EXODUS Drummer On Songwriting For Next Album: 'It's A Pretty Old-School Process'

Drummer Tom Hunting of Bay Area thrash metal legends EXODUS was recently interviewed by "Metal Zone" host Nikki Blakk of the San Francisco, California radio station 107.7 The Bone. You can now watch the chat below.

Asked about the progress of the songwriting sessions for EXODUS' next studio album, Hunting said: "It's a pretty old-school process, actually. [Gary Holt, guitar] will put some riffs on a CD, or even a cassette, depending on which vehicle I'm driving. He feeds the riff to me, and then I put a beat to it, and we work it all out, and then we come together as a band and arrange it.

"[Singer] Rob [Dukes] is really not in the room for the musical process.

"We're gonna probably do some more pre-production for this one, 'cause our bass player [Jack Gibson] now knows about Pro Tools and is really computer savvy. None of the rest of us are, really.

"It's a fun process. I love the process of recording; it's my favorite thing. It's like contruction; you're taking raw wood and building something.

"Gary likes to say he makes moonshine and Lee [Altus, guitar] makes fine wine, 'cause Lee will dissect his own parts and rebuild it here, change something there, add an overdub there, or whatever…

"But it's a fun process; I love it. You're building something, and it's yours."

EXODUS mainman and current SLAYER touring guitarist Gary Holt told Nikki Blakk about his plans for a new EXODUS studio album: "I'm heavily in riff mode [right now]. It's always hard to gauge where a record's going right away, but you kind of get a feel for where you're headed mentally, and right now it's really fast. It's ridiculous.

"I wanna make sure that the [next EXODUS] album is as good as it needs to be, and knowing I am going to be on a tight time frame, it does tend to stress me out quite a bit. But I think I write well under stress… I hate the pressure. But I do what I gotta do. We all do. So we'll make it happen."

EXODUS recently completed a European tour of 17 cities, with stops in Barcelona, Dublin, London and more. Although SLAYER tapped the talents of Gary Holt for their European tour, Holt performed at select EXODUS dates. When Holt was not performing with EXODUS, HEATHEN guitarist Kragen Lum was filling in on guitar.

EXODUS' latest 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.