Interview

Exodus' Tom Hunting: " I Feel Fortunate To Be In A Band That Made Ten Records."

Along with Kirk Hammett, Tom Hunting is a founding member of Exodus. He also originally did vocals for the band. While Kirk Hammett left Exodus to play in Metallica, Hunting went on to play drums on Exodus’ first three albums: “Bonded By Blood” (1985), “Pleasures of the Flesh” (1987) and “Fabulous Disaster” (1989). Hunting has appeared on seven of Exodus’ ten albums including their most recent opus “Blood In Blood Out.” Ex-White Zombie, Testament drummer John Tempesta and current Slayer skin basher Paul Bostaph stepped in during Hunting’s absence.

In the time Hunting’s been in the band, Exodus toured America with Venom and Slayer in 1985 during their “Bonded By Blood” days as part of the Combat Records Tour, which released the VHS gem Combat Tour Live: The Ultimate Revenge." More recently, Hunting joined unholy forces with Slayer again on a thrasher’s dream package of Slayer, Exodus and Suicidal Tendencies. While commanding heads to bang across America with King Diamond, the group stopped in San Antonio, Texas to play Phil Anselmo’s third annual Housecore Horror Film Festival. We caught up with Hunting to discuss these tours, “Blood In Blood Out,” as well as personal influences, drumming styles and how everybody is doing the “Toxic Waltz.”

Rex_84: How is the tour going with King Diamond? Have you toured with him before?

Tom Hunting: We’ve never actually toured with King Diamond. We’ve just done one offs over the years. We played with Mercyful Fate way back in the day and some shows with King Diamond, but we’ve never actually done a proper tour. It’s going great! It’s a good lineup. All the bands are hitting it off really good. The crews are working really good together. It’s a good match. I’m having fun.

Rex_84: Are you friendly with King?

Hunting: Yeah, King is awesome! Super nice guy. Super laid back.

Rex_84: Were you a fan of King Diamond/Mercyful Fate in the eighties?

Hunting: Very much so. He was an influence on all of us. I remember sitting around in Metallica’s house in El Cerrito head banging and dissecting every lyric, every riff, every drum beat. Yeah, he’s a big-time influence pretty much on everybody: Megadeth, Exodus, Metallica, all the bands.

Rex_84: Was that for the evil stuff he did or just the music he played?

Hunting: I don’t know where the first recording came from. I probably heard it from Kirk [Hammett]. Kirk, I think, brought it on a cassette that he recorded between two and eight in the morning on college radio in San Francisco. Ron Quintana KUSF had Rampage Radio. That’s how this shit got around back then, college radio. College radio doesn’t get a lot of credit, but they were the first to start pumping this music. It was a different time. You had to work for the music. You had to lick a stamp and an envelope or a bunch of stamps and then send off a cassette.

Rex_84: How do you feel about playing a horror film festival?

Hunting: Well, we’ve done it before. We did the Kirk Hammett one. We played what they call a zombie pub crawl. I think we’ve done a couple of those, now. We did one in Minnesota. We did one somewhere else. I can’t remember. So, we’re no strangers to horror.

Rex_84: Are you going to get to watch any films? Any bands?

Hunting: I’ll probably watch Superjoint Ritual after we’re done playing. I see the King every night, but I’ll probably watch some of his set tonight. I imagine because it’s a horror festival, there will be some people super in character.

Rex_84: Are you friends with Phil Anselmo?

Hunting: Not really, we’re acquaintances. I wasn’t with Exodus when they toured with Pantera in the early days. I met Phil at Hellfest this year. He was a super nice guy, super friendly. He loves metal. He loves old school thrash.

Rex_84: How has “Blood In Blood Out” been received by fans and critics?

Hunting: So far, so good (so what). It came out of the gate charting. We’re happy about that. We got Zet [Steve “Zetro” Souza]. It’s a strong record. It was album number ten. I feel fortunate to be in a band that made ten records. That in itself is like “yay!”

Rex_84: How many albums have you played on?

Hunting: I was on seven of them and the live record [“Another Lesson in Violence.”] And some other live recordings. I had to leave a couple times to take a break.

Rex_84: John Tempesta and Paul Bostaph came in when you left.

Hunting: Yes, both super good drummers. Good people on top of that.

Re_84: Are you friends with those guys?

Hunting: Very much. Had that not happened, my leaving and Tempesta joining the band, I wouldn’t have this awesome friendship with Johnny Tempesta. Everything happened like it’s suppose to.

Rex_84: “The Toxic Waltz” has become one of the all-time classic metal anthems. Did you know you had a hit when you created that song?

Hunting: We thought it was a strong song. And as the lyrics came together we thought, “ah, this will be pretty cool.” It’s kind of representative of the times, like the late ‘80s, people killing each other in the pit in a friendly, violent kind of way. Of course, everybody strives to write hits. He strived to just write good songs. Songs that feel good to us to play and bam!, there you go.

Rex_84: When Exodus came out, you pushed the boundaries of speed and being extreme. Who were some of the drummers you were listening to at the time when you started playing with Exodus?

