Slayer guitarist Gary Holt “loves” Taylor Swift.
The thrash metal star would much rather play pop records by the likes of Taylor, Madonna and the late George Michael than listen to heavy metal music.
He confessed on the ‘Scandalous’ podcast: “I love pop!
“I listen to pop mostly in the car, I don’t listen to metal.
“There’s some heavy s*** on [Sirius XM streaming]… but I’d rather listen to George Michael, myself.”
The 60-year-old musician cannot understand why the 34-year-old Grammy winner gets so much “hate”.
He continued: “I love Taylor Swift!
“Why all the hate? She’s an extraordinarily hard worker, she’s super f****** nice to everybody, and people hate her.
“She’s just the biggest pop star on Earth, and more power to her. I like the songs!”
Gary is also a fan of The Queen of Pop herself and would belt out her classic tune ‘Angel’ after one too many drinks – much to the disgust of his tour buddy, Conrad Lant of Venom.
He went on: “I’m not a Swiftie, but when I Knew You Were Trouble comes on the radio, I don’t change it.
“I like it! I like pop music. Always have, even back in the Bonded By Blood era [referring to Exodus’s 1985 debut album].
“I’d be out on tour with Venom, and I’d be drunk at the bar, singing every word to Madonna’s Angel. And Cronos [Venom singer/bassist Conrad Lant] was shaking his head, like, ‘What’s wrong with this guy?!’”
By contrast, Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl recently got himself in hot water with Swifties when he poked fun at her by jokingly suggesting she and her band don’t play live.
Taylor was playing Wembley Stadium as part of ‘The Eras’ tour on the same night the rock group headlined the London Stadium last month and made a joke about the ‘Cruel Summer’ hitmaker to the audience.
He reflected: “We were joking about the Taylor Swift tour earlier. I know that she’s on her ‘Eras Tour’. I’m telling you man; you don’t want to suffer the wrath of Taylor Swift.
“So we like to call our tour the ‘Errors Tour’ because I feel like, we’ve had more than a few eras, and more than a few f****** errors as well. Just a couple. That’s because we actually play live. What?”
He then went on to add: “I’m just saying, you guys like raw, live rock ‘n’ roll music, right? You came to the right f****** place.”
However, Dave did indeed appear to incur Taylor’s “wrath” as she seemingly hit back at his comments the following night when she played her third gig at Wembley Stadium and gave a shout out to her band for “playing live” for the entire set.
She told the crowd: “What you just did is an unforgettable moment in not just my life, but every very single one of our crew. The band that’s going to be playing live for you for three and a half hours tonight.
“They deserve this so much and so does every one of my fellow performers, and you just gave that to us so generously. We’ll never forget it.”