Rob Dukes, who sang for San Francisco Bay Area thrashers EXODUS for nine years before being fired from the band last week and replaced by his predecessor, Steve "Zetro" Souza, has released the following statement exclusively to BLABBERMOUTH.NET:

"I'm grateful for the last nine years.

"I've had the experience of touring the world playing music.

"I was just a regular guy, a fan, and I got the chance to front a legendary band while [having had] no prior experience of being a singer. I had no idea what I was doing and made it up as I was going along.

"I had the experience of making records.

"It was a great chapter of my life.

"I'm bummed it ended with [EXODUS], but I have another band, GENERATION KILL. So I will concentrate on that right now and continue to build hotrods and build a car to race in the Baja 1000.

"I will be riding my motorcycle all over this beautiful country every chance I get. That's the next chapter of my life."

Dukes joined EXODUS in January 2005 and appeared on four of the band's 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).