Gary Holt on Steve ‘Zetro’ Souza’s Exodus from Exodus: “One Guy Wasn’t Enjoying It Anymore”
As dudes in their sixties, you’d expect the members of Exodus to pretty much be set in their ways at this point. Yet this past January, the band went through a pretty major change as vocalist Steve “Zetro” Souza was once again no longer a member and ex-vocalist Rob Dukes was back in. The announcement sounded amicable, but then Souza revealed he was fired and now we’ve got guitarist Gary Holt fielding questions about the split.
One thing that keeps coming up whenever Souza’s exit from the band is mentioned is this was inevitable — that the “marriage was done and over.” Well, once again Holt was out there, this time win an interview with CBS SF and the split came up. This time, he was asked if there’d been any consideration of getting a different vocalist.
“You mean now? No. I don’t like change, for one. I never intended to make any of these vocalist changes. Not Rob the first time, and not Steve [now]. But at 60 years old, all of us, we all demand to be happy and be surrounded by happiness. We did some amazing music with Steve back. Amazing. [Exodus’ latest LP] Persona Non Grata is my second favorite album in our whole catalog. But we’re moving forward.
“I didn’t want to bring in a young guy. Yeah, we could have brought in some 30-year-old guy who’s young and has abs and can still jump off drum risers. [Laughs] That sounds appealing, but I like familiarity. Rob keeps me laughing, and he’s an amazing singer. And he’s one of my best friends. So that was kind of a no-brainer. I mean, I don’t know how much longer we could play this kind of ferocious stuff. Over the years, we’ve just gotten faster and the songs have gotten harder to play as the arthritis gets worse. So we’re going to just keep going for it as long as we can.”
Later in the interview, Holt was reminded that he’d written in his memoir A Fabulous Disaster: From The Garage To Madison Square Garden, The Hard Way that things were the best they’d ever been in Exodus at that time. But then they split with Zetro.
To that end, Holt explained that it’s all about happiness and comfort when you’re in a band in your sixties.
“It’s one of those things. And I’ve got nothing but love for him. It’s not like the last time he left the band, when it was on really bad terms. At 60 years old, this job gets fucking hard. And if you don’t like to travel, and no longer like to be out on the road and and you want to cut the touring way back and all that, we can no longer make a living at this. We literally would have to go get day jobs. That’s pretty much what happened. One guy wasn’t enjoying it anymore. And none of us enjoy being away from home all the time. It sucks. My happy place is being around my family. I can speak for all of us, Steve included. But while I can — this whole age thing — while I can still tour for six weeks and crush it and go out and play seven, eight, nine shows in a row, I’m going to do it. Until I can’t, and then I’ll slow down. But if we start slowing down now, eventually it’s just going to come to a stop.”
You can catch Exodus with Rob Dukes at the helm on the “Swarm of Horror” tour they’ve got going with Misfire and Deicide Possessed Havok. The full list of dates can be found below.
“Swarm Of Horror” 2025 tour dates:
April 27 – Phoenix, AZ – Nile
April 29 – Albuquerque, NM – Sunshine Theater
April 30 – Grand Junction, CO – Mesa Theater
May 01 – Little Rock, AR – The Hall
May 02 – Oklahoma City, OK – Diamond Ballroom
May 04 – Indianapolis, IN – Deluxe @ Old National
May 06 – Flint, MI – Machine Shop
May 08 – Ft. Wayne, IN – Piere’s
May 09 – Columbus, OH – Sonic Temple Festival *
May 11 – Birmingham, AL – Workplay
May 13 – Asheville, NC – Orange Peel
May 15 – Daytona Beach, FL – Welcome to Rockville *
May 17 – Milwaukee, WI – Milwaukee Metal Fest *
* Exodus Only
