slayer to get back together to play after being away for half a decade. “Well, it had been years, but we rehearsed really hard for those shows,” he said. “We put in the effort.”

“I never stopped,” Holt went on to point out, noting, “I was on tour [with Exodus] a month after the final Slayer show. Only the pandemic slowed me down. So, my chops were up. So, it was just refamiliarizing yourself with the material a little bit.”

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When it comes to the notion that Slayer always had a plan to get back together after retiring in 2019, Holt — who joined the band in 2013, after the death of original Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman — refutes those claims and says he was “absolutely” not expecting them to ever play together again.

“People say, ‘Oh, this and that. You planned this all along.’ I’m like, look, I knew a little while before everybody else, but I didn’t know forever,” Holt confessed. “I knew early enough to sit down at home and start studying the songs, ’cause I wanted to be really prepared. But, yeah, I was surprised.”

While he’s transparent about only learning of the Slayer festival reunion shows a short time before they happened, Holt is pretty certain the band had been getting offers for a while. “I’m sure there were offers for the band forever, but they felt like it was time, and I’m more than happy to do it.”

“And at least as of now, the current method, which has been [for Slayer to play] a brief, minor, small little couple of shows [every year], that’s fine because I’m fully committed to Exodus,” he added. “And so it allows me to do that and then go out [with Slayer] and play with fire, which, that shit’s expensive. Exodus does not get pyro.”

Notably, Holt previously spoke with Loudwire and revealed that the band wasn’t exactly full of confidence ahead of their big reunion shows. “We were nervous,” Holt admitted. “Tom [Araya, Slayer bassist/vocalist] was nervous, and he sounded amazing. Sometimes you’ve just gotta forget about the time and how long it’s been and just let muscle memory kick in and just do it.”

He then added, “I mean, I only played one song I’d never played, and that was ‘213’. And ‘Reborn’ I’d only played, I think, once, so that was almost a new song, once or twice. Everything else was just refreshers.”

For those hoping to catch Slayer live this year, there are a handful of opportunities. They’re playing a few shows in the U.K. this summer, Festival d’été de Québec in July, and two U.S. shows: Louder Than Life Fest 2025 and a big show at Hersheypark Stadium. Find all those details here.