Today was a definite highpoint in my musical life getting the opportunity to speak with Chuck Billy of the legendary Bay Area Thrashers, TESTAMENT. TESTAMENT has just signed a deal with Nuclear Blast for their next album and Chuck is very ecstatic about the future.

SMN: Hello?
CHUCK: Yeah?

SMN: Chuck?
CHUCK: Yeah, this is Chuck.

SMN: How are you?
CHUCK: OK!

SMN: Are you ready for the interview, is now a good time for you?
CHUCK: Sure, that’s fine!

SMN: How long do you have here?
CHUCK: As long as you need!

SMN: I don’t wanna take 3 hours of your time away.
CHUCK: (Laughs)

SMN: I owe you a ‘Congratulations’ on the Nuclear Blast Deal. Did this just happen over the weekend?
CHUCK: It’s been the last couple of weeks where we had a few offers and the last month been playing tag with each other and see who’s going to come with the better offer and of course Nuclear Blast stepped up and far and above everyone else and we’re happy that they did as they’re probably the #1 Metal label out there right now.

SMN: I saw it on the website and saw you have a home and no more dealing with Spitfire mentality.
CHUCK: No More!

SMN: And you guys own your own recordings don’t you?
CHUCK: Yep!

SMN: You have the deal now and you’ve been writing and recording?
CHUCK: We’ve been writing and demoing. We’re just finishing up some demos right now actually all the guys are out here right now at my place recording.

SMN: How’s it coming along for you?
CHUCK: Really good! Got about 8 tracks right now, trying to shoot for 4 or 5 more tracks.

SMN: How’s it going with Nick in the band?
CHUCK: Great! He’s adding a new spark of life which I think it probably needed and he’s really pushing and driving Eric to write some really good shit!

SMN: How would you describe the vocals so far on the demos?
CHUCK: It’s still trying to keep it within THE GATHERING thing cuz it struck such a good chord for me, stretch out my vocals and use some different textures and voices and stuff and for me it’s more dynamic that way you know. And I enjoy that so we’re trying to find the more dynamic vocal.

SMN: In the ideal world right now, what would be the ideal release time?
CHUCK: We’re shooting for March 08!

SMN: What’s the availability of the band going to be like at that timeframe.
CHUCK: As soon as that record comes out we’ll be off and running with a bunch of shows I’m sure.

SMN: Alex’s schedule will be free at that time?
CHUCK: Yes, Alex is very busy towards the end of the year when the TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA kicks in.

SMN: When he wears his Santa hat.
CHUCK: Yeah!

SMN: Are we talking a full run of the States at that time?
CHUCK: We’ll probably do a States run, we probably won’t hit every city, but we’ll do definitely major cities. We haven’t done a good, proper States run in a while so it’s pretty overdue.

SMN: You’re heading to Europe next week?
CHUCK: In 2 days actually.

SMN: How many festivals?
CHUCK: Just 2 this weekend in Italy and Holland? We’ve been kinda been busy and focused on writing and I just know I have to get to the airport at a certain time and I’ll be there. Give me the set list and let’s go!

SMN: What’s the set list look like?
CHUCK: We came up with a 20-song set list that we’re chiseling down to around 15-16 songs. It’s a lot of the old, old classics that the original lineup wrote together. And the last tour we put in 3 songs off THE GATHERING and we’re gonna play a couple songs off of DEMONIC and the LOW album. We’re getting a little bit to the newer roots.

SMN: Any chance of a new song in the set?
CHUCK: We’re gonna first debut a song at the Sounds Of The Underground festival and the Earthshaker festival.

SMN: SOTU is a pretty big show for you guys back East.
CHUCK: We’re headlining.

SMN: You can show some of the younger kids how it’s done!
CHUCK: I hope so! (laughs)

SMN: Show them where a lot of this modern sound evolved from.
CHUCK: Right!

