TESTAMENT Frontman Talks About New Record Deal, Upcoming Album

Luxi Lahtinen and Niko Karppinen of Metal-Rules.com recently conducted an interview with TESTAMENT frontman Chuck Billy. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Metal-Rules.com: You played a brand-new TESTAMENT track, titled "The Afterlife", at the Earthshaker festival in Germany on July 20th. Do you think "The Afterlife" pretty much also represents musically how your next album is going to sound like?

Chuck: No, that's probably one of the more melodic, commercial-sounding songs. The other songs are a lot more heavy, a lot more intense. That was one that just fell into place really quick and we knew we wanted to play a new song for that show so we decided not to give them everything but to give them something in the vein of what we were playing. I think it's a catchy song, a melodic song. But I don't think it represents the whole record, no.

Metal-Rules.com: As far as I know, you have eight songs ready for your next album. How many songs more are you going to write for your forthcoming album before you enter a studio?

Chuck: I want at least an hour of music before going into studio and now it's about 40 minutes so I guess we'll write another five or six more songs. This is the last trip of the year for us, then we go home and do nothing but work on the record and make plans to record it.

Metal-Rules.com: Have you already decided which studio you are going to use for these recordings of your new album?

Chuck: We will probably do the drums here in England and then do vocals and bass and maybe guitars in the Bay Area. We're actually moving into our old studio where we did "Demonic" and "The Gathering" and "First Strike Still Deadly". We'll do the vocals and bass there, I'm not sure where we will do the guitars, we'll see how it all turns out.

Metal-Rules.com: Will Andy Sneap produce it?

Chuck: Yeah, we signed with Andy yesterday and we're gonna start with the drums at his place.

Metal-Rules.com: TESTAMENT inked a worldwide deal with Nuclear Blast this summer, and before that you had this deal with Spitfire...

Chuck: Shitfire!

Metal-Rules.com: What went wrong with them?

Chuck: They never supported the band. We were with theem for nine or ten years and not one time did a representative of the record company come to a concert. We even shot a DVD in London where their home base is and none of them showed up. That's really strange, isn't it? It was a weird situation with them. We were on a contract, but we wanted out. Nuclear Blast has wanted us for a long time but the time wasn't right. Once Spitfire got sold to Sheridan Square they said they wouldn't sign any more bands and that they would only do gospel so we don't fit in their plan. They asked what we wanted and we said we wanted to get off. So they sent us a letter and we got off and started calling all the labels to make them give offers. Nucelar Blast came right at the front, just stepped up with the right offer and the right deal. They're probably the best metal label for us. We've had problems with labels going bankrupt on us. "The Gathering" was probably our best work, we put our heart and soul into it just to have someone not care about it. It's kinda a shame but now I think Nuclear Blast are gonna do a great job. They believe in the band and I don't think they're going away anywhere soon.

Metal-Rules.com: What kind of hopes or expectations do you have towards your new label, Nuclear Blast?

Chuck: They're gonna do a great job in promoting and marketing, good budgets, good marketing budgets. All the guys on the label are fans and believe in this music. The very first show we did, everybody from the label showed up. That was more than we ever had in all the years with Spitfire and that was the first time we met them. They're really excited and so are we. It's gonna be cool, a good relationship I think.

Metal-Rules.com: You have now Nicholas Barker in TESTAMENT's line-up (former CRADLE OF FILTH and DIMMU BORGIR member). How did he end up playing in TESTAMENT in the first place?

Chuck: We called Nick in England and asked him to come out and play "Over the Wall" with us. I met Nick like 15 years ago with CRADLE OF FILTH and he said even then, "Hey, I'm a big TESTAMENT fan, if you ever need a drummer, let me know!" We were like, "Yeah, whatever." Then we saw him in his hometown and he just came out and slayed, so we thought, "That's the guy who's gonna do the record." He's been in California since February working on the record. He's here to stay.

Metal-Rules.com: Don't you think there will be possibility that Barker could bring even some of his black metal blast beats in for the forthcoming TESTAMENT stuff?

Chuck: Yeah, I think so. I like a challenge, we've been doing something different with pretty much every record. This is just gonna be a new era for TESTAMENT again. We've got great musicians back in the band once again and I think he's gonna add just a little sparkle on the drums.

Read the entire interview at Metal-Rules.com.