Testament vocalist Chuck Billy recently dropped by radio station 107.7 The Bone, serving San Francisco's Bay area, for a chat recently where the singer revealed that he's diligently working on a solo LP.
Billy told crew and listeners, "I've actually talked to over a dozen guitar players that have songs for me that they're writing and creating. But Testament takes priority first. Once I have time — it's not a big priority; it's just something I'd love to do. 'Cause I've only wrote music with Eric [Peterson, Testament guitarist] for 35-plus years, and I wanna write something and do something that's not Testament, that's totally different. I want it to be old-school-sounding, [with] dry drums, no samples, no triggers, like the old vinyls we used to have when we were younger. I just want it to be raw and real, one-take kind of stuff. So that's in the books. And I'm slowly working on that. But that'll be down the line."
Wow… as much as I love Testament, what Billy is talking about doing on his solo LP sounds incredible, and I'd love a slice of it ASAP. But I also wonder if Billy was holding back a little bit while talking with The Bone, and maybe there's already tracks recorded?
Around this time last year, we reported that Billy was working on a bluesy rock album, saying at the time, "I was recruiting some guitar players over the last six months to write a record with me, and I was gonna use a different guitar player on every song to help me write songs. Mark Morton (Lamb of God), I've talked to him; he wants to work [with me]. I also want Gary Holt (Exodus, Slayer) to write some songs with me…. I haven't approached my cousin Stef (Carpenter) from the Deftones yet, but I'm gonna see if he'll wanna write a song with me.
"I want it to be different. And what I've told all these guys [is] that I wanna do a solo record, but I don't want it to resemble Testament; I wanna do something different. And the direction I wanna go is the old classic vinyl-sounding records—just real, clean and dry and big. Real tones—not compressed digital stuff. I want it to be classic sounding, but have it rock, have it bluesy. Have some metal, but just have it where [it doesn't sound like what people are used to hearing from me]."
Naturally, we want Chuck to keep it raw and real, so no need to rush, as he says. But damn, that sounds like one firestorm of an album. Let's keep our eyes and ears open for this one—stay tuned, folks.
