TESTAMENT's ERIC PETERSON: 'We Have A Lot Of Ideas Floating Around' For Next Album

Undercover.fm recently conducted an interview with guitarist Eric Peterson of San Francisco Bay area metallers TESTAMENT. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Undercover.fm: What can you tell us about "Dark Roots Of Thrash"?

Eric Peterson: "Dark Roots Of Thrash" is the name of the tour we did, which was the last States tour we did. On that particular tour, we decided half way through the tour, at the last minute, that we wanted to film it. So within eight days, we had it all ready to go. We had a club in mind that would work for it. It could have been any club, if we actually sat and thought hard about this and planned it. Me personally, I probably would have picked somewhere else in the world, like Chile or Spain, or somewhere that the crowd is a little more crazy. Not taking anything away from New York, though — it ended up being a great show. It was put together last minute and it ended up good. It was one of those things that was thrown together really quick and it did something really cool. It captured us in the glory of all the last four years of touring and all the work that we've done and the setlist is on the heavier side of what we normally do. It's basically a compilation of songs from the first record all the way up to "Dark Roots Of Earth". Unlike the previous DVD in 2005, "Live In London", which was more of a reunion show and those songs were more old-school songs that were the era of the original lineup. This new DVD is pretty much TESTAMENT and where we're at right now and seeing us at our peak. Peaking, meaning this is as good, not as it's gonna get, but we're pretty much on our second wind and everything is killer right now.

Undercover.fm: What made you decide you wanted to do another DVD?

Eric Peterson: Chuck [Billy, vocals], he just pushed and pushed it. I remember telling him, "Let's plan it," and we ended up talking to the production company and I was, like, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, what?" It was really, really quick the way it happened. He just really wanted it to happen so there was a lot of I's dotted and T's that were crossed to get to it, but we made it happen.

Undercover.fm: Why do you think this DVD was so important to TESTAMENT?

Eric Peterson: I think it's good, it came out really good. Sometimes things that aren't planned and properly set up and all that good stuff, sometimes the things that are just done sporadically and quickly and thrown at you are some of the better things. It is probably out of all the live stuff we've done, this is more on the heavy side and the tempos everything I think we got right. I think it's a very good representation of the fans knowing they're going to get a great show, especially on Blu-ray. This is going to be awesome to watch on a good system, if you like watching a concert. Also I think people that have never gotten to see us yet, even though we travel all over the place. If you've missed us after this, we will be doing only a couple of tours after this for this record. We are going to be doing a States tour for five weeks with LAMB OF GOD and KILLSWITCH ENGAGE and then from there, as you know, we will be heading over there to [Australia] and finally doing the Soundwave touring festival which we're really excited to do, by the way.

Undercover.fm: After you finish touring, what is next for TESTAMENT?

Eric Peterson: After we finish with Soundwave — usually we would tour for another year on this record, but the live DVD will be out and that's going to be something for the fans to trip on and listen to and watch and make that part of their heavy metal arsenal. We will be working on a new record, actually, hopefully to have it out [as soon as possible]. We have a lot of ideas floating around. Chuck and I both have said to each other kind of at the same time but not knowing that we were going to say it to each other was I wanna write a record like how LED ZEPPELIN did, like how they rented a house in the wilderness, like a haunted cottage and turn the house into a studio and record the drums in entryway. So that's something we really want to do in our career. We're not sure where we want to do it but somewhere by a lake and in a cabin. I'm into archery and Chuck is into shooting and hunting. Who knows what kind of record it will turn out to be? That will be the "last will and testament." No, I am joking, but it will be a special one, because it will be the last time that we wrote a record in those surroundings.

Read the entire interview at Undercover.fm.