Legends need no introduction, having been around for longer than thirty years Thash veterans Exodus are one of the most important bands from the Bay Area scene. Bringing their trademark sound to the fore, we now see that the band have released their brand new album Blood In, Blood Out and no matter how long may have passed the band are just as driven as they were all the way back in 1980. We were lucky enough to speak to not one, not two but three members from the band before their recent double whammy shows at London’s Underworld. Speaking of the brand new album, the current state of music and of course Thrash.
So let’s talk Blood In Blood Out, how was the writing process behind the album?
Tom : It’s pretty much the same as all the other ones. I hate to keep using this hippie word but it’s a very organic process. I mean Gary will come up with a bunch of riffs and I put beats to the riffs, we jam it out as a band, then we record when we’re ready. It’s not really anything out of the ordinary. Everybody does their homework, takes shit home and listens to it but it’s mostly guys just jamming in a room, you know?
Organically!
Jack : It’s really mostly Tom or Gary or Tom and Lee who ever is writing the song. They get in there they hammer the song out, I listen to them hammer it out, learn the riffs..
Tom : Sometimes, it takes, shit I jammed with Lee one day and it took four hours to create five seconds of music where I was pulling my fuckin’ hair out saying “I wanna retire, this sucks!” You know? Then the next day Gary came over and we jammed out the bases of “Collateral Damage” in about an hour and a half. Then I was like “Yeah! We’re back!” but I mean I love the process, I like to hear the riff for the first time, there’s an uncomfortable part where you think ts ain’t gonna work, you just gotta work at it you know? And not freak out, it’s gonna happen. We’ve been at this quite a while!
It’s swings and roundabouts I can imagine…
Tom : Yeah! And it’s fun, once you get something, man that really clicks and it’s killer.
How was the process of incorporating Steve back in the band?
Tom : That was easy haha
Jack : He basically sung his way back in!
Tom : He came and laid his voice on two tracks and it just sounded natural. So we were like this is what we’re doing! He’s baack haha!
Jack : It sounded really natural.
Steve : It’s been over a year now, at the end of this tour it will be a hundred and thirty three shows.
Tom : Honeymoon’s over!
Steve : Way over! I’ve been at this since I was twenty one. You know, I know how to do this. So I know what Gary wants from me, I kno what sound theyre looking for, behind certain rhythms it’s just like Tom says just natural. So I come in and actually the audition songs I really only had maybe twelve hours before I had to lay them down and I just said “well, if I was gonna sing ’em this is how I would sing ’em” you know? That’s all I did and I was like wow, if nothing happens at least I got to go and do this you know but it sounds good and here we are a year later. New record, a hundred and thirty shows.
That’s a lot.
Steve : Yeah we’ve been really busy! But it’s great because the ship is starting to move in the right direction….
This is merely a snippet of our chat with Exodus listen to the full thing on our Soundcloud account below along wih whole load of other interviews! .
Exodus’ excellent new album Blood In, Blood Out is out now via Nuclear Blast.
