EXODUS Bassist On RANDY BLYTHE Concert Incident: 'If You Come On Stage, You're Trespassing'

Nick Azinas of Peek From The Pit conducted an interview with bassist Jack Gibson of San Francisco Bay Area metallers EXODUS earlier today (Friday, June 29) prior to the band's performance at the Tuska open-air festival in Helsinki, Finland. You can now watch the chat below. A couple of excerpts follow.

On the news that LAMB OF GOD frontman Randy Blythe was arrested on Wednesday in Prague, Czech Republic in connection with the death of a fan who jumped on stage at a LAMB OF GOD show more than two years ago:

Gibson: "I'm very surprised that that happened. I mean, we've had very [much] the same type of thing happen. We had a guy get on stage and was singing with Rob [Dukes, EXODUS vocalist] arm-in-arm, and when Rob pulled the mic away, the guy didn't wanna go and he grabbed Rob's arm and twisted him and Rob beat the fucking shit out of him on stage for it and [rightfully] so. And I got in there and wanted to give him the boot. That's our stage when we're there, you know what I mean?! That's our shit up there — that's our stuff, our pedals, our guitars… That's our place. Everybody knows what happened to Dimebag [late PANTERA/DAMAGEPLAN guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott who was shot and killed onstage while performing with DAMAGEPLAN in December 2004] — this guy just walks onstage and he's out of his fucking mind and shit goes incredibly wrong. There's a lot of bands that, after that happened, they just said, 'No people on stage, period.' For us, it's kind of part of our shows — letting people get up and jump off and all that stuff. We kind of have this… It's kind of a collective idea of who's been on stage too long. Like, you just know when a guy is not wanting to… You know, you get up, you can headbang, you can even come over and give us [a quick pat on the back], and run, and then you've gotta go — you've gotta go. I don't know, man. That's a little bit disturbing. Of course, I have sympathy for the kid who died and that he was in a coma, all that. Of course, I don't like to see anybody die or say that anybody deserved anything or whatever, but I am very surprised that that happened. And I can't imagine that a good lawyer isn't gonna get this settled, because it's like, if you come on stage, you're trespassing, you know what I mean?! It's almost like we just have to wait and see how this shakes out. I super-hope it [sorts itself out], 'cause that's a pretty serious situation, so I hope for [Randy] it's alright."

On whether EXODUS has plans to record the follow-up to 2010's "Exhibit B: The Human Condition" album:

Gibson: "We're way overdue to do it. We've just been so busy. Actually, we've been getting great tour offers over and over, and we just keep wanting to take them, and that, coupled with the fact that Gary [Holt], our main guitar player and songwriter, is out playing with SLAYER, he's filling in for [SLAYER guitarist] Jeff [Hanneman] on this whole [SLAYER tour]. Nobody really knows how long that's gonna take, how long Jeff's gonna take [to recover from contracting necrotizing fasciitis, likely caused by a spider bite, in January 2011]. I mean, it was pretty severe what happened to him, from what I understand. So we just haven't had the time, to be perfectly honest. I know that Gary has songs, and Lee [Altus, guitar] has some stuff — they've been coming up with stuff — [but] we just really haven't had the time to sit down and hammer it all out and then record it. That takes a few months together to make that happen, and we just haven't had the time, basically. But there is gonna be another album, for sure. The way that our writing has been going and our albums have been going, it's gonna be great — I know it. What I've heard Gary noodling with. Me, him and Tom [Hunting, drums] have kind of just fooled around with it here and there, and man, it's gonna be good. Gary, he's the main driver, and [the songwriting] keeps evolving. It's one of the things I really like about the band — the music keeps getting good; it doesn't just stay the same or we don't rewrite the last one. We kind of throw the last one out and do something new each time. So I expect the same and more from the next album."

"Exhibit B: The Human Condition" was released in North America on May 18, 2010 via Nuclear Blast Records.

The CD sold around 4,600 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 114 on The Billboard 200 chart.

EXODUS' previous album, "The Atrocity Exhibition: Exhibit A", opened with 3,600 units back in October 2007.