EXODUS OR EX-CONTENDERS?

EXODUS OR EX-CONTENDERS?

FEATURES

Don Kaye

Once upon a time there was a band called Metallica who emerged from San Francisco (after moving there from Los Angeles) to become one of the most popular and important metal bands around today. They put San Francisco on the map as the underground metal capital of the world.

One of the members of Metallica was in a band before he joined Metallica. His name was Kirk Hammett and the band was called Exodus. Hammett formed Exodus with drummer Tom Hunting, who is currently the only original member of Exodus. From 1983 on, Exodus built up a strong following in the Frisco area, and were eventually signed to a record deal in 1984, by Torrid Records. Their first album, Bonded By Blood, came out in April of 1985 and quickly became one of the biggest selling independent thrash metal albums ever.

Over the next year or so thrash became very popular, and several acts,' such as Slayer and Anthrax, got signed to major labels. Metallica was already there, of course. It was naturally assumed by everyone that Exodus would follow in the path of their buddies from Frisco and get signed, too.

It didn’t quite happen that way.

It’s taken poor Exodus over two years to get their second album out, and it’s still on an independent label (Combat). It’s called Pleasures Of The Flesh, and it’s very, very good. And guitarist Gary Holt is gonna tell me what the hell took so long.

“Well, the first year after Bonded By Blood came out, we were just doing a lot of touring—but what happened after that is that it took us a year to get out of our Torrid Records contract/’ says Holt. “We knew they wouldn’t be able to come up with any kind of decent budget for the second album, and they weren’t giving us any support, anyway—in fact, they still owe us some money. It took a long time to get away from them, but now everything is looking up.”

The band did get offers from other companies, but Torrid was apparently asking too high a price for the band. “We did try to work something out, but Torrid wanted so much money that the other labels were turned off,” Holt notes. “We have a lot of interest from major labels right now, because the word is getting out how heavy and how good the new album is. I don’t see a very long future with Combat, and I don’t think they do, either. It'd be foolish for them not to take a nice buy-out offer on the next album. I know they wanted to release this album, and they’re really behind it, but my feeling is that they’ll sell us for the next album.”

Exodus’ problems didn't end with the record companies. They were also faced with a personnel problem, as it was becoming increasingly clear that singer Paul Bailoff—for years the band’s live focus and special favorite among Exodus fans—just couldn’t get the job done onstage. His timing was off too often, and his vocals were ragged, putting a damper on the group’s potentially explosive live show. So last year, the band (which is rounded out by guitarist Rick Hunolt and bassist Rob McKillop) came to a parting of the ways with Bailoff and recruited ex-Testament singer Steve “Zetro” Sousa.

“We were seeing a problem with Paul, but it wasn’t as bad as people made it out to be,” Holt maintains. “When he was good, he was great, but then sometimes he’d have some problems and forget the words and stuff like that. We sat down and had a long talk, and he was wanting to start his own band anyway—to be the main attraction, so to speak—and since we were friends with Steve Sousa, we asked him to come in. The first night Steve jammed with us it just clicked. Paul’s got a new group now, and they’re really good. They sound nothing like Exodus, and I think that’s a point in Paul’s favor. We’re still best of friends.”

Maybe they are, but that didn’t stop the underground’s (especially the loyal Exodus cult in Frisco) initially harsh reaction to the news of Bailoff’s departure. “We had a problem with the first couple of shows we did, but that was over a year ago and was to be expected. We did two shows at the Farm, and Zet was getting heckled at the beginning, but by the end of the first show, it had stopped. During the second show, we had Paul come out and do a duet with Zet on ‘Bonded By Blood,’ which was great. It was a real emotional moment for us,” says Holt.

New singer in place, and new contract settled, Exodus finally began recording the new album in May. “We spent about two-and-a-half months working on it and we spent quite a bit of time working on the drum tracks, due to some techniques that were used and will now never be used again by our former producer, Mark Whitaker,” Holt mutters. “This ran us over budget and over time, and we got really fed up, because Mark was trying to run the project himself. He wanted us to listen only to what he had to say and not put in our two cents on our own project, even though we felt we had more than an ample amount of ideas.” What eventually happened is that Whitaker, who also produced the band’s first album, was fired from Pleasures Of The Flesh. The band took over (with the help of engineer Mark Sinisac) and got the budget and time under control. "With Mark, I spent four days trying to get the guitar tone I wanted, and I still hated it,” continues Gary. “Once we took it over ourselves,

I got the tone I wanted in about an hourand-a-half.”

The Exodus guitar sound is perhaps the band’s trademark (you know; it goes like this: chunka-chunka-chunk-chunketc.), and it’s something they wanted to maintain. “We definitely wanted to keep that,” asserts Gary, “but Mark didn’t. He wanted to do it totally differently. The sound he was working on was much more polished and smoothed-out, with none of the rawness and crunch. He couldn’t come to terms with the fact that we wanted every bit of rawness in theie.”

Overall, Holt is very satisfied with the production and is confident that the album stacks up to major label competition. He also feels that the band has made some large strides musically: “There’s a lot of progression going on, as far as use of guitar harmonies and stuff like that. Some of the songs are really basic and straightforward and in your face, while some of them are more progressive and involved than previous Exodus stuff. A lot of people may ask if that’s intentionai, but it’s not. We’ve all just progressed as musicians since the first album. Everything—the lead guitar playing, the drumming—is better than on the first album. There’s a lot of melody in ou new stuff that’s right next to the honecrunching stuff. I think there’s a jood variety of material on the record.”

An Exodus trademark the banc has shifted away from is the violence motif that appeared in all their early lyrics. A glance at the titles on the new albun suggests that, while they’re not writing .bout true love or Jesus yet, they’ve expa ided their range. “That’s a fact, it’s something we wanted to do,” says Gary. “ ‘ChemiKill,’ for instance, is about toxic dumping. That and ‘Seeds Of Hate’ are pc itical songs. ‘Seeds’ is about terrorism. ‘Chemi-Kill’ is really close to home, ! terally, for me, ’cause it’s about politician.; taking money from these toxic dumper; and letting them dump where they like. Now they’re supposed to start dumping about a six-minute bicycle ride from my home, which I’m not into at all.”

So when we put it all together—pt rsonnel changes, contract reshuffling, pr >duction hassles—it becomes pretty clear what Exodus has been doing all this rime. At the same time, however, thrash netal has moved on without them, carving away at its own little niche in rock ’n’ roll history. With all the bands coming up ne w, is there room for Exodus? Can they a: send to take their place alongside the Big Four—Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth?

“We’ve definitely lost some ground, but I don’t see this as any kind of ga ne of catch-up,” says Holt. “As soon as this album is released, and we hit the read to support it, I think it’s gonna launch us right up past a lot of other bands, i think we’re going to do some really gooa tours and put ourselves right back on top. We were all disenchanted with our situation, with not being able to put out something new, and now that it’s ready we’re just filled with a new energy. We’re ready to go out and go grazy and enjoy ourselves. But I’m not concerned with getting in some kind of race with the other bands. All I can say is, we’re back this year with a bigtime vengeance!”

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So that’s the lowdown on Exodus. And now that the album is out, it’s up to the fans to decide just how much success the band will reap on their “comeback.” I wish ’em all the luck, ’cause it sure must be strange to make a comeback after releasing one album. Judging from the advance buzz on Pleasures Of The Flesh, however, it seems as if Exodus will always have a special place in the black little hearts of thrash metal fans. ®