Movement of Thrash People: Exodus

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GUITARIST GARY HOLT formed Exodus in 1980 with drummer Tom Hunting and a curly-haired dude named Kirk Hammett, who left the band after its first demo to join future group-therapy fans Metallica.

While Exodus' last two albums — 2007's "The Atrocity Exhibition: Exhibit A" and 2008's "Let There Be Blood" (a re-recording of the band's 1985 debut, " Bonded by Blood") — may not have sold as many copies of "Death Magnetic," the 45-year-old Holt and his frequently changing supporting cast have cranked out consistently heavy thrash albums that don't need to be called a "return to form."

Holt's belief in the thrash form is still so passionate that he likes to work with the younger generation of thrash bands whose members weren't even born when Exodus began.

"I'm a big supporter; I try to help them out any way that I can," Holt said. "We have Warbringer out on tour with us and this is the second tour we've done with them. I just produced their new record ['Waking Into Nightmares']. ... It came out really kick ass. I'm real pleased with it." [Read our interview with Warbringer and a track-by-track tour of the band's latest CD.]

Express spoke with Holt about Exodus' longevity, neo-thrash, the status of the band's next record, hair metal and Metallica.

» EXPRESS: Do think Exodus' longevity is due to the fact the style of music you helped create is still an important part of today's metal scene, whereas some of the '80s hair-metal bands can sound dated?
» HOLT: I think so. Especially now there's a whole new generation of bands paying homage to what we helped create. We didn't invent metal; we stood on the backs of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and punk rock, and Judas Priest and stuff like that. And we created thrash metal along with a few other bands, obviously — Metallica, Slayer, stuff like that. And from that came death metal and from that came black metal, and it's just a big circle that shares its influences. ... We've managed to rebuild a good level of success by acquiring a whole new crowd of kids. Most of our audience now is 16 to 25 years old.

» EXPRESS: And unlike thrash, hair metal hasn't made a major resurgence.
» HOLT: It was based more on image, not chops. And old hair bands look silly when they get older and try to slip into the same clothes they were wearing in the '80s. It's pretty humorous. Bands like ours have always been based on musicianship, chops, songwriting and performance, so it stands the test of time a lot better. Most hair bands were pretty shitty. When it comes to hair metal, I secretly love every lick George Lynch ever played, but do I really like Dokken? No, but I'll listen the fuck out of George's playing. I actually like Ratt — I like Ratt a lot — [and] some of the Motley Crue stuff. But shit like Enuff Z'nuff? That's pretty shitty. But [Exodus guitarist] Lee [Altus] and I have been Ratt fans forever; they had some great riffs. But back in the '80s we just couldn't admit it; they were part of the common enemy. We had to gather in secret to listen to them, make sure nobody was listening in [laughs].

» EXPRESS: You never had to do like Metallica did with "Death Magnetic," where they said they were trying to reach back to their '80s albums in order to recapture that energy. Exodus hasn't had any stylistic speed-bumps like they did.
» HOLT: No, but we also haven't gotten caught up in being the world's biggest metal band of all time. Somebody's gotta keep the energy going and I guess it was just us. But I do think their new album's really good, though. Not all that fond of the production — I was hoping to hear James [Hetfield] pull out his "... And Justice for All" tone again — but it sounds like a Rick Rubin record. But the songs are great. ... [And] no, I haven't seen or spoken to [Kirk] in years.

» EXPRESS: What I really like about the last decade-plus of Exodus records is that it's still thrash music but with the heaviness of more extreme post-death-metal bands.
» HOLT: That's probably true, but it's not anything intentional. We're not trying to sound more death metal, but the one thing we're not concerned with is sounding retro. There are plenty of others bands playing retro-style thrash metal that we don't need to do it; we've done that — 20 years ago. We just want to take it as far as we can and take it to new levels of extreme brutality. None of us have any interest in writing songs with tons of gang vocals because we've been there, done that. Obviously, there's some people who think it would be the best thing in the world for us to put out an old-school album, but it would be a dishonest album because we'd be forcing it. Everything we're doing now is a natural progression for us — musically, lyrically, everything. And to go back, it would be fraudulent. We'd just be stealing from ourselves.

» EXPRESS: But was death metal an influence on Exodus in the early '90s? I know you guys tuned down your guitars around then.
» HOLT: We've been tuning down since our second album [1987's "Pleasures of the Flesh"]. And now we tune down to D, but we have since 1993, but if you listen to "Force of Habit," there's not a lot of death metal going on there. We just liked the sound; the impact — like a quarter step down — it's just bit more ballsy on the deep end. The death metal bands tune lower than that. Plus, D just sounds natural to my ears now.

» EXPRESS: We all feel more aggressive when we're young, and I imagine Exodus was feeding off that emotion back then for the music and lyrics. But when you're older, is it more of an intellectual exercise to conjure aggressive music and lyrics?
» HOLT: We push the boundaries nowadays because that's what I want to do and what I like to doing — and I'm terrified of anybody ever thinking the band's slowed down. That's not going to happen. We're committed to never letting anyone say we've slowed down or lost a step. We just go for it. We're actually doing the polar opposite of what most bands are doing at this stage of their career.

» EXPRESS: You've described the original "Bonded by Blood" recording sessions as drunken madness and it being a lot of fun.
» HOLT: Oh, yeah. We were young and insane. We're still insane; we're just not young. But we were just living for the moment, and we always pushed extremes, so every night was an all-out rager party. It's amazing we got the work done during the day. But we were young, didn't know what we were doing, just went and played metal and drank all night.

» EXPRESS: So, what were the "Bonded by Blood" / "Let There Be Blood" re-recording sessions like?
» HOLT: Completely tame. Coffee and fuckin' bagels [laughs]. Might have a beer at the end of the day, but it was the polar opposite.

» EXPRESS: What's the status of "The Atrocity Exhibition: Exhibit B"?
» HOLT: We're going to try and just finish this tour up, and then we'll do a couple of weekend fly-in gigs, but we're just spending the rest of the summer completing the songs. We have a ton of stuff written, and we're hoping to be in the studio by late October, probably. We have four recorded already and I have another eight I'm working on, and Lee's got a few. So we have more than enough material; it's just finishing it and putting all the pieces together and stuff like that.

» EXPRESS: Why did you announce a two-part album and then wait a few years to even record "Exhibit B"?
» HOLT: We wanted to put it out sooner, but we're in no hurry. The original idea was just, "Fuck it, let's make it a double album." But there's just certain things that are in the way of putting out a double release, so we just opted to put it out in two parts. ... It's not a concept record. There will be some common musical themes and interlude stuff, but it's going to be super damn heavy, that's for sure. It's shaping up to be a fast record, too. ... They're two totally distinct records, but when the two are side by side it will create this huge thrash-metal magnum opus. It's gonna be pretty sick.

» Jaxx, 6355 Rolling Rd., Springfield, Va.; with Kreator, Exodus, Belphegor and Epicurean; Sun., May 17, 5:45 p.m., $25; 703-569-5940.

Photo by Karyn Crisis