TESTAMENT Singer Says Making 'Brotherhood Of The Snake' Was 'Like Having Two Pregnancies'

Türk Gitar conducted an interview with vocalist Chuck Billy of veteran San Francisco Bay Area metallers TESTAMENT prior to the band's November 25, 2016 show at the Forum Karlin in Prague, Czech Republic. You can now watch the chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On playing metal past the age of 50:

Chuck: "I don't feel the age. I just don't think about it. We're always trying to make our records better and better, improve, and write better songs and production. It's a natural thing. It's not like you get to a certain age and go 'I can't do that or shouldn't do that.' We're still doing what we want to do, and what feels good."

On whether he feels younger than the people he went to high school with:

Chuck: "Of course. I'm 54 now, and I don't feel it. I feel like I haven't grown up. I've gotten older, but I haven't grown up yet. I still have the mind like if I was 20 starting in the band."

On whether he thought while recording TESTAMENT's 1987 debut album, "The Legacy", that the band would still be around thirty years later:

Chuck: "That's what I hoped. When I joined the band, to me, it was a special bunch of guys writing some music ahead of their time. They were very young guys, and the songs off 'The Legacy' were really mature-sounding songs. Even some of those songs still stand strong today. For me, of course, when you join a band, you think that's what you're going to do forever. Luckily, we've been able to keep doing it for this long. But yeah, when we did that record, I had hopes and dreams and expectations that, 'Wow, these are really talented guys. There's something here.'"

On the meaning behind the title of the band's latest album, "Brotherhood Of The Snake":

Chuck: "It's about people over six thousand years ago, basically, their beliefs, it's a secret society, it's one of the first secret societies and it was formed six thousand years ago. Their beliefs were all other religions were just out, and what they believed in an alien king or god, named Anu, who used planet earth as somewhere to send humans to mine for all the gold and minerals of the planet. That's what started the whole process of the thought of the 'Brotherhood Of The Snake'. When I brought it to Eric [Peterson, guitar], the title, he liked the idea. It felt right because we've been together a long time with each other and it is like a brotherhood. It was with the Sumerian and the snake, and it all came together at the same time. It was something cool. We wanted to write a record where we can write cool imagery and stories off of because the last couple of records were more personal. My father passing, me getting sick, just real things, where this is something we could create cool stories and imagery from."

On the writing process for "Brotherhood Of The Snake":

Chuck: "This record was like having two pregnancies. We wrote this record for two years, and a lot of touring in between that, but there is a lot of demos and songs written and ideas that were just ideas that we've had for years, it seemed like. At the end, we knew we [were] going on tour June 15, we knew we had to have a record finished and recorded if we wanted one this year [2016]. Around April/May, we still didn't have all the songs. We still had a lot of stuff coming together, but it wasn't complete. We knew, 'Shoot, we got to record.' We looked at Gene's [Hoglan, drums] schedule and found out he had a couple of weeks open in May. We had no choice; we had to start recording or we're not going to have a record. We all went into the studio and none of the guys had heard any finished songs. We didn't rehearse any of the songs. We went into the studio with a bunch of ideas and with Eric basically guiding Gene through the songs, and then sending it to Alex [Skolnick, lead guitar] telling him where to play his solos. It was the first record we ever did like that. It was a different process for us, but I think in the end because we pretty much put our backs against the wall and put the pressure on us, I think it poured down on to the record, the emotion, the anger, the frustration, just all of it came out. I think it made for a better creative record, a better energy record. At the end, after it's all done and all the songs came together after we recorded, we listened to it, and went 'Wow, it came together really good. We have some strong songs now.' It's just something that…it was a long process. It was something we wouldn't want to do again. It took a lot, but at the end of the day… we could have went into the studio and not be prepared and made a bad record, and made a big mistake, but it didn't happen, so we got lucky."

On whether he wrote the vocal melodies on "The Legacy":

Chuck: "No, those songs were all done. I think that's what made TESTAMENT unique. It wasn't all-out thrash; it had some melody, there was something to it. Those songs, when I heard them, I interpreted them with a little more melody and my style of singing, which really prepared me to go into the second record, 'The New Order'."

TESTAMENT will launch a massive North American tour on April 6 in support of "Brotherhood Of The Snake". Support on the trek will come from Brazilian/American thrashers SEPULTURA and genre-defying stalwarts PRONG.

"Brotherhood Of The Snake" was released on October 28, 2016 via Nuclear Blast. The cover was once again created by renowned artist Eliran Kantor, who also handled the art for the TESTAMENT's last album, 2012's "Dark Roots Of Earth", and also worked with bands like HATEBREED, SOULFLY and KATAKLYSM in the past.