It's been quite a few years since either of us at Among The Living had considered Exodus anything other than a joke, so the return to 'Bonded By Blood', hands down one of the greatest metal records of all time, was a serious event for us. We'd set up a day of show interview with returning kingpin Paul Baloff through Exodus' label Century Media a few weeks in advance of the show. We had spent those weeks getting more and more stoked as the day approached. The much anticipated day finally arrived and liquor was our first priority, so we headed to Ballard early for drinks, and also because sitting around Capitol Hill knowing Exodus were only across town at the Firehouse was too much to deal with. We sat at a nearby bar getting well buzzed, going over our questions and generally getting psyched up.

As mentioned earlier we thought that we were going to be interviewing Paul Baloff, but we found out last minute that Gary Holt was taking over because Baloff had bronchitis. Most of our planned questions were centered on Baloff, so we had to do some last minute drunken brainstorming for new questions to ask Gary. As it turned out, Gary and drummer Tom Hunting both talked with us, along with some input from Gary's wife and daughter who were hanging out.

We found ourselves beginning the interview talking about things outside of music, namely sports, as Gary was wearing a Miami Heat Hardaway jersey. Obviously we had to give him a little shit about that, being as the Sonics kick fucking ass all over Miami. Gary did have us on the interleague Mariners/Giants match up though.

That shit out of the way we thought we had better get down to the serious issues at hand. We got the interview rolling with the most standard question- how, and why? To which Gary replied, "It would not have even started if Tom, Jack and I didn't have the other band, Wardance. Everything was going well with that band until our singer went off the deep end. The search for a singer was horribly disenchanting for us..." At this point we press Gary for information about the Wardance project that came together after the final fall of Exodus. Gary didn't really have much to say about Wardance except that "We did a demo, a crushing huge demo, but we had to fire our singer and we couldn't find anybody else." Alright, I guess we can leave it at that.

So now, back to the original question at hand- "It started out with a drunken conversation, which led to a rumor in Europe that we were doing (the reunion) anyway. After that Exodus started to sound pretty good sober. The next thing you know, here we are."

With all the recent reunions taking place, such as Venom, SOD, etc, I gotta tell you in the backs of our minds we were thinking -back together for the cash was probably one of Exodus' motivating factors, so it was good to hear Gary explain it out in drinking terms which I think most people, and definitely us, can relate to. I'm sure everyone reading this has spent many buzzed nights making drunk plans. These guys just had the desire and the means to put their drunk plan into action, and we all get to benefit from it.

Since we had started to talk post-Exodus bands with Gary, we decided to get his opinion on Piranha, which was Baloff's band after Exodus. Gary informs, "The first Piranha lineup was really good- they did a tape. That lineup dissolved, and after that there were about 20 different lineups, and Baloff could never find anyone to write riffs for him."

Since this reunion had been billed as the original line-up, we had to call Gary out on the fact that bassist Rob McKillop wasn't around. "Rob doesn't play anymore, and anyway, Jack smokes Rob at Rob's best..." Tom cuts in, "We gave him a chance, and he said no. He was totally honest about it, he said he hadn't picked up a bass in years and didn't think he could play that shit anymore." Obviously former vocalist Steve Sauso couldn't be a part of this reunion, but we were curious none the less what he was doing, to which Tom answered, "Steve's got a day job, two kids and makes more money than he ever did in Exodus. He's got a real solid life." Being in a killer metal band seems pretty fucking solid to us at ATL, but people gotta do whatever it takes to get by.

Now we talk about their tour, which Gary informs us is their longest tour ever. "With Baloff, back in the old days, we did a couple of tours with Venom, one in the US and one in Europe." It seems that the Europeans were pretty excited about the return of Exodus, and especially the return of Baloff. "In Europe they love that guy, they went crazy for the Troll", Gary stated, which floored us, as we'd been calling Baloff the Troll since we first found out they were back together. Packing the interview in, we had to ask if this was just a phase for Exodus, a reunion tour or a full scale reunion. "As far as touring, we're going to go to Japan and South America after this US tour. Then take some time off and start writing new material." I guess that means they're back!