Taipei Metal

Exodus: Back for Blood

Much has been made of the so-called Big Four of thrash, consisting of Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer. And though Metallica has recently taken steps to return to their punchier, thrashier roots with Death Magnetic following the industry-wide panning of St. Anger, and Megadeth has released a career-defining album this year in the critically acclaimed Endgame, Anthrax remains in the spotlight mainly due to the ongoing drama surrounding the departure of short-term stand-in vocalist Dan Nelson and the “will he or won't he” speculation on the  return of John Bush, not to mention the guessing game surrounding their next album, Worship Music, which was recorded with Nelson but now sits in limbo following his unceremonious ouster. Meanwhile, Slayer, by many accounts, is understandably starting to lose a step or two in the live performance department as the band members edge their way towards the half century mark. Thirty years of synchronized head banging is bound to take a toll sooner or later. And yet  these bands consistently enjoy more accolades than some of their contemporaries who, in a perfect world, should have expanded the Big Four into the Sinister Six, and despite a general lack of recognition save for some favorable album reviews on their latest works, are still managing to lead the thrash pack despite their advancing years. I'm talking about bands like Testament, the old guardians of thrash who have returned with an undeniable vengeance to show the retro high top sneaker and denim wearing kids of today, who were likely still in diapers if they had even been born yet at all during  thrash metal's glory days, what thrash is all about. I'm talking about Exodus, who returned in 2004 after a decade-plus hiatus to, according to band leader, guitarist and main songwriter Gary Holt, nearly singlehandedly usher in the thrash renaissance that has dominated the pages of many metal magazines for the past few years.

So when will Exodus get their due? It had better be soon, as if their due isn't coming to them, Holt and company are liable to just go out there and take it. While Slayer might be slowing down and Anthrax seemed to leave thrash behind on 2003's We've Come for You All, Exodus seems to be just getting warmed up. The Atrocity Exhibition: Exhibit A was a slab of white hot thrash vitriol overflowing with brutality and seething with unrepentant rage, and now the band is preparing to finish recording Exhibit B in late November. With well-documented years lost to amphetamine addiction, the boys are hungry to make up for lost time and show the world that they are just now reaching the peak of their abilities. If their set in Taipei in September was any indication, they are about to do just that. Yes, they are in their forties, with many a lesson in violence under their belts and many years of living rough etched onto their leather hides. But give them a stage and a pit, and there isn't a band of kids half their age that can touch them. Holt sat down with Fight before tearing Taipei a new one to talk about getting what's coming to him.

Fight: You were forced to cancel the Beijing show on this tour. What happened?

Gary Holt: “If we'd done Beijing we wouldn't have had time to get home and get our visas together for Brazil for the month-long South, Central America tour with Kreator. We land Thursday, have to go to the consulate Friday, then we have the weekend and then pick up our visas again on Monday, maybe Tuesday, and we leave Wednesday. I'm glad we were able to still do this one. Technically, with what we have to do to get ready for this other tour we don't have time to be here.”

F: What is the status on The  Atrocity Exhibition: Exhibit B

GH: “We hit the studio November 21st, once again in another display of how little time we have for anything. We were in writing mode and rehearsing right before coming to Japan and then we're going to South America and we come home and have three weeks to finish. We're hoping for an April, May release next year. We've got a ton of songs. Lee's still finishing up some stuff of his. We've got four recorded from the last sessions and we've got another seven we've been rehearsing already. And Lee has three of four that he's working on. And I've still got a couple other things too. We've got plenty of material it's just time.”

F: Is there a sense that Exodus is the strongest it has ever been at this point?

GH: “We laid Tokyo to waste the other night. The crowd tore out the secondary barricade. They have the front barricade, then they have the second one and then the third. They removed them; the crowd just pulled them out of the floor. And I asked Ken, one of the guys from the production company,  'Have you ever seen that happen?' He said 'No, they've never done that.' I mean the pit was as good as anything in Europe or America. For a Japanese audience that's unusual. It was awesome.”

F: Do you feel that you have to make up for lost time, with all the years lost to addiction?

GH: “I personally feel we're just now getting good. After this many years I think we're at the top of our game right now. The songs for the new album are just devastating.”

F: Do you ever think about the band's shelf life?

