CHUCK BILLY Shares How A New Drummer, Black Metal And A Ballad Allowed TESTAMENT To 'Let It Flow' On 'Para Bellum'

By David E. Gehlke

There has been much ado about new TESTAMENT drummer Chris Dovas since his 2023 entrance into the veteran Bay Area thrashers. Tasked with following the legendary drummers Gene Hoglan and Dave Lombardo, Dovas's youth and energy were quickly hailed by TESTAMENT lead conspirators Chuck Billy (vocals) and Eric Peterson (guitar) as being exactly what the band needed going into the writing of their 14th studio album. Dovas was put first through the ringer as TESTAMENT celebrated their classic "The Legacy", "New Order" and "Practice What You Preach" studio albums on the live front, then, in one-on-one time with Peterson as the two assembled what would eventually become "Para Bellum". In both cases, the young drummer emerged with flying colors, only adding to the excitement ahead of the album's October release.

Dovas's lively drum performance only tells part of the "Para Bellum" story. The LP (which also features lead guitarist Alex Skolnick and bassist Steve Di Giorgio) is perhaps the most varied and dynamic TESTAMENT offering since 2008's "The Formation Of Damnation". From the peeling black metal nods on "For The Love Of Pain" to the mid-paced grooves of "Room 117" and "Shadow People", all the way to the ballad "Meant To Be", "Para Bellum" demonstrates that TESTAMENT has plenty left in the tank as they work their way through their fourth decade of existence. No one recognizes this more than Billy, who shared with BLABBERMOUTH.NET that, among other things, life is pretty good with the current incarnation of the band.

Blabbermouth: Chris has become a hot topic since joining the band. Can you describe the difference he's made for you as the vocalist?

Chuck: "He may have inspired Eric to write and push himself to do something more aggressive. Eric loves black metal. The combination of those two hanging out — Chris probably put the most time in with Eric one-on-one at Eric's house, drinking, cooking, watching movies, getting drunk, jamming late at night. They did it all and had a good time at it, but put a lot of effort into it, a lot of jam sessions. I think that's what this record became because there is a lot of variety. They weren't stuck in one pattern, one theme. They let it flow, and Eric came from all directions, which is weird for me, hearing the riffs vocally. Some of them, I was like, 'Are these metal riffs? Are these metal songs?' I couldn't see the end picture yet. I didn't have the lyrics that far down the line. [Laughs] But I went with it and took it one song at a time. Chris did make Eric put a little more 'umph' and really shift gears and come up with different rhythm patterns."

Blabbermouth: The black metal influence is obvious on "For The Love Of Pain" and "Infanticide A.I." Do you like singing over those kinds of riffs?

Chuck: "Yeah, I think so. We had some of that back in 'The Gathering'. It was introduced back then, but I think Chris is just a little more on it, which leaves it wide open for me. I don't have to follow it; I know there's a blast beat there, and I can find my way over the top of it. Again, it came down to Eric and Chris putting a lot of time and effort into the music of this record and the variety of songs. Also working with a new producer, Jens [Bogren], for the first time. Not having our ace in our pocket, Andy Sneap, like we had for a long time. I give it to Jens. He did a great job, especially on a song like 'Meant To Be'. We were going, 'Wow, hopefully he's going to pull it off.' In the end, he did. He did a great job."

Blabbermouth: Chris is a good 30 years younger than some of you guys. Were there any concerns as to how he'd fit in?

Chuck: "Not really because of his playing. When we first saw his audition tape, we didn't know how old he was because his hair was down in his face and all over the place. When we actually talked to him and flew him out and took it seriously, that's when we went, 'Hold on. How old are you?' At that time, he was 24. We said, 'Holy smokes!'"

Blabbermouth: You could be his parents.

Chuck: "We're older than his parents, I believe. [Laughs] That's the funny part. He's an old soul, and he's an old-school fan of all kinds of music, especially since graduating from Berklee College of Music, so he and Alex speak the same lingo when it comes to talking music and that kind of shit. It goes right over my head. [Laughs] All three of them, including Di Giorgio, but in a good way. It's a good thing. In that sense as well, Chris is really good at Logic and Pro Tools. He was a big help to Eric since they did a lot of tracking at Eric's on electronic drums. I'm sure they had fun getting creative at his house."

Blabbermouth: Jens Bogren is known for his attention to detail and really wanting to get involved with the albums he works on. What was your experience like?

Chuck: "We didn't have to go out there to meet Jens [in Sweden]; he just mixed. I wanted to work with him because I talked to the BEHEMOTH and KREATOR guys about how picky he is, especially how he dives deep into lyrics, vocal approaches, and deliveries, which I like. Maybe one day I will get to do that part of tracking with him, but, as far as him getting the tracks and us knowing what we wanted to kind of hear, we all directed him in the direction in which we wanted to hear, since we're so used to Andy's mix. We're used to having a clear, open mix, which is very important. Jens accomplished that, and the way he placed a lot of those strings in Meant To Be', he did a really great job."

