Exodus
Contents Under Pressure

09.01.2008

How many times can you rise from the ashes? Bay Area thrash veterans Exodus have done it more times than one can imagine, so it didn’t really surprise anyone that after a reunion of the nearly classic line-up and the successful “Tempo Of The Damned” record (2004), the band fell apart and came back after changing three of the five musicians. What was a surprise is that the ensuing “Shovel Headed Kill Machine” (2006) was universally acknowledged as one of the best albums in the genre for years. In the year 2007 the band went through some more line-up changes and released yet another new record, intriguingly titled “Atrocity Exhibition – Exhibit A”. This time the responses were much more mixed, and we figured out that we need to get in touch with the band’s mainman and guitarist Gary Holt and learn more about the rollercoaster ride that the life on board Exodus has been lately…

You produced the previous album “Shovel Headed Kill Machine” yourself, but for the new record you brought Andy Sneap back. How did you like the experience as a producer, and why did you decide to have Andy involved again?

Well, I’ve done this enough times that I know how I would like to produce my own stuff. We did “Shovel Headed Kill Machine” on our own because of scheduling problems – Andy had other projects, so we did it with me behind the helm and had Andy mix it. I love working with Andy, I could do it myself, but it’s better when you have this guy that you consider the sixth member of your band, and he is the guy that you can assign for every step in the recording, with whom you can brainstorm and come up with really great stuff. He’s one of my best friends, and I always want him there.

You’ve said many times that it’s much easier for you to write when you are under pressure, when you have something to prove to the people. Did you have any kind of pressure this time?

Oh yeah, there’s always pressure, and if there’s not, I’ll just have to create some myself. (laughs) Maybe there is no real pressure, but I always feel that I have to prove myself with every album we do. With “Shovel Headed Kill Machine” we had all these line-up changes, and we had to prove that we were still Exodus. Now everybody’s been here, and Tom (Hunting, drums) is back, and we wanted to prove that our best music is still in the future.

Every record that you do since the reunion in 2004 is heavier than the previous one. Is it your intention to stretch boundaries of the genre, or does it happen naturally because of the anger you have inside or some other reasons?

I think is a bit of both. It’s a natural thing, because when I write or Lee (Altus, guitars) writes something, we’re just out to write really killer riffs, and we start from there. I’m not like, “Oh, how heavy is the music as compared to the last one?” I think we’re heavier because we get more powerful in the songs. Speaking for myself, I write what I want to hear, and I want to hear really huge powerful aggressive thrash metal.  

I’ve seen your page on MySpace.com, and it surprised me that the style you’re playing there is classified as thrash / death metal. Do you think that there are some death metal elements in your music?

Yeah, I think so. It’s nothing intentional, but I do love death metal, for instance, the new Nile is one of the best albums I’ve ever heard. Just when you start getting really heavier and really darker, you end up leaning towards the death metal thing. Even if you look at the last Testament album, “The Gathering” (1999), there’s a lot of death metal on there.

At the same time, there are moments on the new record where Rob Dukes is using clean vocals. Whose idea was that, and what was the reason for structuring vocal lines this way?

It was Rob’s idea. When we were writing “Children Of A Worthless God”, he wrote all the lyrics, and Lee wrote most of the music, and Rob wanted to try this clean part. We did it in the rehearsal room, and I said, “It’s pretty cool, let’s work on it when we get into the studio, when Andy gets to hear it, so Andy and I will tell you what we think.” We did it, and it turned out amazing, it certainly wasn’t wimpy, it wasn’t pop music or metalcore, it was just clean. And it’s not something we’ve never done before, for instance, “Seeds Of Hate” (off “Pleasures Of The Flesh”, 1987) also had clean vocals on it, it’s just that we haven’t done it for a while. But this time it made a song so cool and added a whole another element to it.

As far as I understand, the new album is more of a band effort than the previous ones, right?

I still wrote most of everything, but everybody was more involved as far as coming up with their ideas and opinions. The last time I wrote all the music and lyrics by myself, but this time a lot of stuff was written at the rehearsal room, everybody was there and everybody was able to give their opinion. We still have another four songs that are finished for the next album, and there’s more stuff written by Lee and Rob. It wasn’t intentional, these are the songs we chose for that album, and they are the ones they chose as well, and the next album will have more songs written by the other guys and fewer by me.

When will you release this next album (“Atrocity Exhibition – Exhibit B”)? How much will it be different from “Exhibit A”?

