Exodus have parted ways with their singer of the past nine years, Rob Dukes, reveals blabbermouth.net.
Guitarist Gary Holt has released the following statement: “As a band, we all had to make a very difficult choice to part ways with [singer] Rob Dukes. We have nothing but love and admiration for him and the deepest gratitude for the hard work he has put in and the great work on some killer records. But at this time, Tom [Hunting, drums], Lee [Altus, guitar], Jack [Gibson, bass] and myself thought a change was necessary and the unanimous choice going forward was to welcome back Steve Souza to the fold!”
Adds Souza: “I spent a great part of my life with Exodus. That blood flows through me, [and] even not being in the band for the past 10 years, you can’t erase that chemistry. I’m very excited!”
Dukes joined the band in January 2005 as the replacement for Steve “Zetro” Souza, who was fired from the group in September 2004. Rob has appeared on four studio albums — Shovel Headed Kill Machine (2005), The Atrocity Exhibition… Exhibit A (2007), Let There Be Blood (2008, a re-recording of Exodus’ classic 1985 LP, Bonded By Blood) and “Exhibit B: The Human Condition (2010) — and has released two studio albums with his Generation Kill project, 2011’s Red White And Blood and 2013’s We’re All Gonna Die.
Exodus’ next live appearance is scheduled for July 11 at the Bang Your Head!!! festival in Balingen, Germany.
source: blabbermouth.net
9 Responses
A HUGE SURPRISE TO ME!!! When I saw this?? Why would they do this?? They just did dates with Slayer, Dukes got married, and the Rangers made the Cup finals!! and generation kill is slowly building a following. Dukes was on quite a roll till this till this came out on Sunday. I have to agree, overall a career step backward as far as im concerned, im a huge exodus fan, the 4 dukes albums are ALL AWESOME. i’ll still go see them, and maybe they’ll sell a few more tickets from fans initially for nostalgia sake, but i think in the long run Exodus will still be small venue headliner. And like Anthrax who wiped that ?guys vocals off the worship music record, and redid them with Joey, exodus have to wipe Dukes vocals and redo them with Zetro. Wonder if dukes gets to keep any of his writing credits on the new album?
If Gary Holt is reading this, do not be convinced by all this stuff; you guys definitely made the right decision in bringing Zetro back. I was very (pleasantly) surprised at the news because I never expected it. I couldn’t stand Rob’s (no disrespect to the man himself) incoherent screaming; his voice just doesn’t have the character that Baloff and Zetro had. Besides, he doesn’t have the personality as a frontman that Baloff and Zetro had either. He wouldn’t even crack a smile during the Toxic Waltz! Now all we need is for Exodus to go on tour with the newly-reunited Dark Angel.
Personally kind of torn. I like all Exodus stuff, but its the Duke’s albums that got me back into them in a big way. Those albums felt like a rebirth of the band, Raze on Shovel Headed Kill Machine is one of my all time favorite thrash songs. And Exhibit B is just a killer start to finish in my opinion. On the flip side I met Dukes in SF this spring, and was bummed when he came off like kind of a dick. I was just being friendly and yes saying all the typical nerd fan stuff…”love the latest album”..”very cool to meet you” etc… but it was like I was putting him out and he was bothered that I said anything to him. I could almost understand someone uber famous being bothered by another fan saying the same old stuff, but its not like Exodus is a household name and hes mobbed every time he leaves the house. I would think he would show a little more appreciation to someone who was genuinely stoked to meet him and bought every CD he was on. He came off like he could really have cared less. Maybe he was having a bad day, or maybe hes just one of those guys that you have to get to know, im not Mr friendly every minute of the day either, but if hes like that towards every fan, hard not to see getting canned as some sort of karma.
I am bummed, I heard rumor of a new album coming soon but just found out about Dukes not being the vocalist anymore. Guess I will check it out but the last few Exodus albums have been my fave. I swear the music was even better, hard driving!!! Powerful. Almost like a totally different band . Most new crap now days I don’t like because of all the tech no deedle dee sounding crap, many sounding the same. Dukes and Exodus was a perfect match. If I wanna listen to 80’s I’d dig out my old cd’s. Been waiting and waiting for another album and now I’m bummed out!! Sorry Mr Naizley sounding ole vocalist but Dukes sounded Bad Ass