CHUCK BILLY: 'Everybody's Getting Pushed To The Limits' On Upcoming TESTAMENT Album

In a recent interview with Belgian Jasper, TESTAMENT frontman Chuck Billy talked about being open to new influences and not staying musically stagnant over the course of the band's nearly four-decade career. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, we've always had a sense of being TESTAMENT because Eric [Peterson, TESTAMENT guitarist and main songwriter] doesn't like venture out and try to listen to new bands. He sticks to the classics that he likes and also he likes a lot of black metal. So he kind of listens to his niche of music, but he doesn't listen to something… Like Sirius [XM] radio, that's where we all find what's new and modern and coming out now — he doesn't listen to any of that, so he's not influenced by that, but [new TESTAMENT drummer] Chris [Dovas], being with Chris and spending so much time with him, Chris has turned him on to some newer bands, and Eric's, like, 'Whoa. Wow, that's brutal.' So I know his gears are turning when he's creating songs with Chris. And I know that since Eric didn't follow the leader all the time, he's always had his own style of writing, and it's staying true to TESTAMENT."

Billy went on to say that fans will be able to hear a noticeable musical evolution on TESTAMENT's upcoming follow-up to 2020's "Titans Of Creation", which is tentatively due in mid-2025.

"This new record, it's still staying true to TESTAMENT, but it is influenced by what's going on, which I'm kind of excited [about], because [Eric's] always kept it in the same vein but always trying to improve what TESTAMENT's doing, where this one, it's pushing me vocally, pushing Alex [Skolnick, TESTAMENT guitarist] solo-wise — everybody's getting pushed to the limits of trying something different and new and fresh and not making the same old record. We don't ever wanna do that. We wanna make something that we enjoy and we feel that we're confident to put this out there to the public and I think they're gonna react to it.

"Eric's always been the guy that had to, like, kind of tell the drummer, 'Play this beat, play that beat, try this,' where I think with Chris, Chris was just ready to go," Chuck explained. "Chris was ahead of him, like doing stuff where Eric's, like, 'Whoa, what was that? Oh, wow. I like that.' And just getting to be Eric and just play guitar. [And] it's been so good that now that we wrote the songs for this record, January, February and March [of 2025], Eric and Chris are getting back together to work on the next record already, because they had such a great time and it just clicked. And we're, like, we don't have time to sit around and wait anymore. Let's just keep carrying on. Don't waste time and stretch us out for two, three years, four years. Let's write another record, put this [new one] out [first] and be ready to go, get ahead of the curve."

This past November, Billy told Australia's The Rockpit, about TESTAMENT's upcoming LP: "Well, this [album is] gonna be very special. I think I'm more excited about this one, just because of the fact — the timing of everything. I'm a big person believer in things happen for reasons. And Chris Dovas jamming with us and having a lot of time to come up and spend with Eric at Eric's place, just jamming, coming up a lot of music and working on it hard and tracking it at home and doing demos. And I could tell, when I first started getting the songs and the riffs sent, that it was something different. It's still Eric and I recognize it, but he was being pushed and inspired 'cause Chris is a very fast, aggressive drummer, and I can tell that it just inspired Eric just to be Eric and play guitar instead of trying to think about building a song or making a song — 'Let's just jam.' And that's the kind of way they approached it. And next thing you know, they had 10, 11, 12 jams that were sounding pretty strong, but individually identified just different vibes. And I was, like, 'Okay, this is what it is.' And then, as it just built vocally and everything, that's when we were kind of, 'Wow. It just feels fresh and new and challenging again. Vocally, for me, I've got a wide range of tones on this one — I'm screaming again, which I haven't done that a lot on a lot of records in the past, but a lot on this one. And we are still writing for ourselves, but we're still excited that when we write a song, how it hits live, and that's always been the payoff, is do these songs we write in the studio hit live like we want 'em to? And that's the fun part."

In June 2024, Chuck told Nikki Blakk of the San Francisco, California radio station 107.7 The Bone about the lyrical themes covered in the new TESTAMENT songs: "[It's] not as focused [on], like, the aliens, creating mankind and that kind of stuff, but there is some of that. There's a lot. Each song definitely has its own identity lyrically. And again, we're writing stuff that is real, that happens with the environment; we're singing about that again. A.I., we're singing stuff about that. That's a big thing. So, there's always an inspiration for songs. I think it's a little easier. There's so much going on in our world to write about now. It's a crazy world today, so there's a lot of stuff to talk about. And I like singing about what's real and what's going on instead of some fantasy lyrics, because, for me, I think when I sing 'em, I have more conviction, I believe in 'em a little more. And maybe it's easier for me to remember the lyrics live. [Laughs]"

Naming specific tracks, Chuck said: "There's a song, 'Havana Syndrome', which is about the Havana Syndrome. People, look that up. There's 'Infanticide A.I.', which is another song going A.I. direction. And there's actually a slower song. We haven't done a slower song. I'm not gonna say 'ballad', but I'm gonna say a slower song that has a lot of groove and soul, called 'Meant To Be'. And it's like a classic TESTAMENT-type ballad, I guess, if you wanna use that word. But we've got a little bit of everything, but, again, I think it's really sticking to TESTAMENT, having to have some melodic stuff, even though there's some really brutal lyrics and real brutal, more of a death voice. I still put the hook in with more of a melodic hook or something. It's still classic TESTAMENT. If you listen to it, you'll go, 'That's TESTAMENT, but a little more octane to it.'"