TESTAMENT Frontman Talks Forthcoming Album In New Interview

Mike Bax of Lithium Magazine recently conducted an interview with vocalist Chuck Billy of San Francisco Bay Area metallers TESTAMENT. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Lithium Magazine: I understand you've got [a] new [album entitled "The Dark Roots of Earth"] coming out soon. Can you talk a bit about it?

Chuck: Yeah. We're actually in the studio recording, we came out just [to play at the Heavy T.O. festival in Toronto, Ontario, Canada] and then we're going right back Monday to finish. Right now we're at the point where all the drums are done and all the rhythm guitars are done. Next week we're going to start bass, vocals and lead guitar.

Lithium Magazine: How many songs is it going to be?

Chuck: Ten songs.

Lithium Magazine: Is there anything on it that's going to be a little different?

Chuck: With this one we kind of wrote, I wouldn't say a ballad, but something a little slower; we've got one of those on this record. Eric's [Peterson, guitar] always written some really strong ballads for the band, or whatever you want to call them. There's some other stuff, there's definitely some songs that are the fastest we've ever played, there's some mid-tempo, there's a little bit of everything on there. It's definitely TESTAMENT, but we never try to do the same record twice. There are some good hooks on it.

Lithium Magazine: When you're writing, is it the same kind of process as back in the day?

Chuck: Well, now it is, because Alex [Skolnick, guitar] was more on this record, where for years after he left, Eric was writing most of the songs. This year Alex came in and worked with Eric for weeks all day, all night arranging, contributing parts and he's on a lot more on this record. I think Eric felt like he was writing "The New Order" record, because Alex is really good at taking what Eric's doing and interpreting it to what he does, too. It seemed to work. It's going to be a good record and it's going to be a different record.

Lithium Magazine: Chris Adler (of LAMB OF GOD) did the drums on this record, right?

Chuck: He did two songs and Gene Hoglan (DETHKLOK, FEAR FACTORY, STRAPPING YOUNG LAD) did the rest. He [Hoglan] worked with us on our "Demonic" record. He's a monster drummer. He's perfect for the record we are working on and what we are doing.

Lithium Magazine: What was it like getting Chris in? Chris is a pretty badass drummer.

Alex: Well, Chris wanted to do the full record, but he's doing the new LAMB OF GOD record so our schedules weren't working. At that point, Gene came back to us and said he was interested to do it too, so it worked out having two great drummers work with us.

Lithium Magazine: How long did it take you to write "The Dark Roots of Earth"?

Chuck: It took a long time. I mean, we can only write as fast as Eric writes the songs and then we all came together. I think Alex came out and really put a lot of it together. It's really coming together fast. We work well under pressure and trying to get it done, but we've got South America coming up next month so that puts us out of the studio.

Lithium Magazine: Was there a song on the new album that was challenging for some particular reason?

Chuck: Every song's a challenge; this cleaner one is an eight-minute song where I have to do eight minutes of ballad style singing is a challenge.

Read the entire interview from Lithium Magazine.