Former TESTAMENT Bassist GREG CHRISTIAN On His Departure: 'I Got Sick Of Not Getting Paid'

TESTAMENT's original bassist, Greg Christian, who was most recently forced out of the band earlier this year, has posted the following message on his Facebook page:

"I had an idea LMAO — a weekly 'column' here. I was prompted to do this by seeing vague, partial at best, and usually pretty incoherent responses — in TESTAMENT interviews — in regards to my departure. And never once an actual, factual statement. Because it's pretty cut and dry. I got sick of not getting paid, and they got sick of me getting hostile about it. Not sure they even realized they pushed me into a position of being bitter and resentful, then blamed me for not being happy. But whatever… All I'm doing here is simple — since they obviously lack the ability to speak to the press in the same manner I was spoken to regularly, I'll do it for them. And I'll try to keep it clean, maybe a little tongue in cheek about the ridiculousness, and not bitter and nasty. [I will] do my best.

"The point is just — be how you're going to be, be who or what you're going to be, but stand up and be it. Don't be one way to me, then stutter and backpedal about it to others, especially if it's because you know how not right the truth really looks.

"So I'll throw a little something out there once a week, mostly to entertain myself, since I can't afford a movie LMAO (shoulda paid me lol).

"Anyway... here goes volume 1.

"Two things I heard the last time I spoke to Chuck [Billy, TESTAMENT singer] in January and no comment from me here — just two excerpts from our conversation. FYI, my response to both was 'Ya. Okay.'

1. I was never part of anything
2. We all made the same on the road

"?!?!?! ?!?!?! ?!?!?!

"Tune in next week to hear the casual comment (and surrounding circumstances) that became the straw that broke the camel's back."

In a recent interview with Germany's Rock Hard magazine, TESTAMENT guitarist Eric Peterson stated about Christian's latest departure: "Well, you know, I'll just say this… Greg, basically, I think, was basically struggling in his mind with what he was doing. And he just seemed very unhappy on tour, and he has a lot of different reasons; he can only describe that. But he just seemed very unhappy, and we just let him go. Like, 'OK, you're unhappy. Then go.' 'Cause it was a lot of tours where he was unhappy. That's all I can really say about that. Steve DiGiorgio came onboard for the Soundwave tour we did in Australia. Steve DiGiorgio is great. We hadn't played with him for awhile, but it's awesome."

Speaking to 100PercentRock.com, TESTAMENT singer Chuck Billy stated about Christian's split with the group: "Well, I think Greg, he informed us that he wasn't going to be participating on the new record release and that was his last tour with us. We knew we had Australia coming up, so, of course, Steve DiGiorgio was probably one of the first ones to come to mind. He did 'The Gathering' record with us and we enjoyed that whole cycle of touring, so he was definitely, probably, our first choice. We didn't want to go through auditions and do all that. We just knew that he was here, and he could do it, and it was killer."

Asked if there was a particular reason that Greg just had enough of it, Billy replied: "Well, I think that the last tour he just wasn't getting along, and he just decided that that was going to be the last tour with us, so we just kind of said, 'Well, okay. I guess we'll have to maybe look for what's coming up in the future.' You know — there's nothing we can do."

Christian was forced to leave the band's North American tour with LAMB OF GOD and KILLSWITCH ENGAGE in November 2013 for "personal reasons." Filling in for him was EXODUS bassist Jack Gibson.