TESTAMENT Frontman Says New Album Will Arrive In February

Vocalist Chuck Billy of San Francisco Bay Area metallers TESTAMENT took part in a question-and-answer session while signing autographs after the band's performance at Quitofest in Quito, Ecuador on August 12, 2011. You can now watch video footage of the session below.

TESTAMENT has set "The Dark Roots Of Earth" as the title of its new album, tentatively due in February 2012 via Nuclear Blast Records. The CD is currently being recorded with British producer Andy Sneap, who has previously worked with MEGADETH, EXODUS, ARCH ENEMY, NEVERMORE and MACHINE HEAD, among others.

Due to a "serious injury," drummer Paul Bostaph was unable to take part in the new album recordings but will rejoin TESTAMENT for future touring activities. Playing drums on the follow-up to 2008's "The Formation Of Damnation" is Gene "The Atomic Clock" Hoglan (ex-DARK ANGEL, ex-STRAPPING YOUNG LAD, FEAR FACTORY, DETHKLOK),with LAMB OF GOD's Chris Adler set to make a special guest appearance on a couple of bonus tracks.

SADUS drummer Jon Allen sat behind the kit for TESTAMENT when the band performed in the place of IN FLAMES at the first two shows of the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival on July 9 in San Bernardino, California and on July 10 in Mountain View, California and is taking part in the group's current South American tour.

In an interview with "Metal Zone" host Nikki Blakk of the San Francisco, California radio station 107.7 The Bone conducted at the second show of the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival, Chuck Billy stated about TESTAMENT's rotating-drummer situation, "Paul Bostaph is injured right now, so he couldn't do the record. We kind of put the record off a little while waiting for Paul. We found out he was not gonna be ready, so we brought on Gene Hoglan. Gene Hoglan came in and crushed, killed the drums in about a week. And Gene, of course, couldn't do [the Mayhem] shows, so we have Jon Allen performing today with us from SADUS."

When asked how LAMB OF GOD's Chris Adler came to play the drums on two of the tracks on "The Dark Roots Of Earth", Chuck said, "When we knew that Paul wasn't gonna make it, [we were like], 'OK, we have to find drummers to do the record.' And all these names came up. It was just weird because that day Chris and Gene both kind of got back to us. So we were like, 'Why not? Let's just have them both do it.' Gene was already planning to come up and do most of it. So we just said, 'Let's just stick with Chris doing two songs.' He was already set up doing the [new] LAMB OF GOD record in New York. So we sent him the tracks out there and he just learned them and did them while he was set up for LAMB OF GOD."

TESTAMENT is planning to hit the road in October/November as part of a five- or six-week tour featuring ANTHRAX and DEATH ANGEL.

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