With their twelfth studio album Goliath set to drop on March 20 via Napalm Records, Exodus is entering a vibrant new era. The legendary thrash metal outfit recently welcomed back former lead vocalist Rob Dukes, marking a significant turning point for the group’s internal dynamics and creative output.
In a recent interview with Jorge Botas of “Metal Global,” guitarist and chief songwriter Gary Holt spoke candidly about the departure of Steve “Zetro” Souza and how the band’s renewed chemistry has propelled them forward.
“I know it sounds like a stock response, but being in a band is like being married. And in the case of Exodus, you have four spouses. Slipknot‘s got a whole bunch of wives. But you have four spouses, and everybody has to be on the same page. And sometimes marriages come to an end, and it’s not always due to adultery and spousal abuse. Sometimes you just grow apart. And at this current age — we’re not young anymore, for certain — we need to be on the same page going forward. And right now the energy and the vibe in this band is remarkable,” he said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
When it came to finding a replacement, the band ultimately realized that returning to a familiar face was the best path.
“When we parted ways with Steve, we joked about, ‘Let’s find some 30-year-old guy who’s got…. you could still see his stomach muscles and he’s got good knees and he could jump off the top of s**t without leaving in an ambulance.’ But, no, we’d rather have someone who’s broken down as the rest of us,” Gary explained. “And Rob‘s been one of my closest friends all along. The relationship has remained, and so we’re happy to have him back. And then we recorded the [new Exodus] album and he showed us he could do a thousand more things than we thought, which was remarkable.”
Unlike previous records, Goliath was written entirely after Dukes rejoined the fold. Holt explained that the band opted for an immersive, old-school recording process to capture their rawest ideas.
“No. They were all written after. I mean, I’m always writing riffs, so I’ve always got lots of riffs, but no songs were finished until Rob was back in the band. I might have had some in my little home demos that were sort of lke close, but when we started recording the album, we had maybe five songs done and we recorded 18. We like to work that way. We write in the studio. We go on with ideas and riffs, and then we gather and we figure it out. And it works best for us. That’s the way bands used to do in the ’70s. Deep Purple would go to Lake Geneva, or Queen would go to some chateau in the south of France. We rent a little vacation home, and in the past we’ve like built studios in the house. We used a full-time studio on this one, but we rented a home 10 minutes away and we lived together. And it helps that you get along and you want to do that. But it allows us to write music all day long. When we get back from the day’s recording, we have dinner and we still write — there’s guitars everywhere; there’s an electronic drum kit in the corner. And so we still work on ideas and then we go in the studio the next day and try ’em out.”
Goliath marks a major shift in how Exodus delegates their songwriting. For this record, Lee Altus, Tom Hunting, and Jack Gibson all played massive roles in shaping the final tracks alongside Holt and Dukes.
“Well, we used to do it like other bands do as well,” he explained. “We’d go in the studio. The first day of recording, we’d have 10 songs done. We’d record the 10 songs. And now this is how we like to work. And this album is the most collaborative effort we’ve ever done. Lee [Altus, Exodus guitarist] wrote almost half the music on the album. Tom [Hunting, Exodus drummer] wrote lyrics, Lee wrote lyrics, Rob and I wrote the rest. Jack [Gibson, Exodus bassist] helps in all the arrangements. So the collaborative nature makes it exciting for us at this stage of the game.
“If I wrote most of an album in the past, it wasn’t ’cause I felt it was required; it’s ’cause I wrote the songs we needed,” Holt clarified. “If Lee wrote two [tracks], I had to write eight. And this time I wrote six on the album and Lee wrote four.”
Sharing the creative burden brought a wealth of new influences into the studio, making for a highly diverse tracklist.
“Yeah, absolutely. It keeps things fresh. It adds other musical viewpoints to the album, which is part of why this album is so diverse. Lee being all of these years in Heathen, he is a melodic thrash legend, and he brought a lot of that to this album, especially with the song ‘The Changing Me‘ that he wrote. And it makes my job easy. And while Lee‘s working on his songs, I’m working on songs, Rob‘s working on things, so everybody’s doing their jobs and then we get together and just make it happen and it’s awesome.”
The willingness to experiment led to some truly unexpected musical moments, such as the funky bass and drum grooves found on the track “Violence Works“.
“Yeah, I love being in the studio. Some people don’t like it. I love it. ‘Cause you’re able to try all these crazy [ideas] — no matter how insane the idea is, you could try it, and then you could say, ‘It’s stupid. It’s insane. What was I thinking?’ Or, ‘It’s awesome and it works.’ Like the song ‘Violence Works‘, Tom started it out with a drum beat, like a funk drum beat. And at one point I said, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t do that. And he goes, ‘No, the funk beat stays.’ ‘Okay, cool. Let’s take it further.’ And I had Jack put the little funk bass notes, and then I added a little scratchy guitar thing and I was laughing, ’cause for five seconds people are gonna think Exodus lost their minds. But we f**king thought it was awesome. And so we did it. But yeah, II enjoy it. I enjoy the process.”
Produced by Exodus and mixed and mastered by Mark Lewis (Whitechapel, Nile), the new album features ten crushing tracks. It stands as a testament to the band’s refusal to slow down four decades after releasing their landmark 1985 debut, Bonded By Blood. The record also features notable guest appearances from Peter Tägtgren (Hypocrisy, Pain) and violinist Katie Jacoby.
Goliath Track Listing:
- “3111“
- “Hostis Humani Generis“
- “The Changing Me” (feat. Peter Tägtgren)
- “Promise You This“
- “Goliath” (feat. Katie Jacoby)
- “Beyond The Event Horizon“
- “2 Minutes Hate“
- “Violence Works“
- “Summon Of The God Unknown“
- “The Dirtiest Of The Dozen“
