Testament reunion hits Aussieshores

Sat 27th Jan, 2007 in Features

In May 2005, American thrash legends Testament embarked on a 10 day reunion tour across Europe, however the success of these shows inspired the band to embark on a full blown world tour and even sit down to write another record. Australia has been lucky enough to feature on that tour and vocalist Chuck Billy just can’t wait to come down.

“We’re excited, it’s our first time to Australia and we’re really looking forward to it.”

I asked what their legion of metal fans downunder can expect to hear live, what with such a huge catalogue of music to work with. “We’re gonna do the classics cause it’s the original lineup but we’ll also be doing some songs off The Gathering (the band’s 1999 album)”.

There’s been some discussion surrounding the direction the band would take with their highly anticipated new record, their first in 8 years. “We’re going to keep the same vibe with the original lineup but the material will be more in the vein of The Gathering, we’ll definitely be keeping the aggression of the early stuff”.

Unfortunately, original drummer Louie Clemente has succumbed to a hand injury he picked up last year and will not be joining the lads in Australia and believes that he may never play the drums again. He’s been replaced by Nick Barker (Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir) who Chuck says will bring some more black metal elements to the band.

Testament have like many other bands these days a number of best of compilations out. A new album called The Spitfire Collection is going to be released in February and Chuck’s far from happy about it. “It sucks, we had no idea about that, Spitfire was bought out by another company who decided to release the compilation, there’s about four Testament best of records out with the same songs on them, I’m really disappointed about it.”

New greatest hits compilations seem to be synonymous with reunions and what with so many hard rock and metal bands getting back together recently (only to split up in the case of Joey Belladonna’s recent departure from Anthrax), Chuck explained that the Testament reunion is something that will be taken a day at a time. Of course, Louie is no longer in the band but Chuck went on to say that “there’s a positive energy within the band right now, we’re enjoying things with Alex (Skolnick) back in the band and we’ve agreed to make a new record together, so we’re gonna take it day by day, anything can happen beyond that.”

Chuck’s also put together a side project with Exodus’ Steve Souza and about 15 other people called the Dublin Death Patrol. The project features heaps of Chuck’s friends, many of whom he went to high school with. “The song’s we recorded were written over 25 years ago, so we thought we’d record them but with a modern edge.” It was initially supposed to be a bit of fun but they’ve decided to keep it going, however Chuck informed me of the one golden rule of the band. “You have to be from Dublin (suburb of San Fransisco), Lars Ulrich of Metallica found out about the project and asked why he wasn’t called to be a part of it and we told him it’s cause he’s not from Dublin.” I couldn’t help but laugh about that with Chuck – that’s one strict rule dude!

However come early February, there’s only one band that will be on the mind’s of Aussie metal fans and that’s Testament who after 24 years are about to grace our shores. Chuck stressed that fans should get ready cause Testament are rearing to go and are excited about playing some killer shows across the east coast.

Make sure you head down to one of the following shows to see one thrash’s most influential icons tearing it up and playing some classic Bay Area metal!

February 07 – The Prince of Wales Hotel, Melbourne, Australia
February 08 – The Manning Bar, Sydney, Australia
February 09 – The Waterloo Hotel, Brisbane, Australia