Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Preparing For War With CHUCK BILLY From TESTAMENT

Transcript

Preparing For War With CHUCK BILLY From TESTAMENT · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Chuck Billy here from Testament, here to talk about our
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: brand new record, Parabellum, coming out October tenth, so make
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: sure you check that out.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Fantastic Chalk, Thanks for joining us today. Always a pleasure.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me and lately so as.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: You say, Testament will unleash your fourteenth studio album, Parabellum
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: on October the tenth.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Decided.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: How you feeling about.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: It, I'm feeling really good. We're we're very excited. Once
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: we heard the final mixes and the whole sequence of
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: the record, it's just like, wow, man, this is pretty
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: you know. It has a little bit of everything you know,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: and I can hear everything we've done in the past.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: We touch on a little on this and then some
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: even like those first songs of a Pain, those little
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: black metal elements are there, and Eric sing and his
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: black metal style with me, and it's just like, you know,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I've talked to some journalists. It's like, first thing, it
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: says a whole lot a minute that they send me
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: the wrong record.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: It's interesting to mention that actually, because in the opening
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: nights you stepped back in time by resurrecting a lost
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: bridge from the legacy era. So was that a deliberate
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: nod linking in the past and the president, or was
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: it just because you found that bridge and you wanted
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: to use it.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Well we have, we used that bridge, but I think
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I think we've grown to be more than just the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: thrash band and have that offering, so we we have
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: it on this record. But again, like I said, we
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: pushed that a little bit further and and vocally it's
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: some brutal stuff, but somehow I still find somewhere to
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: put a hook in a melody in there in there
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: over the brutality, and I think that's just what sets
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: this one a little bit different. Titans is a great record,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: great some great songs, but I think this one just
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: some unique and I think it's because Chris brings a new,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: fresh energy and a younger energy. And you know, he's
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: obviously younger than us and was raised in a different
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: genre of metal than we were, so maybe there's a
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: little bit of that element in there that's him and Eric,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: you know, found.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Explored on that a little bit too, mate, Like you
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: mentioned it briefly, but the album sounds unmistakeily like Testament,
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: but there's flirtations with the Black Metaltinus very song tracks
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: like in Fantasized Aim for the Love of warl it's
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: an interesting addition like what's why now, sort of bring
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: those elements to it.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: It wasn't planned, it's just the way it happened. Was
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Chris has probably been the first drummer that spent so
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: much time with Eric writing, and Chris would stat Eric's house,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: you know, and they kind of kept the riffs from me.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: They wanted to just work and write and collect them
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: and record them. So I know there was a lot
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: of hanging out drinking, watching horror movies and just like
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: having fun. I guess since you know, I was, you know,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: watching a movie and going let's go downstairs and let's jam,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: you know, and then next to you and I was like, man,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: we wrote this killer piece last night at two in
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: the morning, drunk. Well really, okay, let's hear that. Holy shit,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: you guys did something. You guys did write something great.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: So a lot of that was just fun. And and
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: for them to give me such a diverse and variety
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: of riffs, it really let me to go down different
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: avenues vocally and find different things to do. And and
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: they've been challenged. I guess is a word that I
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: would say vocally sometimes on these songs, because some of
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: them were like I would say, and that doesn't really
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: sound like a metal riff, you know, is that going
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: to be on the record. But then in the end,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: once I wrote it, it fit. It fit the whole record,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: and it does make it a little more diverse because
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: it's just not a put on the gas, let's go,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: you know. We really kind of made it to where
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: and especially Eric's sequencing the record. The order of the
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: record is unusual, but it works. Song like Meant to
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Be fourth and the title track last and coming out
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: with Love of Pain just brutal death metal at the beginning.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: It's so like the wrong way to think about doing it,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: but we did it and it worked.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: It's actually good because a lot of bands these days,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: they don't really put much thought into the track listening
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: because people play it on Spotify and stuff, you know,
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: just all played out of context. But it's good to
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: see a band actually put some thought into it and
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: getting the album flowing, because there are old dinosaurs like
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: me out there that listen to an album from start
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: to finish.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's that's when I know, because we write
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: each song individual actually track a minute basically, see, we
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: don't you don't really know what the record's going to
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: be like. We know there's some oddball songs and a
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: lot of them are different from each other. But until
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: it's sequenced and you know, li's sit back and listen
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: the whole thing, that's when that's when I first said, Wow,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: this is a really good record. I really enjoy just
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: putting it on and listens start to finish. I don't
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: skip songs. It's not one of them skip song records.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: It's you play them all.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And along those lines, probably, how difficult is it
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: for you as a band to make your music sound
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: fresh and modern in some respects? Will still playing a
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: style of music that you've perfected about forty years ago?
