GENE HOGLAN Talks About Upcoming Studio Albums From DARK ANGEL, TESTAMENT

On November 24, Josh Rundquist (a.k.a. That Drummer Guy) conducted an interview with legendary extreme metal drummer Gene Hoglan (TESTAMENT, DEATH, STRAPPING YOUNG LAD, DARK ANGEL, FEAR FACTORY) before DEATH TO ALL's performance at Amsterdam Bar And Hall in Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can now listen to the chat in the YouTube clip below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On the progress of the songwriting sessions for DARK ANGEL's long-awaited comeback album:

"We'll be recording that pretty soon, so we hope to get that out in 2015. We have lots of areas that we can explore in terms of either signing with a label or doing something else with it. But the material is coming along great. It's really aggressive and heavy; it sounds like DARK ANGEL... So far it's myself and [DARK ANGEL guitarist] Jim Durkin writing everything, and I'm writing lyrics and I'm writing riffs."

On the progress of the songwriting sessions for TESTAMENT's follow-up to 2012's "Dark Roots Of Earth" album:

"[TESTAMENT guitarist] Eric [Peterson], my last time with him, he was like, 'Man, you've got any riffs you wanna throw our way?' Okay, I'll go through the stockpile of what I've got and see what might be TESTAMENT-worthy or something. With DARK ANGEL, that's the easiest thing in the world — to try to write evil, savage, awesome, technical riffs. Trying to write for TESTAMENT, I would have to kind of get into their vibe and see what their approach is. But Eric had said, 'Hey, man, send me some riffs if you've got 'em.' I usually filter everything through Jim Durkin from DARK ANGEL first. He's just kept everything that I've sent him. There's been a couple of riffs where I was, like, 'This might be a TESTAMENT riff.' [And he said], 'No. That's ours now.' So… There you go."

"I think [TESTAMENT] has five songs together for the next one so far, and those are getting closer and closer to being complete. Each of these five songs have a beginning, have an ending; now it's just a matter of finessing the middle parts. Like, 'Hey, do we play that part four times or two times? Or double it? Or maybe we take that riff and put that over here' sort of thing. Now the arrangement is happening. And the new TESTAMENT material is badass; it's killer, it's good shit. And TESTAMENT fans are gonna be, like, 'Fuck yeah!' If these five songs all make the cut, then people will be, like, 'Shit, they mean business on this record.' It's heavy [and] fast, [with] a lot of thrash stuff. So that's cool."

On the musical direction of the new TESTAMENT material:

"I know that their approach — and this has been stated in the press — they kind of wanna go back to 'The Gathering' [1999] kind of vibe, and I can see that. That had a lot of fast songs on it, and that's kind of their approach that they're taking. And that's cool; that was a great record. So [I think they're] trying to write a better version of that, so I think they're gonna do it."