GH: “It hurts a little more now; the back, the neck, the knees all suffer. We push ourselves hard, that's why. I think we perform harder and with more fury on stage than guys half our age; more furious than we did many, many years ago. I can't jump off the top of everything anymore because my knees are shot but pretty much everything else is still functional.”

F: What is your opinion of the so-called thrash revival?

GH: “Well people were talking about it before there was one. On one hand I think it's a great thing. On the other hand I've never considered ourselves part of it. We certainly aren't a retro thrash band. There are some guys out there who are so into that retro thrash thing they think we're not a thrash band at all. I don't do anything differently than I ever did, writing wise. It's just more brutal and darker. I'll leave the old school, retro, eighty-five thrash for the kids who weren't born when we did it. I don't even consider that we benefit from it. To say that we're not a good deal responsible for it is to take credit from the fact that we busted our asses so hard since 2003. I think if anything people should give us credit for creating it. We certainly aren't joining in on it. It works in the opposite direction.”

F: Do you think that Exodus has evolved beyond thrash?

GH: “We've always had long songs. Evolution is the primary component. If I tried to write Bonded by Blood II it would sound so dishonest because I would be listening to our old stuff and trying to mimic it. But I'm just trying to create new riffs and new songs and bring a whole new power to it.”

F: How do you gauge the strength of the current lineup?

GH: “This lineup is the strongest we've ever had and everyone is on the same page and everybody's hungry. I think that's the key. I just want this band to be the standard bearers for what the bands from our era can do. Metallica, I think their new album is a total step in the right direction. I knew before anyone had even heard it that they were going to get all this credit for this big revival of the sound. I think it's a good album, I just don't like Rick Rubin's production.  It's like, what the hell have we been doing for the last years but raising the bar on what  can be done?”
F: Do you feel that there's a lack of recognition of what Exodus has accomplished?

GH: “Yeah, but I have a chip on my shoulder. There probably isn't, but I operate better when I feel that I'm fighting an uphill battle.”

F: How have you managed to stay hungry after all these years?

GH: “I feel that there's a lot that this band deserves that we've been denied. At the same time I'm well aware that I'm very fortunate to be in a position where I do this for a living and I'm here in Taipei right now and there's a lot of bands that would kill to be here.  I feel that there's a lot more that we're due and that's owed this band.”

F: What are you owed?

GH: “World domination. But then again people say 'You dominate the world pretty well.' I'm not hung up on being Metallica. I'm not hung up with being rich. I just want our ultimate recognition of what we're doing now. And I think we've accomplished that. People always look to Bonded by Blood as the standard bearer for thrash metal. But the albums we're making now, Atrocity Exhibition in Rock Hard in Germany was voted album of the year by the readers. It started slow because it's an album with a lot of colors to it, but it was number one on the readers' charts a year and half after it came out. That's unheard of for an album to stay there that long after its release. And the readers picked it number one over Maiden, Machine Head and a number of records. People are definitely digging what we're doing.”

F: What other bands do you feel Exodus should be mentioned in the same breath with?

GH: “Anybody who is considered the greats of the particular genre. When you think of thrash metal we should be in everybody's conversation. There should be no ommission of this band's name.”

F: When will you know it's time to stop?

GH: “When I can't do it at the level that I know I have to do this. I don't ever want to get to the point where we're doing tours and people are saying 'They look tired.'”

F: Do you ever get tired of touring?

GH: “No, I love touring. If you're tired of it, it's  fucking virtually impossible. Granted, it gets rough. It gets uncomfortable. It gets exhausting. I have children. But this is what I do. It's who I am. I think without it I'd self destruct.”

F: You produced Warbringer's debut album. Will you do more producing when Exodus is finished?  

GH: “That's what I'd like to do when that time comes. It's something I enjoy doing and it's something I feel I'm good at, it's just  I rarely have time to do anything outside of Exodus. That just happened to fall in a window where I had a two-week opportunity to do it and we did the whole thing in 11 days.”

F: What advice do you have for the next generation of thrash bands?

GH: “Learn a trade. This industry sucks. No, do what you want, do it with all your might and do what feels right. But it certainly doesn't hurt to go home and work as an electrician or something. I have no other job skills than Exodus so I'm stuck here.”

By Joe Henley