TESTAMENT's CHUCK BILLY: The Goal Is To Have Next Album Out 'By Summer 2019'

TESTAMENT frontman Chuck Billy spoke to Metal Heads Forever Magazine about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band’s follow-up to 2016’s “Brotherhood Of The Snake” album. “Eric‘s [Peterson, guitar] working on riffs now and the plan is after the SLAYER tour ends at the end of August, we won’t be doing any more touring; we’ll go heavy into writing mode,” he said. “Me and Eric, we’ll start really just creating and working, trying to get the next record out as soon as possible, because we have plans and hopes of setting a deadline on ourselves to have it out by summer 2019. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.”

As for what fans can expect the next TESTAMENT record to sound like, Billy said: “I like the direction we went on ‘Brotherhood’, but our hope always is that there is some special element. Something special like ‘The Gathering’ [1999] feeling of music — that writing, you know; it’d be nice to kind of experience some of that again. That was a little more thrashier, that record, and we like that — we like the more thrashiness, while still trying to carry a melody. So, I don’t know. We can hope, but until me and Eric sit down and start writing together, we don’t know really what the outcome is until we start working.”

“Brotherhood Of The Snake” was recorded under the watchful eyes of producer Juan Urteaga (EXODUS, HEATHEN, MACHINE HEAD), Peterson and Billy and was mixed and mastered by British metal producer Andy Sneap (ACCEPT, ARCH ENEMY, CRADLE OF FILTH, KREATOR, MACHINE HEAD, MEGADETH).