EXODUS Drummer Talks About The Resurgence Of Thrash

Away-Team recently conducted an interview with drummer Tom Hunting of San Francisco Bay Area thrashers EXODUS. A couple of excerpts from the chat folow below.

Away-Team: When "The Atrocity Exhibition... Exhibit A" was released; I think it was Gary [Holt, guitar] that said in an interview, that this year would be "The Atrocity Exhibition... Exhibit B", and then you guys went back and did "Bonded By Blood" and released it as "Let There Be Blood". What was the impetus for going back and re-doing "Bonded By Blood"?

Tom Hunting: Well, that is something that we had talked about with our former manager, who runs a record label also, and at the time we were doing that, when we agreed to do that was before we even recorded "Atrocity", but it was something, you know, we wanted to put those songs out there...not...not as a competition with "Bonded By Blood", the original, but just more like a companion record and to kind of show what the band sounds like now and what they could expect to hear those songs to sound like live now because it's with the current lineup. And, I mean, we're happy with it. It came out great and we didn't spend a lot of time on it like we did on "Atrocity" because, you know, we like to spend more time on the new material obviously, plus we should know them songs, we've been playing them for, fucking, twenty-seven years now or something crazy. I really do this, my personal...I really do this for the creation of the new music. I like when a riff is first spat out to me, to the time we record it, you know, it's like building a sandwich.

Away-Team: There's been a lot of bands that are going back and re-recording their old albums, or when they go back and remaster them, like MEGADETH going back and completely redoing the arrangements of most of every song, and the lyrics, to a lot of their albums. With "Bonded By Blood", you said this was more of a companion piece. It was just going into the studio and ripped it out...

Tom Hunting: Yeah. You can tell that it's different, especially here technology is concerned because when we did the original, it was, we didn't do anything to a click track or anything like that so, on the re-recording I think some of the slower stuff sounds slower, you know, making it more heavy in my opinion and some of the faster stuff is way faster. [Laughs]

Away-Team: To what do you contribute the resurgence of the Bay Area thrash sound, and why aren't the other '80s styles of music doing the same thing?

Tom Hunting: Well, I just think that metal, in general, has come around circle again. You know, I think NIRVANA killed it [Laughs] in the early '90s and it needed to be killed. You watch some of those old Vinnie Vincent, not Vinnie Vincent, wait, yeah, Vinnie Vincent videos, it had to be killed. Somebody had to do something about that shit, and out come NIRVANA and crushes all that, PEARL JAM and all that. Also great bands, musicians. I love ALICE IN CHAINS. I think it was just time for music to be different, but I think thrash came around, I mean, it never really died in Europe. They still love that shit over there. Always have and always will. But, it's interesting because there's a new phase of, especially whenever we play southern California; it's like 17-year-old Hispanic kids. We call them like the Satanic Hispanics because they all have denim vests, and these Nike high-tops. I don't know where the fuck they're getting these shoes, but, you know what I mean...

Away-Team: Still being made in Mexico, somewhere?

Tom Hunting: Maybe. [Laughs] I think it's a resurgence, 'cause like all those bands, the musicians in the bands you just spoke of never went away, they just weren't doing anything because, metal being dead, there was nothing to do. You know what I mean? But in EXODUS, aside from them breaking up in 1994 after "Force of Habit", we never really broke up, we just kind of drifted off, you know, and got into other stuff, sometimes bad stuff, but ...

Away-Team: What is one of your fondest memories of the old in the Bay Area music scene, when you guys were still coming up, starting out?

Tom Hunting: Um, just some of the shows, at Ruthie's Inn, and we wouldn't go on until, like, two in the morning so we were pretty shit-faced, you know. It was very innocent; it was just like a little scene. You see the same people at every show, but every show would be packed with those same people, you know what I mean? It was a formative time, for everybody, learning their chops. I have to say that, you know, I've never looked forward to so many gigs like that, I mean, that anticipation of having a gig. Oooh, we got a gig, you know what I mean? I don't mean to sound jaded or anything, 'cause I love playing still...

Read the entire interview from Away-Team.

A one-minute trailer for "Assorted Atrocities", the forthcoming EXODUS three-disc DVD/CD set, can be viewed below. Due late summer, the package will contain the band's July 2008 performance at Germany's Wacken Open Air festival, plus a 105-minute documentary following the band through the last five years of touring as well as about 45 minutes of bonus footage, with photo galleries and all of the group's promotional videos. The set will consist of two DVDs plus an audio CD of the Wacken performance.