Slayer’s Gary Holt Has The World’s Most Metal Guitar

Metalheads don’t put up with posers. So when you play guitar for Slayer one imagines that you have to go out of your way to make sure that you are as hardcore as possible, you can’t get caught slipping like Danzig did. Thanks to an amazing custom job by surreal artist Vincent Castiglia, Holt is now rocking the most metal axe in the world—it’s painted in his own blood.

Holt may have taken the lyrics to “Raining Blood” a little too literally when he commissioned Castiglia to decorate the ESP custom guitar with 18 vials of his own blood. Painting in blood is nothing new to Castiglia—the avant-garde artist and tattooer has been using his own blood for his art for years—but he believes this is the first time a guitar has been decorated with the iron rich substance.

Castiglia presented the guitar to Holt at the National Association of Music Merchants show over the weekend and it only takes one glance at the guitarist to see how ecstatic he was to see the finished product. We can’t wait to hear the punishing riffs Holt can come up with while playing such a hardcore instrument. And while Holt will be the only one lucky enough to play the world’s most metal guitar, ESP will eventually produce 48 exclusive replicas that you can shred on yourself. Think of it as a bloodless way to have a piece of Castiglia’s amazing art.

Next time you are rocking out to some Slayer just remember, Gary Holt is shredding on a guitar made of his own blood and will forever be more metal than you.