Chuck Billy says Testament’s next album will mostly be written on the road.
The band are out on a joint tour of North America with Exodus and will use any downtime to flesh out Billy and guitarist Eric Peterson’s rough ideas.
Billy tells Cryptic Rock: “This tour will actually be the first where we’re all together in one place for an extended period of time. This will be a chance to not only talk about the music and mess around with new ideas – I have been thinking that being on the road and playing all the songs from our beginning may allow us to channel those songs toward something new, be inspired, and get ourselves into the right mentality to work together as a unit.
“We’re more than halfway done with the new songs, but we keep tweaking it. I think that when we all get together and play, it will start moulding into something workable, maybe even change a bit.
“I think that’s the beauty of our records. They are recognisable as Testament but they don’t all sound the same. There’s no rehashed material and it is good to keep it fresh with every new record.”
Billy said this week that the follow-up to 2012’s Dark Roots Of Earth would be out at the end of the year at the earliest, having previously said a March 2015 release was on the cards.