Blabbermouth: What inspired "Witch Hunt"? Is it how people are assailed for making a comment online that offends someone else? To that end, are you a big social media guy?

Chuck: "I'm not because of that! [Laughs] I know some people and some guys in the band, they read a lot on social media. I just don't because everybody has their opinion, and I appreciate that, and I have my own, so I don't really do that. In my own little Facebook world, I accept my friends. That's about it. The song goes deeper. I wrote that song with [former EXODUS vocalist] Steve Souza. It was a 'witch hunt' politically, but also because Eric had that as the working title. I said, 'Okay, we have to really burn some witches.' At that point, we had to put the twist in there with a witch hunt."

Blabbermouth: I see you are wearing a Del James shirt, who has been a long-time lyrical collaborator of yours. What makes you keep working with him?

Chuck: "When we met Del way back, he traveled with us. I think he might have been the chief editor at 'R.I.P.' magazine at the time. We became friends, and when it came time to write lyrics, I wrote lyrics with Eric and Alex for a long time. I had my ideas, but when I laid them out, I wasn't the best or most confident. When I brought Del in, he seemed to convey, like a title, if I came up with a title and a couple of patterns, he was able to convey a song really quickly. We'd bounce it off each other. It's always been like that—we write songs so fast. Even today, when I work with him, I'll plan two days, I'll at least get four songs, and if I'm prepared, I'll get five songs written in a short amount of time. It's so funny because even though we don't see each other until we write, maybe we'll bump into each other, but for the most part, 'Hey, Del. How are you doing?' 'Okay, hit play.' We're right to work. We don't waste time. We don't fuck around. I get to town. I'll get there at one and by 1:05, we're writing. By 5 o'clock, we have a song and a half or two written, then I'll see him tomorrow, and we'll do the same thing. Sometimes we'll have four or five songs depending on how much I have prepared."

Blabbermouth: Do you use Del when you're in a bind, or do you just enjoy it that much?

Chuck: "I like to work with him because Del gets really deep. It's funny the way we write because sometimes I'll be downstairs. He has a little library upstairs, like his 'evil den,' shall I say. He'll go, 'Give me a minute.' He'll go up for ten or 15 minutes, and he'll come down with a book and go, 'Okay. I got it!' [Laughs] Then we'll do that and we'll Google some stuff, then talk about it and put the story together. Then, we're off and running, especially if I have a chorus line of it or a hook running off of it. It's fun writing with Del because we don't mess around. A song, this time, was 'Shadow People'. I always try not to follow the bouncing ball when I write songs, but this song, Del and I were beating our heads: 'There's no way to find our own space because it's so chunky and rhythmically pounding.' I said, 'Let's try to write this to every syllable to Eric's right-hand riffing.' Every right-hand riff, I sing that same syllable to his chug. It took a while, but we figured it out for the whole song. That's the only song where I did that with him. It came out so good. It was weird trying different things like that on this record with Eric because of what he gave me to work with."

Blabbermouth: How are you feeling about "Meant To Be" now that it's done and dusted? It doesn't feel like a seven-minute song, which could be its beauty.

Chuck: "It does at first when you hear it, but each time, it gets shorter and shorter. [Laughs] The first time I heard it, I said, 'Wow, this is a long lead.' Then I'm like, 'I could use some more leads.' The song takes you on a lead guitar journey."

Blabbermouth: Are you pushing for the ballads? Or was it just the right time to do another one?

Chuck: "I think you hit the nail on the head: The last year we've been getting our 'The Legacy', 'New Order' and 'Practice What You Preach' albums back from Atlantic. Last year, we were doing 'Practice' and broke out some acoustics, playing 'The Ballad', 'The Legacy', and all of these ballads. I've been fighting for years not to play them. I don't know. Maybe it wasn't metal; I don't know. [Laughs] We had the balls to do it this time, and it went over so well, and people really appreciated it. It felt terrific to play those. It gave us a little more confidence writing the song going into the record. It was a song, to steal the lyrics, that was 'meant to be.' Eric went to New York to work with Alex for the first time. When he came back, I asked him about the song. He goes, 'We got a great song. We worked on some stuff. We were working on this, I won't say, ballad, we're working on this thing that's epic.' I'm like, 'Wow. Epic? That's a pretty strong word to use.' I didn't hear about the song for months until it was time, and they got a little deeper into the writing. Once they worked it out a little bit more, that's when I finally got it. It was epic. I was like, 'Wow. This totally reminds me of an old, classic-style TESTAMENT ballad. I'm ready for it.' It was such a pretty piece that needed something. We talked about orchestration, which fits perfectly in there.

