Local Thrash Heroes Exodus Headline Outdoor Show in Oakland
By Dave Pehling
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Thrash greats Exodus will headline a daytime outdoor show in Oakland this Sunday, sharing the stage with San Jose death-metal favorites Exhumed and reunited skate-punk band Boneless Ones.
One of the pioneering thrash-metal outfits to emerge in the Bay Area, Exodus has been delivering its signature neck-snapping riffs for over four decades. The group was formed in 1979 in Richmond by guitarist Kirk Hammett and drummer Tom Hunting, several years before Los Angeles transplants Metallica poached Hammett to replace troubled guitar player Dave Mustaine in 1983.
The band went through a number of line-up changes before the quintet -- now led by guitarist and principal songwriter Gary Holt -- recorded its seminal debut Bonded By Blood with original vocalist Paul Baloff in 1984. Powered by such brutal mosh-pit anthems as "And Then There Were None," "Strike of the Beast" and the pulverizing title track, the recording would have been one of the first salvos of the growing Bay Area thrash-metal movement if the album's release hadn't been delayed by business issues until the spring of 1985.
Still, thanks to underground success of the raw recording and the band's growing reputation for ferocious live shows, Exodus was soon being courted by major labels trying to tap into the emerging popularity of thrash. The band would part ways with Baloff after the Bonded By Blood tour, replacing him with Steve "Zetro" Souza, the singer who had made his name fronting Legacy (see above).
Signed to Sony/Combat Records, Exodus hit its commercial peak with 1987's Pleasures of the Flesh and Fabulous Disaster two years later, continuing to set the bar for sonic brutality high while earning a broader audience thanks to MTV airplay of the hit "The Toxic Waltz" from the latter album.
The group would hit a rough patch after moving to Capitol Records for 1989's Impact is Imminent following the departure of Hunting. Holt would put Exodus on hiatus in the early '90s after issuing the slower, more experimental Force of Habit in 1992, but the band reunited with Baloff and new bassist Jack Gibson later in the decade for a live album and periodic touring. It wasn't until after Baloff passed away in 2002 from a stroke that Souza would return to the fold, recording 2004's Tempo of the Damned before a sudden and acrimonious split from Exodus that same year.
The band spent much of the next decade producing new albums featuring more intricate thrash epics with new singer Rob Dukes and former Heathen guitarist Lee Altus, who performed on several acclaimed albums including a re-recording of Bonded By Blood entitled Let There Be Blood in 2008. While the busy Holt has split his time since early 2011 filling in onstage for ailing Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman (who sadly two years later), Exodus has remained his main passion.
In 2014, the band made surprise announcement that it had parted ways with Dukes after a decade and Souza would be returning to Exodus once again. Though some fans expressed skepticism over the change, their Nuclear Blast Records release Blood In, Blood Out in 2014 was widely hailed as a punishing return to form.
Exodus maintained a busy touring schedule since that album was released, despite the fact that Holt was busy for a solid stretch of 2018 and 2019 with Slayer's global farewell tour. Still, the band managed to write enough new songs to enter the studio to record their latest effort (and first album in seven years) Persona Non Grata during late summer of 2020 at Hunting's home studio near Lake Almanor.
While the band had planned to release the album sooner, another health issue besides the pandemic would force them to change plans. Last spring, Hunting announced that he had been diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the stomach. In addition to a regimen of chemotherapy to treat the cancer, this summer he was forced to undergo a full gastrectomy and spent several months recovering from that operation and adjusting to living life without a stomach.
Hunting was happily able to return to the stage for Exodus' appearance at Aftershock in Sacramento in October as well as the Oakland stop of "The Bay Strikes Back Tour" on the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Persona Non Grata finally saw release around that time to reviews that have hailed the band for delivering such a brutal feast of riffs more than 40 years after it was founded.
For this outdoor afternoon show presented by the Oakland Metro, Exodus will be joined by influential South Bay death/grind institution Exhumed. Founded in 1990 by San Jose guitarist/vocalist Matt Harvey when he was just 15 years old, the band went through a long gestation period of playing local shows and recording raw demos through the decade with an evolving line-up.
Drawing inspiration from UK and European death metal (Carcass and Entombed) and American grindcore (Repulsion and Terrorizer), Exhumed eventually releasing their proper debut album, the cartoonishly gruesome, over-the-top Gore Metal in 1998. Harvey would later criticize the album as "sloppy," but the recording served as a calling card that helped the band book tours across the U.S. and get invited to European metal festivals, paving the way toward better recorded and more sophisticated follow-up efforts Slaughtercult and Anatomy Is Destiny.
The band would release a collection of early recordings -- Platters of Splatter -- and the covers album Garbage Daze Re-Regurgitated, a tongue-in-cheek nodded to Metallica's Garage Days Re-Revisited that featured versions of songs by the Cure, Led Zeppelin and GBH along with a number of early death metal favorites prior to Harvey putting the band on an extended hiatus in 2005. However he would reconvene the band in 2010 and returned to recording, releasing a string of acclaimed albums since issuing its initial comeback album All Guts, No Glory in 2011. Early-era bassist Ross Sewage (who also plays in costumed death/thrash band Ghoul, Ludicra and Impaled) returned to the group in 2015 and has played on all Exhumed releases since, including 2019's Horror.
Opening the show are Bay Area skate-punk vets Boneless Ones. Inspired by the classic Thrasher Magazine punk compilations of the early '80s, the band contributed the tune "Keg Kept a Flowing" (a parody of the oft-covered blues rock staple "Train Kept a Rollin'") to the Bay Area punk imprint Boner Records' seminal collection Them Boners Be Poppin' alongside such hardcore greats as Tales of Terror, Fang, Verbal Abuse and Bl'ast.
In 1986, the group released it's debut -- and so far only -- album, the landmark skate-punk effort Skate for the Devil that stands as one of the Bay Area's great contributions to the crossover movement. While the band would split up the following year, Boneless Ones reunited in 2019 with original singer Max Fox and bassist Troy Takaki teaming up with a couple of local metal and punk legends for their new line-up featuring drummer Chris Kontos (Attitude Adjustment, Machine Head, Verbal Abuse and many others) and guitarist Craig Locicero (Forbidden Evil/Forbidden, Dress the Dead and more).
In addition to reissuing the long out-of-print Skate for the Devil on Beer City in 2020, the band put out it's first new tune in decades just before Christmas with the hilarious seasonal punk anthem "Santa Stole My Skateboard." Last year, the quartet recorded what will be Boneless Ones' first new album in over 35 years when it comes out later in 2022.
Exodus with Exhumed and Boneless Ones
Sunday, March 6, 1 p.m. $30
Underworld Theater Festival at 3rd and Castro