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean it it It could be tough. But
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: I think where Eric shines is that he doesn't go
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: out and search for new bands or listen to serious radio,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: so he's really focused on what he likes. He likes
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: his black metal, he likes his classic metal, likes his
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: British wave of heavy metal. So when he writes, he's
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: not really inspired by what's happening today. But I think
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Chris being so young, played some stuff and inspired Eric
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: and Chris's abilities to just put his foot on the
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: gas and Eric go, come on, keep up, let's go.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: You know. So there's something to that, and I think
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: maybe that's what to me when I first heard it
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: all to me, first thing I said is, Wow, this
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: sounds fresh, This sounds new, and especially vocally, trying to
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: do new things and use new voices, you know in
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: the recording process.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, how did you go over there? And I'm listening
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: through it, like your voice ranges, there's planes in there,
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: there's normal hush, it's in demonic whispers. Well, you did
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: have a large spectrum, like so a lot of them
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: are sort of new territory for you. But as you're
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: getting older and more experience in the industry, how hard
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: is it feed to break that cycle of just doing
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: what you know and trying something different.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Well, I think we've always tried to do that since
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the gathering record and the record's moving forward, was always
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: trying to do something different. And you know, I'm not
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: a trained vocalist or anything, so I've always just kind
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: of go with my gut instinct. And and when I
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: recorded this record, I didn't sing the songs with the
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: band ever. I wrote the lyrics and they never even
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: heard the lyrics till I recorded them, you know, So
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: it was a big chance that like, okay, but I'm
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: feeling good with this and I feel this is the
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: right voice to use, this is the right hook in
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: this song, and this is the right texture of tone
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: of the voice to lay on this track. So all
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: of that was like, to me, my part, because those
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: guys did their part creating it vocally. I just had
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: to keep up and find my way not to ruin
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: what they did.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: People know your voice, and you know how you can sing,
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: and when you're doing things like this now, like can
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: you take it to the band like because it's new,
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Like do you get nervous still or do you get
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: that fancy that maybe it's not right? Or do you
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: still buy?
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: I do because I'll hear it and I'll give it
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: to them. And Eric's pretty crucial. He knows what he wants,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: but he doesn't know vocal style yet when he's writing
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: his rips, he doesn't hear that part of it. You know.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: He's just listened to every nook and crammy in the
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: drum beats and pills and where the bases planned. So
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: he leaves that open for me, and you know, sometimes
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: he'll have an opinion on something or you know, use
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: this voice, and I'll take that to heart. But sometimes
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: if I try it, it doesn't work. And I'm comfortable
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: with what I've done because when I go in the studio,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: of course I'm trying it for the first time. I've
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: been saying this live, so I'm experimenting and testing tones
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: and textures and what feels right. So once I'm comfortable
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: recording that day and listen back, okay, I'm happy, send
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: it to Eric. Let's see what they say. You know now.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Parabellum also sees Testament lay down your first album ballad
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: in many years, called Meant to Be? Like, why was
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: now the right sort to bring back the ballad you Reckon?
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: I think because you know, the last year we've been
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: celebrating our Practiciite Preach record and we were out playing
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: those songs, but we also added Return to Serenity, the Ballot,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: Trail of Tears, City of Angels. We're playing all these
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: songs and usually over the years we're like, we're not
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: playing any ballots. You know, the old fans might dig it,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: but there's so much new fans that are coming our
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: shows they might not care for this. But when we
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: were celebrating practice record, we were playing all them. We've
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: seen the response by new fans and the old fans.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: They were like wow, and we loved it. We had
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: such a good time. We were owning it that I
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: think I give us the nerve to like not be
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: afraid to put it on a new record. And you know,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: at first it was a long track, is like eight minutes,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, wow, it's a lot of lyrics, so wow, Okay,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I got to tackle this one. But once I found
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: my way through it where the vocals needed to be
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: and the leads needed to be, it just made sense.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: And I think it hasn't been one of the best
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: ballots I think we wrote. You know, I hate calling
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: it about it, but it's just a good song.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: And it also features world renowned Celli State Eagle on it.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: How lot does it to integrate the sound and your music?
