Exodus Aren’t Done Making New Music: “We Make Crushing, Killer Albums that Stand Up Against Any of the Classic Stuff”
Despite the fact that they’ve made some of the genre’s touchstone albums, thrash metal legends Exodus still have a desire to make new music, according to guitarist Gary Holt. While speaking to Full Metal Jackie, Holt explained that he just doesn’t have the interest in Exodus existing solely so that they can tour and play songs from Bonded by Blood or other classic records.
“There’s only so much you can do playing the same stuff over and over again. I guess the simplest way to put it is I need to make new music; it’s what keeps me motivated and keeps me interested. If I’m just gonna do tours and tell myself, ‘I’ve got enough albums. We’ll just make sure we vary the setlist a lot and we don’t need to make new music anymore,’ I would become incredibly bored incredibly fast and I probably wouldn’t wanna do it anymore. I mean, we make crushing, killer albums that stand up against any of the classic stuff. So we’re not out there force-feeding the audience a bunch of new songs they don’t wanna hear. People wanna hear the stuff. And I wanna play it. And it makes me happy. It makes all of us happy.”
The guitarist told Jackie that he has a stockpile of riffs already, ranging from unused music written for 2021’s Persona Non Grata stretching all the way back to the ’80s. In other words, he’s got plenty to get started on the follow up, which he’ll start writing once Exodus wrap up tour with Anthrax and Black Label Society.
“I’ve always got a million riffs. I have probably a thousand that I didn’t use on the last album. Sometimes it’s just ’cause I get OCD, and I get caught up in the latest riff, and I won’t go back and bother to listen to the other stuff. And sometimes I’ll pull up really great stuff that is decades old — like, ‘Wow. How did I not use that?’ Writing riffs is easy. After this tour, I’ve got three months off, and I’m gonna start working on the new record.”
Anthrax, Black Label Society and Exodus, February 2023
7 Corbin, KY, Corbin Arena
8 St. Louis, MO, The Factory at The District
10 San Antonio, TX, Tec Port Center + Arena
11 Houston, TX, Bayou Music Center
13 Wichita, KS, The Cotillion
14 Oklahoma City, OK, The Criterion
15 Albuquerque, NM, Revel
17 Riverside, CA, Riverside Municipal Auditorium
18 Oakland, CA, Fox Theater
