Exodus vocalist Rob Dukes recently opened up about the harsh realities of the touring lifestyle, shedding light on the personal sacrifices musicians must make while spending months away from home.
In a revealing new interview with “Rocking With Jam Man“, the frontman detailed the emotional weight of missing out on family milestones and the profound lack of personal space while living on the road.
“I watched my [Exodus] guitar player Lee Altus raise small children while he was in the band, and miss out on huge swaths of their life. I didn’t see my dog for three months. And I miss my dog, man. My dog’s a huge part of my life. It’s not a child, but to me it is. I mean, I don’t have kids, so it’s the closest I’ve gotten [to having kids],” he said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
He went on to emphasize the difficulty of finding any solitude in a high-pressure, communal touring environment.
“You miss family time. I think every human being, or most human beings, require a time to be alone and read a book or listen to music or whatever,” he continued. “And when you’re on a tour bus for months at a time, you’re in a very small, confined space with 10 or 11 people, including the crew and the band, and you get very limited amount of alone time. And then somebody’s always where you wanna be. And then if you leave the bus, then there’s fans and other bands, and those things are a sacrifice. You sacrifice that alone time, the time you need for yourself to do the things you wanna do. And then you miss family occasions, events, birthdays,” he continued.
However, Rob Dukes acknowledged that modern technology has made the immense distance much easier to manage compared to decades past.
“Luckily, the upside to technology is that Zoom is an option and FaceTime, and you can stay in touch with family a lot easier than it was even 15 years ago” he noted. “”I remember going to… You’d have to find a phone store to get Wi-Fi, ’cause there was no Wi-Fi anywhere in Europe. So I would be in Europe for two months and not talk to anybody back home, very rarely, ’cause it was just difficult. But that’s all gotten a lot better.”
Despite the convenience of modern video calls, the frontman revealed a heartbreaking detail about trying to connect with his beloved dog while overseas.
“But my dog doesn’t understand a phone. When she hears my voice through the phone, she thinks I’m out the door and freaks out, so I had to stop letting her hear my voice, ’cause it would make me feel bad that she thought I was home and I wasn’t. I didn’t wanna disappoint her. But luckily she’s not human, she’s a dog, so the moment I did walk in the door off tour, she forgot about all the time I was gone. And the only one who really missed it was me. But being a musician, getting out there, just do what makes you happy and be honest about it.”
Rob Dukes officially reunited with Exodus roughly a year and a half ago, bringing an end to his prolonged absence after parting ways with the thrash metal pioneers in 2014, when he was replaced by Souza. His initial tenure, beginning in January 2005, saw him provide lead vocals for four defining studio records: 2005’s Shovel Headed Kill Machine, 2007’s The Atrocity Exhibition… Exhibit A, 2008’s Let There Be Blood (a re-recording of the classic 1985 LP, Bonded By Blood), and 2010’s Exhibit B: The Human Condition.
The revitalized lineup officially hit the stage together for their first concert in nearly 11 years on Apr 5, 2025, performing at the Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest at the Fillmore in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Building on that momentum, Exodus released their highly anticipated twelfth studio album, Goliath, on Mar 20, 2026, through Napalm Records. Serving as the direct follow-up to 2021’s Persona Non Grata, the new record notably marks the first Exodus album in nearly three decades not to be mixed by Andy Sneap, who has been actively working as the touring guitarist and producer for Judas Priest.
