Alex Skolnick was a timid 16-year-old when he joined Testament in 1985, but his highly skilled melodic guitar playing would prove hugely influential throughout the Bay Area thrash scene and beyond. When he left Testament in the early 90s, he pursued diverse musical projects, including stints in Savatage and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. He also went back to school to study jazz and formed his own jazz outfit, The Alex Skolnick Trio.
Alex rejoined Testament in 2005, and they’ve since gone from strength to strength. He’s kept his fingers in numerous other pies, too, from teaching to ambitious world music projects. He’s the muso’s thrasher with a list of accomplishments longer than an extendedscale fretboard, but remains as humble and down-to-earth as they come.
PARENTS DON’T KNOW EVERYTHING
“My parents were academics and not thrilled about me joining a thrash metal band. They were older than most of my friends’ parents so didn’t even have that rock’n’roll background. Their wishes for me were to get a PhD, just like them. There were a few points that convinced them I hadn’t made a terrible choice, though. The first was when Testament supported Judas Priest at the Oakland Coliseum [in 1990], which showed that this was more than just a neighbourhood band. They were also happy when I started writing columns for guitar magazines, because they always respected writing.”
YOU CAN OVERCOME FIRST NIGHT NERVES
“I was painfully shy and socially awkward when I was younger and going onstage was a trial. At the first gig, when there was a clean intro or a part where the band wasn’t playing full-on, my hands would shake so much I could barely hit the notes. If you’re lucky enough to get to the point where you’re on tour, playing night after night, there’s nothing like that to help you get over it, but it was still very scary.”
DON’T PARTY FOR THE SAKE OF IT
“That Bay Area scene could be chaos, but because I was so shy and also because I was the youngest member of Testament, I’d sit in the corner practising scales and trying to learn. There’s a place for cutting loose, but even back then for me it always made sense to celebrate when there was something to celebrate. If you’re just letting loose every night, which is what was happening in the band at that point, it’s just drinking for its own sake. I could never keep up anyway so I didn’t try!”
FIFTH PLACE IS FINE BY ME
“People talk about the Big 4 of thrash and I genuinely never had a problem with that, because I was listening to all those bands when I was still in high school. I remember Master Of Puppets coming out right around the time I was doing my first gigs. Megadeth and Anthrax had albums out and I saw Slayer the first time they came through. They still had the facepaint on, like a dark carnival! It was a question of seniority, and it made perfect sense to me that they would be the Big 4.”
THE EARLY YEARS OF THRASH WERE A SPECIAL TIME
“Our early club tours were like a cauldron bubbling up, and then opportunities started coming. I remember our first European festival [Dynamo Open Air in the Netherlands, 1987]. It was the biggest crowd we’d ever played for, then Monsters Of Rock came up in Germany [in 1988] when Megadeth dropped out, and that was massive. Iron Maiden headlined, with Kiss and David Lee Roth – all absolute legends. People look at the Clash Of The Titans tour now [Megadeth, Slayer, Testament and Suicidal Tendencies in 1990] and say it was pretty legendary. At the time it just seemed logical to put these bands together who were all on the faster side of the equation.”
SOMETIMES YOU GOTTA MOVE ON
“The drama within Testament [before I left] was difficult. It was a bit of a toxic environment andno coincidence that the drummer, Louie Clemente, left soon after I did. But I was also expanding my musical horizons. I’d done a tour with [virtuoso bassist] Stu Hamm, had an offer to tour with [virtuoso instrumentalist] Michael Manring. I still loved metal, but I wanted to find a voice outside that and work with other musicians. Either of these things would have caused me to leave Testament eventually, but they came together in a perfect storm.”
WHEN ONE DOOR CLOSES, ANOTHER OPENS
“I don’t know why their separation happened, but I guess Zakk [Wylde] was doing other stuff and there was this search for a new Ozzy Osbourne guitarist. I was just honoured to be in the running because I’d heard about some pretty well-known players that never got past the audition phase. I actually got to the point of doing a show and Ozzy hired me – he said he wanted me to do the gig. It was an unannounced show at Nottingham Rock City and it was great. I didn’t get the role full-time, which I think was a management decision, but it was a great motivation at a time when I didn’t really know what to do next. That was when I enrolled in the university called The New School in New York, and studied with these greats like [jazz musicians] Cecil McBee and Reggie Workman.”
DON’T LISTEN TO THE CRITICS
“There was a bit of resistance, because it was a very odd thing to have somebody from a metal band suddenly enrolling in a music programme and studying with heavyweight jazz players. There was also a lot of support though, and I chose to focus on that. I was used to it anyway, because when I first joined Testament, I’d hear comments saying I sounded more like I’d fit in a glam band and I should move to LA. I took that as a compliment, because I really liked the guitar players from the glam bands. I liked George Lynch [Dokken], Warren DeMartini [Ratt], the whole post-Van Halen period of guitar playing. I wanted to bring that into heavy music, because a lot of it had more of a garage rock aesthetic and I wanted to bring this polish."
KEEP FINDING INSPIRATION
“I made an appearance on Lamb Of God’s [2004 album] Ashes Of The Wake, because I was very excited about what they were doing. I went to an Ozzfest they played at and I met Slipknot for the first time … Hatebreed were there … all these bands that ’d come after Testament. They were clearly inspired by that period, but they were taking it somewhere new. I think that whole experience made me want to have some metal outlet again , and then I get the call from the Testament guys wanting to do some occasional shows. I thought, ‘Okay , let’s see how it goes.’ It was better because everybody was a little bit older and wiser.”
GRAB YOUR OPPORTUNITIES
“We were only talking about doing the odd show, but then out of the blue we got the offer to do this dream Masters Of Metal tour, which was Heaven & Hell, Judas Priest and Motörhead. They were looking for a fourth band. We were told, ‘OK, you guys can do this, but you have to have a record.’ That was the big incentive and the record we made was [2008’s] The Formation Of Damnation. Suddenly we were off to the races and the offers have been coming in ever since.”
MUSIC BRINGS PEOPLE TOGETHER
“I put together a project called Planetary Coalition that brought together some amazing musicians from around the world. There’s nothing that can compare to the power of music. The last concert I went to before leaving for the Anthrax tour was David Gilmour. I happened to catch it on election night in the United States , and hearing everybody sing Wish You Were Here and Comfortably Numb, you would never know that the US was divided and thereTest was this very high stakes election happening. It was a way for everybody just to gather and focus on something positive.”
EXPERIMENT CREATIVELY
“I’m just as excited as ever to be working on new Testament music, but it helps that it’s not my only outlet. That was something I wrestled with in the early part of the band’s career. It was all I was doing – that adds a lot of pressure because it’s the only thing you’re known for. Now I have my Trio, I have over half a dozen instrumental albums , and I have other metal outlets like [supergroup ] Metal Allegiance where I can work with vocalists like Troy [Sanders] from Mastodon or Johan [Hegg] from Amon Amarth. It’s a great position to be in and I feel very lucky with my life and career.”
Testament play Sonic Temple on May 9 and Welcome To Rockville on May 18.