First we have to finish it. We hope to go back in the studio around the end of the year and finish at least some of it before we start touring for this one. We’re gonna do this next album a little bit differently than we did in the past. As I said, we have four songs finished, maybe we’ll go to the studio and do two more, and maybe sometime later in the year or next year we will record more and finish it. We’re gonna take it as time allows, since we have almost half of it finished already.

I was checking the people’s reaction on the Internet when the title of the new record was announced, and a lot of them instantly remembered that the fifth unreleased album of the band Dark Angel was also called “Atrocity Exhibition”. Was that an intentional connection on your side?

No, I’d never even heard of their album. I took that title from a book by J.G. Ballard, and I’m pretty much wanting to bet any amount of money that it’s where they got it, too, because it’s a really twisted bizarre title. I don’t think any of us came up with it on our own. (laughs) I think they already have the same book I have. But I’d never known about their album, because obviously it wasn’t released, and I only found it about it when we had begun recording, and someone at the label, who happens to be a metal historian and knows everything about every metal band ever, told me about it. But I said, “I’m not gonna change it, they never released their album.”

How much is the band in general and you personally involved in designing cover artworks for your albums? For example, in the case of the previous album, who came up with this impressive Kill Machine on the cover?

I can never remember this artist’s full name, this guy’s name is Anthony, he does a lot of stuff for a lot of bands, first of all, Nuclear Blast bands. (His full name is Anthony Clarkson – ed.) We were actually working with another artist, he had some artwork that I really liked, it was a lot more abstract, but the label wanted to have this guy try it, and when he did it, it was just a better cover. It was really cool, and it looked like a Kill Machine to me for sure. For the new album, we worked with an artist from Greece named Seth Anton, and I wanted this one to be darker, a little more abstract, a little more artistic and less blatantly metal. It’s not that I wasn’t trying to make it metal, but I wanted it to look a little bit more artistic. The whole layout of the album is just amazing. We actually tried to have two different album covers for this album, one is on the front of the slipcase and the other is inside the jewel box.

I haven’t managed to check out lyrics for the new album yet, but I was really impressed by the lyrics you wrote for “Tempo Of The Damned” and “Shovel Headed Kill Machine”. They are quite different from the stuff you wrote in the early days, I would say that they are more complicated, there is a lot of wordplay. Who influences you as a lyric writer these days?

That’s really hard to say. It’s not like there’s any lyric other writers that influence me, even though there are guys that are really great out there. If the song is really serious, I try to choose phrases and wordings that are different and lyrical and good stuff from the writing point of view, not necessarily just from a lyric writer’s point of view. Other times I’m trying to be really sarcastic and tongue-in-cheek, I twist the words around and stuff.

By the way, are you familiar with the British band Skyclad? A lot of people have compared their lyrics – I mean, the way they use wordplay and stuff – and what you did on “Tempo Of The Damned”.

Oh, Martin, the former Skyclad singer! Martin is a wordsmith, too. I don’t have any of their albums, but everybody says Martin is really clever in twisting words around. I like to do the same thing – take a phrase and change a word and make it say something else.

A lot of the stuff on “Tempo Of The Damned” was inspired by politics, while “Shovel Headed Kill Machine” seems to be more personal. What are the main themes you cover in the songs this time?

Some daily things, like the war in Iraq, and “Children Of A Worthless God”, which Rob wrote, touches on the subject of radical Islam. There are also songs about religion and revolution… let’s see, I have to take a look at the songs, I haven’t listened to the album for about a month. (laughs) I don’t listen to it all the time. Actually just the other day I listened to “Riot Act” like a hundred times, because we shot the video for it. (laughs) I’m really familiar with that one – two straight days playing the same song over and over again. Actually the last song on the album, “Bedlam 123” is like a call to our audience to go insane and start breaking shit.

Speaking about “Shovel Headed Kill Machine” – what made you cover “Problems” by Sex Pistols for the limited edition of this CD?

Oh well, look at how many problems we had. (everybody laughs) That’s why we did it! We had to deal with Rick’s drug addiction, and then he quit, then Tom had health problems and we had to fire him – so the only cover song we could do was “Problems.” Now there are no problems whatsoever, everything is great right now.

And will any version of “Atrocity Exhibition” have bonus tracks?

There’s a hidden track on the new album (laughs), you have to find it, it’s quite funny and very interesting.