"Lyrically, I wanted to set it up so people would interpret it as a love song between two people, but it's really about a love song between humanity and the Planet Earth, if you listen to the lyrics. It's about us, what we've done to abuse our relationship with the planet. In the end, mankind, humanity, is here and meant to be. But when people listen to it for the first time, they go, 'I relate to it.' Like a girlfriend/boyfriend relationship. It's cool that I was able to think about it in the sense that I'll let somebody interpret it in their own way. I think everyone has done that, then I tell them what it's inspired by. They're like, 'Wow. Now that you mention it: 'Everything is dead. Have you listened to what I said?' All the things I talk about and what we're doing to the planet."

Blabbermouth: You were able to get the rights to your back catalog from Atlantic. What's it like going through those albums? Has it rekindled some old memories?

Chuck: "We're going back through a lot of it because we're re-releasing 'The Legacy', 'The New Order', and we're digging out old photos, contracts. We're putting together really cool booklets in the vinyls. We get to revisit those as we're putting them out. Now, we're putting out 'Practice What You Preach' and later in the year, 'Souls Of Black'. I think that will be a fun record to play live, start to finish. We had such a blast doing the 'Practice' and the acoustic set. It's fun to do those because you don't get to go back and play those songs. We're not a band that goes, 'We're going into the studio and let's pick a song out of the hat and jam on it.' You have to have a purpose for it when we get the option to tour and learn the songs, dive deep into them, re-learn how to sing them and re-deliver them. Songs like 'Sins Of Omission', Alex has been trying to get that into our set for a long time, but it's always been a hard song for me to sing. When we had to do that record live, I did it so much that it became easy. Now it's second nature. Now, it's okay. I can play that song no problem.'"

Blabbermouth: Would you ever want to redo anything off of "Souls Of Black"? We've all heard the story that you had to rush to get the record out ahead of the 1990 European "Clash Of The Titans" tour (supporting MEGADETH, SLAYER and SUICIDAL TENDENCIES).

Chuck: "I don't know if there's anything music-wise there. I'm not sure if there's anything we'd want to mess with, but it's the record we have the original masters for, so we're going to re-mix and re-master it. As we're listening to the master tapes, we're going, 'This doesn't sound too bad. It sounds pretty good.' We're trying to figure out our approach: Do we want to keep it like it's 1990 or make it modern and bring in some different tones? I don't know yet. I haven't got to that part of when we'll start the mix and which direction we'll go. I know mastering-wise, it will definitely sound better sonically. I think we may have squished those records a little too much when we were pressing them to CD. Something in the process got squashed."

Blabbermouth: It's probably been a while since you've sang something like "Malpractice".

Chuck: "Yeah, that's one of Alex's songs. I'm also looking forward to doing 'Face In The Sky'. 'Seven Days Of May' as well. Those are fun to do during rehearsal. It's like it was back then. We get into the studio, drink some beers and have a week of just putting the chalkboard up. Usually, Chris is the one who knows them all! We have to study the songs up."

Blabbermouth: It was nice to see your cover of "Seek And Destroy" come out (as part of the recent "No Life 'Til Leather – A Tribute To Metallica's Kill 'Em All"). How much of an influence is METALLICA to this day?

Chuck: "James [Hetfield] has always been a big influence on me as a writer and his style with the stories he tells. Whenever I still write, I say, 'What would James do?' I like his style of metal and his style of singing. We did that song in 2022, I think, maybe even sooner than that. Those tracks have been around for a little bit."

Blabbermouth: Are you still kicking around the idea of a solo album?

Chuck: "I definitely want to do it, but things get busy, especially if I'm going to write a record for TESTAMENT. That is number one. I know the guys are going to get back to writing another record. They had such a good writing session that they want to get together and start jamming again. I really think they want to hang out and get drunk and watch horror movies."

Blabbermouth: That sure beats the opposite. Let's be clear, and I'm sure you see it, but some of your peers travel in separate buses and don't hang out. It seems like you, Eric, Alex, Di Giorgio and Chris have a good camaraderie. It's a good mix of people.

Chris: "It is. You have to get along. All of us, I have to say, we've never had an argument or a fight. We just get along. I don't know; maybe it's because of the early years when we broke up, we've learned how to get along. We've all grown up. [Laughs] We try to make it not stressful. We have Groundhog Day — every day is the same with the same routine, but when we get out there, time flies. Everybody has certain things they do at certain times of day. Someone is off to the coffee shop or taking a nap. Everybody has a certain thing in a certain window; they do it. We're in a great place as a band."

Photo credit: Fred Kowalo