EXODUS - Steve ‘Zetro’ Souza
Face-to-face with Steve ‘Zetro’ Souza
Written by: Tom Wilson – Sense Music Media | Wednesday 3 November 2021
COVID, soaring petrol prices, Biden … there is a lot going on these days, but say the wrong thing and you just might be Persona Non Grata. Fortunately, that doesn’t seem to bother EXODUS screamer Steve "Zetro" Souza. Maybe it’s the legal weed. On the release of the O.G. thrashers’ eleventh album, Zetro blazed one up and spoke to Sense from his new digs in Oakdale, California.
[Note: Before anyone loses their marbles, Sense has interviewed primarily left-leaning progressives in its short history. Don’t crack the shits when we interview a conservative for a change.]
Do I dare ask what it’s like there at the moment?
Not as bad. There are concerts, there are sporting events, restaurants are open, movies are open … I live in a county that’s a little bit more conservative, so you don’t have to wear masks necessarily, even though you’re supposed to, but they don’t enforce it. I just moved from an area where you can’t walk into a public bathroom without a mask on.
By “more conservative”, does it mean that you don’t have to keep pretending that Biden is doing a great job?
Not where I live! Not where I live. I bought this house a couple of weeks ago, and a lot of the reason I bought this house is that California is divided into colours – very blue – but this county that I live in is predominantly very red … very red. I live in a cowboy town, and cowboy’s ain’t playing, you know what I mean?
I find it hard to fathom a red state area in California.
We have to play in Oakland next month in November … the Bay Strikes Back Tour with TESTAMENT and DEATH ANGEL. It’s at a venue called the Fox Theatre, which is a really prestigious place to play. Many, many famous artists have played this place, and the only way to enter is to show proof of vaccination. To me, that’s the government forcing you to do something … Well, if you want to go to the concert, you’re going to have to do this … They’re going to start doing that with everything. That’s not what this country was built on. This country was built on freedom of democracy. What happened to “my body, my choice”?
You know how this pandemic has become a bipartisan issue? I wonder if Trump had framed it as, “If we wear a mask, it’ll be like giving the middle finger to China,” [his base] would’ve been like, “Yeah!” Is that a weird thing to say? I don’t know.
I think the best part of him was that everything came honestly from him, regardless of whether it got him in trouble or not. Everything that came out of his mouth or on his tweets was from him – they weren’t from some advisor writing them for him. I love the fact that he was the first guy to be there who wasn’t a politician. He told you like it was, and I don’t think people liked hearing it like it was … And now look what they have to deal with! [Laughs] So I’m glad they didn’t like him. I’m glad that’s what you wanted. I don’t want to hear you complain now that gas has gone up a dollar a gallon in a year. Sheets of plywood, which were $28 for a sheet of plywood, are now $94 … Meat is going through the roof, because you have to get everything by trucks, and if gas goes up, so does the price of everything.
The funny thing is, I’m starting to hear even the very left-wing people I know start to go, “I think we made a mistake.”
My kids are not right-wing. My kids are not conservative, and they’re seeing it too, and they’re like, “Wow!” And there’s people who are now going, “Oh my god, you guys were right.” … It’s the freedom of being American: you have your choice. That’s what it is. I’m not complaining to anybody. I’ll live in America. It’s still the greatest country in the world. We have opportunities beyond anywhere else, so I’ll never say anything bad about America.
You’ve left and re-joined EXODUS more than once. How would you describe the process of re-joining a band?
I left one time. The band got dissolved in ’93 – I had nothing to do with that. If it was my choice, at the end of ’93 when we did dissolve the band, if they’d come to me, I would’ve said, “Let’s continue it.” If anything, that was Gary’s decision. But I chose to leave in 2004, to take care of my family, because EXODUS was financially no longer able to do that, and I had three kids and a wife. What was I supposed to do? Pitch a fucking tent in the park, and say, “Hey! Daddy’s a rock star! Deal with it!”
What’s it like re-joining? Is it like starting back at a job? Or is it more emotional?
This would be my third stint – three-time loser, baby! … I would say that it makes you … The first time around, I took it all for granted. “I’m a rock star – gimmie, gimmie, gimmie!” You know what I mean? The second time was like, “Ugh, I don’t even know if I want to do this anymore.” Third time around was like, “Yeah, this is fun! No drugs, no booze, no promiscuity, you know? Just going on and playing live. It’s been all about the music. This has been the funnest time. There’s always a freshness with the new record. There’s always a freshness with the new tour. There’s never knowing what could happen, you know what I mean? The band could be the biggest thing since sliced bread next week, or the biggest flop in the world. There’s never … how do you say it … a pattern of how it’s going to go, and I think, to me, that’s the intriguing part, you know what I mean?
I got to see Gary tearing it up with SLAYER on their farewell tour in Brisbane in 2019. Now that SLAYER have called it a day, how has this changed things for EXODUS? What’s it been like having more focus on EXODUS?