Speaking about bonus tracks, you once said that there are a few Exodus songs from early days that were never recorded. Is there any chance that you will resurrect them one day? I mean, most of the fans loved the new version of “Impaler”…

I know Lee would love to record some of those old songs, because some of his early influences were those really early Exodus songs. Maybe some day we will do it, but there are some issues like publishing –it wasn’t all written by me, a lot of it was written by Kirk Hammet. There are some people out there that would love to see us re-record “Whipping Queen” and shit like that, but also I try not to look back that much.

You already mentioned Tom Hunting’s departure and return. How did it happen that he is now again a member of Exodus?

I think Tom just needed some time away from this band. This band can pretty much ruin your life, you know, and he just needed some time to concentrate on himself for once and not have to worry about four other guys. He had some time away, it helped him, he felt strong and wanted to play again. So I got together with him, we had a jam, and it was just like magic, because when you’re talking about a guy who’s been one of your best friends on this planet since you were 17 years old, it’s hard to replace him. Paul (Bostaph, ex-drummer) always knew that a day may come or it may never have come when Tom would be ready to come back, and if and when he did, the job was still his. We couldn’t thank Paul enough for helping us out, and now Paul, from what I understand, is in Testament, so the world will see plenty of Paul full step.

Do you keep any contact with your former guitar player Rick Hunolt? Is there any chance that he will one day also return to the band?

No, there’s no chance for that. I haven’t spoken to Rick in a long time, and I know that Rick is not in any position to give this band 100% of anything. Lee is way too much an important part of Exodus in 2007, for us to go back to Rick would be a giant step backwards, and it will never happen.

You once said that there was a plan to record a 20th anniversary version of your classic album “Bonded By Blood” (1985) with a lot of different vocalists, but it was never realized because the previous line-up fell apart. Have you abandoned this idea completely, or is there still a chance that you will do something like that on the 25th anniversary, for instance?

No, we’re still hoping to do it. That’s the one thing I will do that would have Rick’s involvement, because I won’t do it without Rick. I just won’t do Exodus with Rick, but I have nothing against Rick, it’s just that I love Lee too much, and he’s too important to what the band’s doing. But I’m hoping that some time in the next year we’ll do that “Bonded By Blood”, it will be the band’s tribute to Paul Baloff (the original Exodus singer who died in 2002 – ed.), and a diverse one. And it will have Rick playing on it for sure.

By the way, what vocalists would you like to sing on this album?

You know, there’s a lot of different guys that I like. Some of the people I have in mind are old school thrash metal guys, but if I would go for only thrash metal singers, I couldn’t find nine singers to sing on nine songs, there aren’t nine great thrash metal singers. (laughs) It depends on the song, for instance, if I had Chuck Billy, I would want him to do “And Then There Were None”. I want Shagrath from Dimmu Borgir to do “No Love”, because that would be amazing. I know that Peter from Soilwork wants to do one song, Peter from Hypocrisy also wants to do one, and Jamey Jasta from Hatebreed wants to do one as well. It will be a big mix of people who are, in their own way, influenced by Paul Baloff.

You said that the older the band gets, the younger the audience of your concerts becomes. Do you have any explanation for this phenomenon?

I just think that thrash metal is coming back now finally. People were telling me this two or three years ago, and I always told them that I didn’t really see it yet. But now you have all these young bands that are really great, they are playing really old school thrash metal, and I think it’s totally awesome and amazing, and I’ll do anything I can to help and support them. We just did a week of warm-up shows, because we felt like going out and playing a few gigs, and the shows were packed! The whole audience was kids, it was awesome.

A few years ago there was an outbreak of  thrash metal revivals – everybody was coming back, especially in the U.S. But it seems that all the other bands are going very slow – they have only done one album or only some tours. In your opinion, what made the revival of Exodus so successful, and why have others failed?

What keeps us going is that I convince myself that I have something to prove, even after all these years, not to mention that I love to do it, it’s the only thing I truly need to do. Some bands have got back together, it started with us, and then there were other bands that followed, that should have maybe never got back together. I’m not talking about Death Angel, they’re awesome, and they’re in the studio right now. Sometimes it’s been hard for bands financially to put in the time that it takes to put out this kind of albums. But Death Angel are in the studio right now, Testament will be in the studio before the end of the year, so next year is gonna be huge for the original Bay Area thrash bands, it will be awesome. Maybe we will all tour together, you never know.

How much are you satisfied with your cooperation with Nuclear Blast? “Atrocity Exhibition” is your third album on this label…

I love the way they work. This is our last album for them, but it doesn’t mean that it’s our last album, it’s our last album under this contract. I’m hoping that soon we can come to an agreement, the sooner the better, and that we’ll continue with Nuclear Blast for a long time. I love the people, I love the label, and I have no intention of going to a label where they don’t understand the kind of music we play. I’ve done that before when we signed with Capitol Records, and that didn’t work out well, it was terrible. I’d rather stay at a label that loves heavy metal.

Can you say a few words about the Drug Pig project that you and your manager Steven Warner are having together?

That was something that we were working on a long time ago, it was like a clothing line, and we just haven’t had time to work out any of the shirt designs. (laughs) We haven’t done any of that in a long time.

You know, www.rockdetector.com lists this thing as a musical project…

It started as it was gonna be some weird musical project, but when it disappeared, we decided just to make Drug Pig clothing. (laughs)

I cannot but ask you about your band’s appearance in the “Metalapocalypse” cartoon. How did you manage to get into this cartoon? Are you fans of it?

Oh, we’re the biggest fans! We’re good friends with Brendon (Small) and Tommy (Blacha), the creators, and John Schnepp, the producer, the guy who just did our video for “Riot Act”. When we first met, I don’t think they had any idea how big of the fans of the show we were. A lot of people like it, and we love it, we knew every part of every episode, I had them on legal DVDs for a while. The episode we did, I don’t think it airs until some time in January, but it was the most fun ever. (laughs) We did voices for a bunch of Dethklok fans who get blown up in a coffee shop.

OK, then can you say a few words about the video for “Riot Act”? How is it gonna look like? Will there be a lot of animation in it?

There’s no animation in it. John Schnepp is the director of it, and his background started at television and movies. It’s very expensive doing an animated video, it’s far more than we can ever afford, although I would love it because I hate making videos. I’d rather not show up and let them do a cartoon of me instead, that would be awesome. What we did in the video for “Riot Act” is super-aggressive and super-heavy, we did almost all of it using the green screen technology, just like they do in the movies where they project various images behind you. It even came to the point where Bernie Rico Jr guitars, the company that builds my Flying V’s, made me a greed screen colored Flying V, and they put images on the guitar itself. The video is really cool, it will look amazing.

You told me in your previous interview that there were plans to do a history DVD of Exodus some time in 2005. Is there any news concerning this release?

I still wanna do it, but again it’s one of the things we just don’t have time for. Nothing takes longer than that, because you have to go over thousands of hours of footage, create an entire timeline, and put something together that starts 25 years ago. It takes a long time, and we’re just far too busy. It’s another one of Exodus projects that I hope will at least get started within the next year.

More about DVDs – how did you come up with the idea to film your instructional guitar video? And what kind of goals did you want to achieve with it?

We have a lot of thrash metal guitar players and fans that have come to our message board, and some of the guys mentioned that there’s a million of instructional videos, but there’s none really creative for the kind of people who wanna learn some of the things I do. There’s a million jazz ones out, fusion ones, but no thrash metal. We put it together, and it was actually a lot of hard work. But it was really good, because it made me practice really hard, and I actually came out as a better guitar player than when I started. I hope to do another one next year, this one’s done quite well, and the fans all seem to love it. Like any project you do, you do it once and you learn how you could do it better the next time, so I can make the next one much better.

I’m trying to imagine how many plans you have for the next year – “Atrocity Exhibition – Exhibit B”, the re-recording of “Bonded By Blood”, another instructional DVD… How do you manage to find time for everything?

I don’t know! (cracks) Actually I don’t, that’s why some of it hasn’t happened yet, like the history DVD – I haven’t had time for it. “Bonded By Blood Tribute” is something I will find time for, and it won’t take a lot of time, we could record the musical tracks in three or four days because I’ve been playing them all my life, and it’s not that hard. Those songs are part of my DNA by now. I try to stay busy, because when I sit around at home, I feel like I can’t let myself get lazy, I have to keep working.

The final question – very few U.S. thrash metal bands are coming to Russia, though Exodus and other bands are touring Europe quite a lot. Have you ever received any proposals to play in Moscow, and how realistic it is to bring Exodus over here?

We’ve received a couple of offers, but the time wasn’t right, because obviously we have to tie it in with a European tour and also make sure there’s nothing that we have to leave Europe and go do right away. Russia is one of the places that are high on my list, I especially wanna go to St. Petersburg, because I wanna visit the Hermitage. Hopefully for this album we’ll finally get there.

Exodus on the Internet: http://www.exodusattack.com

Special thanks to Alexei “KIDd” Kuzovlev (Irond Records) for arranging this interview.

Roman “Maniac” Patrashov
September 24, 2007
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