SMN: I was listening to the latest album from TRIVIUM and I hear a lot of old TESTAMENT riffs in there.
CHUCK: We haven’t met formally but we’ve heard from press they used to be big TESTAMENT fans growing up so it’s cool to hear what they’ve done cuz I listen to what they’ve done and get influenced by what they write. It’s kinda a full circle of metal.

SMN: It’s good to hear the talent coming back into music again as it got over-saturated with ‘no talent’ and people who aren’t afraid to play their instruments anymore.
CHUCK: It’s true.

SMN: I have a totally off the wall questions, ‘what’s going to happen with the Raiders this year?”
CHUCK: HaHa! They got a coach that’s probably going to be hard work and get this team together. I think they’re gonna do alright.

SMN: Think they’ll hit .500 this year?
CHUCK: Yeah! (we pause the interview as somebody is there getting into their facility).

SMN: Are you guys rehearsing tonight?
CHUCK: Yeah, actually we’re recording before we leave. Alex flies back to New York tomorrow so we’re gonna track all the new songs up to this point. We’ve been tracking but we’ve kept changing them and adding parts and re-arranging. So as of this weekend we re-arranged everything again so now we gotta track them again. Everything’s setup and we’re gonna record tonight. The guys should be here soon.

SMN: Is everyone excited right now?
CHUCK: It’s been real cool. Everyone’s excited because we got off of Spitfire first of all. The rehearsal situation is us setup at my house, right in the living room. It’s a real cool relaxing environment, nobody has to travel, everyone just comes and we just live music for the weekend.

SMN: Neighbors gotta love ya!
CHUCK: We close the windows and we try not to set it real loud!

SMN: You’ve got TESTAMENT going on right now, but you also have DUBLIN DEATH PATROL going on as well.
CHUCK: We’re cutting a record deal with that for Europe right now and selling it on the website. That’s kinda taking a hiatus right now, we cut a record, did some touring, now we gotta get a TESTAMENT record done so that’s going to kinda take a backburner right now until the first of the year.

SMN: You’re doing the demo thing right now, where do you plan to record and who do you want to do it with?
CHUCK: I don’t know, we’ve been working with Andy Sneap a lot but we really haven’t planned where to go to record. It’s all up in the air right now especially with the new label deal.

SMN: Are there any new albums that you’ve heard recently that really kick your ass with sounds?
CHUCK: There’s a lot of great records, MACHINE HEAD sounds killer, LAMB OF GOD sounds killer, I even like the TRIVIUM record I like that sound. The new SOILWORK record I just heard this weekend is a killer record.

SMN: Lyrically, what are you guys writing about?
CHUCK: Umm, a lot of stuff we deal with in life. Since our last record both Eric and I had our father’s pass away so probably touch on some father namesake deal, some war type stuff with Iraq, my cancer issues and stuff like that.

SMN: You’re fully recovered now though right?
CHUCK: Fully! Then again just talk about stuff that we deal with everyday pretty much.

SMN: You just went over to Europe with DDP, what was the vibe on TESTAMENT from the people you were meeting at the shows?
CHUCK: The question of the day was, “when is the record coming out?

SMN: This was before the Nuclear Blast deal?
CHUCK: Yes. NB completed their pact they got ANTHRAX, EXODUS, DEATH ANGEL, and TESTAMENT.

SMN: That could be the big tour next year with EXODUS and DEATH ANGEL.
CHUCK: That’s funny you say that cuz that’s already been in the talks. We’re all gonna have new albums out!

Now if our friends in METALLICA had enough balls to truly give the old school fans what they want, and judging by their set lists in Europe it does show change for the better, could you imagine an arena filled with heads banging like it’s 1985 all over again with TESTAMENT and METALLICA together?

Rate this interview: (19 votes, average: 4.11 out of 5)
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007 at 12:26 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

SMNnews.com | Testament, Death Angel, Exodus - Lining Up 2008 US Tour? wrote:

[…] Testament - Chuck Billy, Vocals […]

July 21st, 2007 at 6:23 pm

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