Hunting: At the time, I grew up listening to a lot of funk music. A lot of Ohio Players, Heatwave, Tower of Power, whatever, and also a lot of classic rock. About the time Exodus started writing music for “Bonded By Blood,” Gary Holt’s brother was turning us on to punk rock. Holy shit! When we heard Discharge and GBH and all of that stuff it kind of just all coalesced. You add that element and the classic rock element and of course, Motorhead, R.I.P. Phil Taylor. I feel awful about that.

Rex_84: He’s probably a big influence on you.

Hunting: Very much, yes. He’s an influence on Lars [Ulrich], too. It just coalesced and that’s basically where the beats came from. As far as I can tell. You kind of emulate what you listen too, I guess. There is also Keith Moon in there, Tommy Aldridge.

Rex_84: What was it like when you toured with Slayer and Venom [Combat Tour, 1985]? Did you party a lot?

Hunting: [Laughs] that was a long time ago, 1985, bro. Fuck yeah!, it was a great time. We had a blast! It was a good tour. I think it was only fourteen shows in the States or something like that. It was very spread out, so there were a lot of days off to get in trouble. We were travelling around in vans back then. We were just kids. I did most of the driving because no one else had a license. Not that I trusted them to drive anyway.

Rex_84: Did that mean you had to be the designated driver?

Hunting: A lot of times. But back then there were also a few designated drunk driving nights. I had to pump up on truck stop coffee to get my head right. No, but it was a great tour. Venom was another legendary band that influenced all of us who were youngsters back then. Venom brought Exodus to Europe the first time we went there, so we owe a lot to that band.

Rex_84: We just saw them play a few days ago.

Hunting: Was it real Venom? Was it Cronos Venom?

Rex_84: Cronos Venom.

Hunting: Listen Cronos: you need to reform with those guys. If you ever hear (read) this, get the band back together! I mean the whole thing was they didn’t want to play when Cronos was still playing. Now they’re playing. Fuck all the bullshit! Put it all back together.

Rex_84: You’re a fast drummer and then death metal came out and people started doing blast beats. How did you feel when you started seeing drummers blast beat?

Hunting: Dated. No, I think those kind of drummers are gifted in a different sort of way. It’s a completely different school of drumming than from where I came from. It actually requires a set of skills and rudimentary training that I never got. But then again, I’ve met some of those drummers that can’t do a simple Phil Rudd beat because they don’t have any groove. All they know is fast, death metal beats. Not all of them. The ones that influence me that I like to hear is Gene Hoglan, Nick Barker—super innovators that still hit hard and play that kind of beat.

Rex_84: What’s next for Exodus? Are you working on new material or do you have more tours?

Hunting: We have South America lined up for January/February. Then February/March we are going to Europe again to do a tour. We’re already lining up festivals for the summer. In between that time we will probably write some new music, but before anything new comes out it might be time to do a live thing with Zet back in the band. Zet covering the whole catalog including the Rob Dukes-era stuff. But we’ll see. We’ve got to sit down and talk about it as a band. We’ve got one guy that’s busy in another band right now, too, so. Which is fine. It’s a good thing.

Rex_84: When he sings Rob Dukes’ stuff, what do you notice when you’re sitting behind the drum kit?

Hunting: Even behind the drum kit, I pay attention to how the singing sounds. He loves the Dukes-era music as did Rob the Zet-era music. I think both of their voices when they sing over each other’s stuff complement each other pretty good. Zet loves the music we made during the Dukes era. He’s like, “let’s pull this one out. Let’s pull that one out.” The problem we got is we are an older band. We have ten records out. We’re trying to pull music out from ten records and cram it into an hour set.

Rex_84: How do you do that?

Hunting: It’s rough. It’s rough. There are certain ones you’ve gotten to play. We’ve got to play “Bonded By Blood.” “Strike of the Beast” is always the closer. We didn’t play “Toxic” for many years. We put it back in the set so it’s kind of a staple, too. Other than that, what do you pull from?

Rex_84: Piranha?

Hunting: Some nights, yeah. Tonight, no.

Rex_84: Do you close with songs out of habit based on crowd reaction?

Hunting: It’s a tough formula because you get caught up in crowd reaction. Lee [Altus], our guitar player, thinks that if the crowd is not going insane they don’t like the song. But I think sometimes things are more atmosphere. That’s a hippy word to use, but maybe they’re just watching the song instead of going shit-balls crazy. We usually go with the ones that make them go shit-ball crazy. That usually wins. We’re a thrash band, you know what I mean? If people are thrashing, we feed off that energy. If they are standing there, we’re kind of like, “maybe we’ll just stand there.”

Rex_84: Speaking of energy, do you see less energy now than you did in the eighties?

Hunting: No, it’s crazy as ever right now. It’s kind of a regional thing, too. We’ll see what Texas has to offer tonight.

Rex_84: San Antonio is probably a little more wild than Austin.

Hunting: I have to agree with you. Dallas is lame. YOU GOTTA GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER, DALLAS! I watched people yawning when we played with Slayer. What the fuck’s up with that?

Rex_84: How did that tour go with Slayer and Suicidal Tendencies? (Read about their show in Austin).

Hunting: It went great! It was a good bill.

Rex_84: Are you good buds with the Slayer and Suicidal guys?

Hunting: Totally. That tour had a great vibe, too. Shit man! We all go back so many years. We’re good friends. I hadn’t seen the Suicidal guys in years. I became great friends with Mike [Muir] again and his band, people he has playing with him now. Yeah, it was a great time.