That’s why Persona Non Grata is what it is, because Gary was able to focus completely on EXODUS, and not have to go, “Shit, hurry up! We’ve got to get this recorded because I’ve gotta go out with SLAYER for a month.” That was the problem that we had over the last six years … we always had to [be like], “Oh shit, we’ve got a timeline here, let’s do it.” … This is his band. This is his direction. He wrote eleven of the twelve songs on the album, and nine of them lyrically. SLAYER wasn’t his band, EXODUS was his band. I think it just enhanced him as a composer and a player. Bringing him back full force is the reason why the record Persona Non Grata is as good as it is.
Your vocals go hard on this. How do you take care of your voice?
I smoke a shitload of weed. I’m burning right now. We can do that in California because it’s legal. I can go ten minutes away and go to a place that’s the size of a fucking Target or a Wal-Mart and walk in there and buy anything I want, weed-wise. I don’t do other drugs, and I don’t drink alcohol, and I sing all day long to shit. I listen to music all the time, so I’m constantly singing to it, whether it’s punk rock or hair metal or thrash metal or death metal. So I can sing a wide range of stuff, so I’m always in tune. I never lose my voice on the road either. I just know how to do it. I know the mechanics. I know how hard to push here, and on this song, I’ve got to do this here. Oh, on this song I’ve got to go [inhales deeply] right before that part and slowly push it out, and tilt my chin that way – if I do that, it’s going to do this. It’s all about mechanics that are all second-nature now. I didn’t even think about it. My body just automatically does it.
You sing in a band called TENET with the guys from STRAPPING YOUNG LAD, who are one of my favourite bands of all time. What are the odds of seeing more material from TENET in the future?
We’ve talked about that. I talked to Glen [Alvelais] and I talked to Jed about that. Basically, that was Jed Simon’s baby. I spoke to Jed … [in] August, because his wife came out to Psycho Vegas – Suzanna, she’s a huge EXODUS fan, so I talked to him. I hear that all the time … The vocals on that record was another thing I did that was not necessarily out of my element, but a lot different. I mean, Personae Non Grata is the best vocal [performance] I’ve done on a record ever, in the thirty-five years I’ve been doing this shit. I think the approach, the attack, the vocal tone that I used through the record, the parts that I used them on – I think it was all the best performance for myself on this one, definitely.
I’m almost four years sober, so these days, rather than sitting down with a scotch and listening to music, I’m primarily weightlifting when I’m absorbing new albums, so if you needed a gauge as to how good Persona Non Grata is, I hit a personal best while cranking your new album, so it’s good!
Good for you! That’s good for you. I know people who have problems with alcohol. I’m not sober – I just choose not to drink. I never had a problem with it. I decided one year – and again, I could take it or leave it before … I decided in ’09 that maybe it’s not the best thing to do anymore. Say you go out on a Saturday night. You lay around all day Sunday and you go to work Monday and you’ve ruined your whole weekend because you wanted to have a few hours of fun? Fuck that. I don’t want to feel like shit anymore. So I decided not to drink, not because I had a problem with it … We could go to Belgium and they’ll go, “Do you want a beer?” And I’ll say, “Yeah, I do.” I’ll have a beer or two beers and then I’m fine. I can go out one night and have a shot and be fine. But honestly, I can’t even remember the last beer I had, it’s been that long … Especially when I’m on the road, I don’t touch it. If I was going to have a beer like that, it would have to be a night off. I don’t drink after, I don’t before, I don’t drink at home, I don’t do pills. I don’t even take aspirin or Tylenol or any of that shit. I don’t want anything going though my body. I run five miles every day, so I keep myself in shape. I’m ready to go. I’m ready to kick some ass!
This is why I’m really jealous of you guys having legal weed. [Laughs]
I’m smoking weed right now! This is by a company called Highgarden, platinum kush. This was $22 for three-and-a-half grams of the top indica. You walk in, and these little people are standing in line. They call them “budtenders”, like a bartender, but it’s a budtender. The budtender goes “Oh hi! How are you? What can I get you today?” And just like a bartender, they’ll tell you what’s good, what’s strong, and they have everything. Candy bars, gummies, joints, mints … You can put it in tea, ice cream. Whatever, they have it, in any form possible. You can get crumble, you can get resin, you can get this stuff that they call “dabs” that will just fucking wipe your world with high-end THC. That’s one thing that I love about the States, let alone California. You can smoke and have all the weed you want. You can grow it!
What are some of the biggest and hardest lessons that your career has taught you as a human?
Be patient, be humble. Appreciate what you have, and don’t be jealous of what others have.
I like that last part. It’s easier said than done, though.
Not for me. Maybe on the first time it was, because we were like, “Wait a minute! We’re better than those guys!” … That’s just the way it is. Be happy, be glad you have what you have, and never take it for granted … ever.
Persona Non Grata is out 19th November on Nuclear Blast
