TESTAMENT's ERIC PETERSON On DONALD TRUMP: 'We Need To Be Not Talking About Building Walls'

TESTAMENT guitarist Eric Peterson has weighed in on the 2016 presidential election, saying that controversial Republican candidate Donald Trump is only now finding out how to act on a world stage.

Peterson made his comments earlier this month during an interview with PlanetMosh at Finland’s Tuska festival. He said: “I’m not really a Republican. I liked some of the stuff Donald was saying at first. You know, when you take away the pun, it’s kind of cool. But he would have been the perfect president in the ’40s or when everything was more pro-American and the world wasn’t so connected. For the U.S.A., it would be great. But the world is now connected, and we need to be not talking about building walls; it needs to be more of a global thing and not be, you know, ‘Fuck Muslims!’ or the Mexicans or… And I’m sure he doesn’t mean it… ‘Cause he’s more like a normal person, and he’s learning that you can’t just say… In politics, you can’t… People are really gonna define what he said. ‘Cause it would be like me running for president. I’d probably say a lot of stupid shit. But I didn’t mean it. I’m just, like, ‘I kind of mean it, but I meant it more like this.’ And I think he’s finding that out.”

In a 2012 interview with Decibel magazine, TESTAMENT singer Chuck Billy said that the group generally stayed away from politics in its lyrics despite covering environmental themes in several of its songs. He said: “We’ve never been a political band; we just like to write things that are real, that we have to deal with and everybody has to deal with, things that are part of everybody’s life so that people can relate to it. I think everybody has to relate to what’s going on in our world as far as the environment goes.”

TESTAMENT will release its new album, “The Brotherhood Of The Snake”, on October 28 via Nuclear Blast. The CD was recorded under the watchful eyes of producer Juan Urteaga (EXODUS, HEATHEN, MACHINE HEAD), Eric Peterson and Chuck Billy and was mixed and mastered by British metal producer Andy Sneap (ACCEPT, ARCH ENEMY, CRADLE OF FILTH, KREATOR, MACHINE HEAD, MEGADETH).