Exodus guitarist Gary Holt is shedding light on the larger-than-life myths spun by the late vocalist Paul Baloff, revealing that many of the tales Baloff told about himself — and even the band — were pure fiction. During a recent interview and book signing for his new memoir A Fabulous Disaster: From the Garage to Madison Square Garden, The Hard Way, Holt candidly recounted how Baloff's love for mythmaking often blurred the lines between fact and fantasy.
Baloff, who famously fronted Exodus on their thrash classic Bonded By Blood in 1985 and participated in multiple reunions before his death in 2002, was known for his intense stage presence and cult-like following in the thrash underground. But according to Holt, Baloff was equally infamous within the band for fabricating elaborate stories about his origins and experiences.
"We bought it up till his death," Holt said, as transcribed by Ultimate Guitar. "Other people come up to me with their tales of Paul, and they tell me, 'Oh, Paul told me this thing.' And like, that's such bullshit. That never happened."
Among the more outrageous claims were that Baloff was born in Russia to rocket scientist parents, who allegedly fled the country with young Paul and his sister on horseback. Holt quickly debunked the fantasy: "I have his death certificate. He was born in Highland Hospital in Oakland. He'd never been to Russia in his life, and his mother was Dutch. But he was half Russian. But he said his birth name was Pavel Nikolayevitch Balchishkov."
Even within the band, those fabrications became a running joke. "Those were always our nicknames. We never called him Pavel or Kirsh. Those nicknames stuck," Holt recalled. The myth came crashing down when the band finally met Baloff's sister after his passing. "She said, 'We were born in Oakland.' This ruined the whole mystique. To me, he's always that guy headin' out of Russia on the back of a horse," Holt added, laughing.
But the tall tales didn't end with family lore. Holt also revealed that Baloff fabricated a bizarre story involving Mercyful Fate frontman King Diamond. As the story allegedly went, King Diamond had Exodus thrown out of a venue after Baloff snuck a peek at him without makeup.
"One dude came to me one day and goes, 'He told me about the time you guys first met King Diamond, and Paul snuck a look at him without his makeup through a dressing room window, and [King Diamond] had you guys thrown out of the venue,'" Holt recounted. "Like, 'No, we were there. I was in the dressing room with him without his makeup on. He showed me how to open a beer with a Bic lighter.'"
"King Diamond wasn't like KISS. He didn't hide himself," Holt said. "But Paul would tell these stories just to keep people interested, I guess."