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: You know, we didn't know what it was going to
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: be like. After we listened to some of the playback
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: at that point, it was sounding really nice. The guitars
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: are there, but We're like, you know what I can hear?
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: I just can hear a soothing string section on it too,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: because it could there's a room for it. So Alex says, hey,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: I know somebody, and he reached out to Dave and
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Dave was very excited to do it, and we didn't
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: give him any direction. He just kind of listened to it,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: interpreted it himself, and put his what he felt right
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: down and it did it perfectly the way he bends
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: some of them cello notes into it and it just
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: flows over it really nice. And he found his own
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: space and it just opened it up. When I hear it,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, man, that's that's that's nice.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Indeed. Now the album title is taken from the Latin
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: phrase if you want peace, prepare for war, so runs
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: through that concept and how it fits in with the album.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Well, first of all, it fit in with the artwork,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: you know, because originally we're gonna call it a fantasiede AI,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: but that didn't really to me match the direction they
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: were going because Eric works on that the direction of
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: the art. And also we thought, okay, well AI, let's
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: not go there maybe because maybe fans might start going, wait,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: does that album cover AI? Did? They use AI to
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: write lyrics and all this, So we're like, you know,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: let's not open that door. And once me and Alix
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: will a pair of bellum and I told him what
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: it meant prepare for war, it made more sense with
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: what he was working on with the artwork because we
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: knew we wanted like a mushroom cloud there in the background,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: and I didn't know about the angel and the missile wings.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: But once they came up with it, it just made sense.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, it's sublimly we're driven a little bit,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: you know, talking about silent weapons and things are going
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: on in our world.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: There's so many layers to that cover of team Mate,
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Like essentially it's got an angel made of missiles, it's
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: engulfed by halo fire, surrounded by COLT members with bookstrapping
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: their faces. But the more you look at it, when
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: you know those sort of things, like it's visually stunning anyway,
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: but there's so many depths and layers to it. It's
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: a great piece of us.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: It really is. And the color palette when I first
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: seen it, because I only seen it at the sketch
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: phase until the final heart you know, I seen it
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: and I knew, you know, I lay it up to them.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: I don't have an opinion. So when he first showed
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: me it right away, I thought it took me like
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: to a practice what you preach, just that bright, vivid,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: bold color. And it was right. It felt good. And
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: since the music and albums sounds so fresh, the album
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: looks fresh, you know it really it really fits what
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: we did.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually gave some thought to the phrase Parabella
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: mark to listen to the women. Do you think it
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: was initially conceived by someone preparing to white war as
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: a threat? What do you think it was my by
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: a pascifist result to the fact that war was coming.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, we're just inspired by what's going on
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: in our world with you know, Russia and Ukraine. You know,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: this is the first time, you know, we wrote song
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: World War three on Titans of Creation because I was thinking, Man,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: there's the clothes I've ever seen to a World War
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: three and then move intoday where we you know, see
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: the destruction of you know, the war going on in Ukraine. Man,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: there's so much to talk about, so much to cover,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: and it, you know, I like singing and writing about
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: real things that that affect people or they can relate to.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: You know, heavy metal bands tend to write cliche and
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: metal lyrics, which that's okay, you know, but when you
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: have write one hundred and thirty forty songs, you gotta
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: think a little bit more about the box, you know.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: Would you say I have rolled? Parabellum is an album
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: of hypospan.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I think it's an album hope, especially like in songs
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: like meant to Be. When you first hear it, you'll
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: probably think it's a love song between a man and
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: a woman singing back and forth and for each other
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: that was meant to be, But it's actually about mankind
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: and our planet, what we've done to abuse our planet
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: and our relationship with the planet, and no matter what
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: we do in the end, humanity is gonna survive and
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: it's gonna, you know, keep on. We're gonna keep carrying
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: on no matter what we're hit with. And that was
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: a part of it that, you know, I kind of
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: use that. And then songs like Havana Syndrome. You know,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: it's a silent weapon that was used against the American
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: constant Havanas in the seventies, So again it's kind of
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: a war themed weapon, know, so Sublimate has those. The
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: theme carries throughout it.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Nice all right, Chuck, Well, thanks very much for your time, Broke,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: being an absolute pleasure speaking with you. Parabellum is out
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: October tenth. Then it is a fantastic crack of a record, right,
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: so well done and chatting you said
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Chris, It's good talking to you man.