Testament - Update From Chuck Billy On Next Album
In a new interview with 'The Metal Voice', Testament frontman Chuck Billy offered an update on the band's much-anticipated follow-up to 2020's Titans Of Creation, which he hopes will be finished right before the band heads to Europe this summer. While no release date for the new record is in sight, Testament will spend the rest of this year on the road, co-headlining a North American tour in the fall with Kreator and direct supporting Anthrax and Kreator on a European run.
Billy said: "The drums are finished and half the vocals are done and most of the guitars. No leads or bass yet. Steve's [DiGiorgio, bass] out on tour with Death To All, and Alex [Skolnick, guitar] usually waits till Eric's [Peterson, drums] done with all rhythms. But we're trying to get it accomplished — we leave [for tour] July 10th, so we're trying to get it all recorded before then."
For the album's songwriting process, he said: "We started since November — since about November, we started working and through the holidays, Chris [Dovas, drums] has been coming out, working with Eric a lot. And then into this beginning of this year, he's came out dozens of times and really has put a lot of fire under Eric and got him fired up and writing some pretty aggressive stuff, some really challenging stuff for Eric. Chris is — he's a young guy, 25 years old, a really fast, great drummer. So it's given a little breath of some new life into the band and into the writing, really, which is exciting. We always write different things for every record, and once again, this is another Testament record that's gonna have some new stuff that we're exploring and stepping into. So we're looking forward to this one."
Chuck was then asked if the new material is a "a progression" from Titans Of Creation, in which he replied: "Yeah, but I think last record, I think I stayed in one vocal tone and range where this one, I'm doing a little bit of everything — some death metal vocals, classic Testament-style vocals. And then we actually have — I don't wanna say 'ballad', but we have a slower song that has a lot of feeling. How's that? [Laughs] And we haven't done that in a long time. So, there's a little bit of everything, but staying true to the band."
Billy said: "The drums are finished and half the vocals are done and most of the guitars. No leads or bass yet. Steve's [DiGiorgio, bass] out on tour with Death To All, and Alex [Skolnick, guitar] usually waits till Eric's [Peterson, drums] done with all rhythms. But we're trying to get it accomplished — we leave [for tour] July 10th, so we're trying to get it all recorded before then."
For the album's songwriting process, he said: "We started since November — since about November, we started working and through the holidays, Chris [Dovas, drums] has been coming out, working with Eric a lot. And then into this beginning of this year, he's came out dozens of times and really has put a lot of fire under Eric and got him fired up and writing some pretty aggressive stuff, some really challenging stuff for Eric. Chris is — he's a young guy, 25 years old, a really fast, great drummer. So it's given a little breath of some new life into the band and into the writing, really, which is exciting. We always write different things for every record, and once again, this is another Testament record that's gonna have some new stuff that we're exploring and stepping into. So we're looking forward to this one."
Chuck was then asked if the new material is a "a progression" from Titans Of Creation, in which he replied: "Yeah, but I think last record, I think I stayed in one vocal tone and range where this one, I'm doing a little bit of everything — some death metal vocals, classic Testament-style vocals. And then we actually have — I don't wanna say 'ballad', but we have a slower song that has a lot of feeling. How's that? [Laughs] And we haven't done that in a long time. So, there's a little bit of everything, but staying true to the band."
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