TESTAMENT Frontman Says New Material Is 'Very Heavy' And 'Catchy'

Jesse Capps of RockConfidential.com recently conducted an interview with TESTAMENT frontman Chuck Billy. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

RockConfidential.com: What's touring looking like this year?

Chuck: We've got a few shows in July. We're gonna finish writing. We've got a few shows scattered through September. Between touring we'll be getting in the studio getting the record done.

RockConfidential.com: How many songs do you have right now?

Chuck: We have eight or nine. Alex [Skolnick, guitar] has a few himself. The hardest thing is none of us live near each other. Alex lives in New York, Nick [Barker, drums] lives in England, Eric [Peterson, guitar] lives about two and a half hours from me. Whenever we get together it's like this big, orchestrated plan. It's been working out really good. We've been rehearsing at my house. Everybody's been flying in and staying for the weekend. We live and write and breathe the songs all weekend long.

RockConfidential.com: I'm sure that keeps you on your toes, too. You probably don't waste much time while you're all together.

Chuck: We only practice a couple of hours a day if we meet at a studio. At the house we'll take a break and work on the record and then take another break and then work on the record. We're working on it all day and night as opposed to two or three hours in a studio. It works better because we keep focused on what we're doing.

RockConfidential.com: It's been eight years since the last studio record. I'm really anxious and curious to hear the new stuff. You could really do anything now…

Chuck: I really like the way "The Gathering" record turned out. To me, vocally, it's got everything I imagined for vocals. I used about three different tones of voices. It added more life and dynamics to me. That's the direction we'll go vocally. The music is very heavy but it's very catchy. Eric's got some really catchy riffs. The vocals are real melodic with some catchy hooks. It's really heavy. It's something new. Nick, coming from a black metal background, is adding that spark that we needed. It's a fresh breath of life to our writing. In the past couple of years we've written some songs but they weren't up to par with "The Gathering". Those songs just went in the trash. We just started over when Nick came into the picture. We're on a roll and the songs are turning out really good.

RockConfidential.com: What about lyrically this time around?

Chuck: It's gonna be covering a lot of stuff, things we've experienced in life. Especially my illness, the cancer, and what I went through. I had some healing sessions and did a lot of sweat lodges with some indians and medicine men. I'm sure I'll be talking about my experiences with the medicine men. My father and Eric's father both passed away within the past couple of years. The war in Iraq. We'll be talking about those issues. It's things that people deal with in everyday life. We've gone away from the cliche gloom and doom lyrics, the typical heavy metal lyrics.

RockConfidential.com: Do you guys write songs the same way you always have or are some things more important to you now?

Chuck: I would say for the new record — on the last couple of records we didn't really have any lead playing — with Alex back we're bringing back solos again. He's such a great player we're going to put solos back in the band. That's a conscious change.

RockConfidential.com: It has to be cool to have him back in the band. What did you initially think when he first left?

Chuck: That's when we were at our lowpoint. We all weren't on the same page. At first it was a big blow to us. Not long after that we decided we could just write heavier stuff, more brutal and faster. We came out with the "Low" record and I though it was great — even without Alex. It didn't have a lot of leads in it but it had some catchy stuff to it. Then we did the "Demonic" record which was totally death metal. That felt like the way it should be. The drummers have an influence on the way we write, too.

Read the entire interview at RockConfidential.com.