My Global Mind recently caught up with Exodus frontman Steve "Zetro" Souza when the band played in Dublin, Ireland. Following is an excerpt from the interview.

MGM: I want to take you back to the start. Exodus were true thrash metal originators.

Zetro: "We’re not considered one of the Big 4, and I hate that phrase. Metallica is by far the biggest band in the world, so to put the other three in that category? No disrespect to Megadeth, Anthrax or Slayer; I love all of those bands, but I lived in the Bay Area when metal was being born, and everybody wanted to be like Exodus. That goes from Possessed, Legacy, Death Angel; it was not necessarily Metallica, it was Exodus, so to me that was the band that innovated and started it out."

MGM: Was there a lot of competition in those early days?

Zetro: "Sure there was. I looked at it like everyone looked at it – I would have to say if you didn’t look at it like that, then you were not hungry enough to do this. You know what they say; only the strong survive. But I think it’s fresher now, and it’s a lot of fun now. I think back then we were so worried about trying to be the number one like everybody was, you lose sight of everyone else and everything else. But now it’s like we pull for everybody like champions. We want to see everybody else succeed and make it, whereas before it was like; 'I gotta notch myself up!'"

Go to this location for the complete interview.

Exodus launched a European tour on February 25th in Birmingham, England. Support comes from Lost Society. Tour dates are listed on the tour poster below: