Thanks to Natalie Camillo, I got to do an email interview with the man, the legend Chuck Billy of Testament.
Actually it wasn’t an email interview per se. I sent my questions via email, Ms. Camillo asked Billy the questions via phone and she sent me the answers back. Sounds complicated? Well, I can barely turn on my Xbox 360 without getting confused, so all this technology and electronic mail thingy is making my head spin.
Check out the interview after the jump.
Dose of Metal: How is your health?
Chuck Billy: Health is good. That’s all I can say, really! It’s all good!
DoM: Was there anything different about starting to play with the band again, after your health issues?
CB: It was kind of two different bands. We never got the Gathering line up back together… we went back with the all original line up. it definitely was different. Everything has been different for the better since then.
DoM: Thrash Metal is on the rise again. A couple of years ago, a craze for new Thrash bands started growing. How do you feel about those bands?
CB: It’s good, I’m glad there’s more Thrash music out there to be added to the melting pot!
Testament - More than meets the Eye
DoM: Which of these bands could have survived in the early days of Thrash, in the 80’s?
CB: The Haunted for sure. I can’t think of any other new ones off the top of my head.
DoM: Lots of Thrash Metal bands went Hard Rock or Heavy Metal during the 90’s. Why was there no niche for Thrash Metal during that time?
CB: There was a niche, it was just that the record industry was going in a different direction with the whole Seattle grunge music trend. It wasn’t that everybody died or anything. They were all still there, but the industry just shifted. All of the metal heads didn’t die that day!
DoM: How is the work for your upcoming album going?
CB: It’s going slow but it’s coming along. We’re getting together with Alex this week and doing a week’s worth of writing with him up in San Francisco. Eric has been in England writing… so we’re all getting together as one group this week. There are a lot of tracks, about 4 or 5 tunes that are going in the right direction.
DoM: Excluding Testament, what are your favorite Thrash Metal bands and albums?
CB: I really like The Haunted. I have about 3 or 4 number ones! Definitely Exodus ‘Bonded by Blood’, Metallica ‘Kill Em All’… those for me are classic thrash records.
Chuck likes The Haunted
DoM: Any last words for your readers at Dose of Metal?
CB: Hopefully we can play a couple new tunes at some festivals overseas this summer to give everyone a taste of the record. If we don’t have the record out, we will most likely release a single so we can promote the new stuff in Europe!
DoM: Thank you for your time!
