“Chuck was breaking beer bottles over his head”: Thrash metal legends testament to 40 years of mayhem | metal

IIn California’s Bay Area in the mid-1980s, a heavy metal scene was forming that was angrier, louder and much faster than anything that had come before: thrash. Progenitors Metallica is its most famous alumni, but this corner of the West Coast has produced dozens of other great bands that seem to have no limits on rhythm, or sometimes even melody.

With its powerful, high-octane effects and stunning technical pieces, one of the most fascinating and resilient films is The Testament. Although there have been enough changes in the band’s lineup to rival the fall, cancer scares, and ’90s grunge’s takeover of plaid shirts, Denim is still selling out tours, crashing on the heels of the commercially dominant Big Four metal bands — Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax — and releasing new records with equal vigor. The latest, Para Bellum, was released last week.

It all started in late 1983, when, fresh out of high school, Eric Peterson and his cousin Derek Ramirez from Alameda near Oakland formed Legacy, the pioneering company of Testament. The two guitarists played their first show above a record store with local rebel punks and infidels, but the next show – while wearing priest collars – was supporting Slayer. “That was our first taste of a sold-out audience,” says Peterson, as the band calls in from their homes across the United States. “We were so nervous. We only had four songs.”

Ramirez soon quit, so Peterson recruited local Berkeley teenager Alex Skolnick – one of metal’s most accomplished guitarists, who had studied under the virtuoso Joe Satriani. “I was a fan of Ozzy and Dio,” Skolnick says. “Eric told me: ‘We have to speed it up!’

Louie Clemente on drums, bassist Greg Christian, and Steve “Zetro” Souza on vocals completed the lineup. They would go drinking together at the underground hub of the Bay Area, Ruthie’s Inn; Peterson and Skolnick will have “a couple of suicide bombers [cocktails]”We fought our way through the crowd and just hit people. They didn’t know what happened — that was kind of an atmosphere,” Peterson says of the duo’s rowdy demeanor.

Souza resigned to join his Exodus bandmates, leaving a hole for the frontman. The band knew a kid named Chuck Billy, known to Peterson and Clemente as “Cheese” because of his perpetual smile, and whom they would sometimes see hovering next to beer kegs at parties. “He was very quiet but had a kind of evil laugh,” Peterson says.

The problem was that Billy was fronting a popular band called Guilt: the kind of music that metal fans were making fun of, and sometimes worse. “You had to adapt: ​​if you came from a band, and you walked in [Ruthie’s Inn] “Especially at the Exodus shows, I think you got beat up,” Peterson says. But when Billy decided to audition for Covenant, Peterson and Clemente checked out a Guilt party in San Francisco. “The guys had Paul Stanley hair, and they did their cool moves,” Peterson says. “Then Chuck came out with a trench coat on and started smashing beer bottles over his head. He looked charming, but he had this presence.

Billy got the job, thus beginning the process of reprogramming his magic. Stepping out in spandex — a decision Billy says he was “happy with, trust me, being a big guy” — and with Reebok pumps. Eric coached Billy to learn how to snarl along with the frenetic pace of hitting the rebound. “Forget trying to float a tune,” says Billy. “You have to keep the pace.”

By 1986, thrash metal had reached its peak. It was the year that brought Slayer’s furious 29-minute Reign in Blood, Metallica’s Master of Puppets, Megadeth’s Peace Sells…but who’s buying? Somehow, the compositions became faster and more complex, technical mastery mixed with breakneck speed. This was the year that Will was auditioned for Megaforce, the influential label that released Metallica’s first recordings. But on the night that label owners John and Marsha were in town, Metallica’s innovative guitarist, Cliff Burton, then just 24 years old, was killed in a tour bus accident.

“The test we had the next day was pretty dismal,” Bailey says. “Here we were about to give the biggest performance of our lives in this extraordinary situation.” But Megaforce signed on, the band changed their name to Covenant, and in 1987 released their debut album, The Legacy, to critical acclaim. The band toured extensively in a van, supported all the mainstays – except Metallica, with Billy wondering if that was because Peterson had married former guitarist Kirk Hammett – and then climbed to the top themselves.

But with constant touring and the pressures of recording a new album every year, this hectic schedule eventually strained relationships. “Five records in a row, this pressure cooker environment,” Skolnick says. “We were very young. I was a teenager when we recorded the first record. After recording and touring back to back, we needed some rest and a long break, which we never got.”

By then, 1992 had taken grunge by storm, pausing in thrash metal’s mainstream moment. Fresh off Atlantic, Testament were under pressure to release something radio-friendly, which led to their next record The Rite. They were now a fan favourite, which was a major departure at a time when Al-Ahd refused to play their songs live. An exhausted Skolnick left to pursue jazz, later joining the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music (his other group, the Alex Skolnick Trio, also had a new record out). “Louie and Greg were horrified,” Peterson says. “Chuck and I said, ‘Okay.’ The first thing I thought was: We can get heavy [again]”.

But “Scuff” led to Clemente quitting while on the road, leaving Testament without a drummer for the sold-out final show of Skolnick’s farewell tour. “We would invite people from the crowd,” Peterson says. “Chuck was like, ‘Does anyone know this song? People are jumping in and trying it. It was a weird night, man.’

Testament continued in one form or another, recruiting other well-known and established musicians such as Slayer’s Dave Lombardo; They fine-tuned their instruments and got heavier, with Billy perfecting the death metal growl on 1999’s The Gathering. But in 2001, Billy was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, with a large tumor in his chest.

While undergoing treatment, Billy — who was raised Catholic but whose father is indigenous from Pomo — was able to connect with his indigenous roots. Along with chemotherapy, he contacted local healers and medicine men with whom he shared occult spiritual experiences involving wolf dens, chanting, eagle feathers, and astral travel, whom he credits with helping him fully recover.

A 2005 tour with the classic lineup reunited the band, as one gig turned into five, and five turned into 10, Billy says. But they played only occasionally and remained “away from these other worlds,” adds Skolnick, who was then a full-time player. Billy worked in the transportation industry – giving lectures on safety, perhaps not about smashing bottles over one’s head – while Peterson focused on his symphonic black metal band, Dragonlord, even offering a major tour in 2008 with Motörhead, Heaven & Hell and Judas Priest on the condition that they record a new album.

And so they did – and they never stopped. After two decades, Covenant shows no signs of slowing down, except for the occasional poem. With new drummer Chris Duvas, their latest album, Para Bellum introduces elements like icy black metal tremolo, With topics covering the Havana Syndrome that disfigures CIA agents and, of course, artificial intelligence.

“Destruction comes by the terabyte,” Billy growls on single “Killing Children AI,” “the future is destined to replace the soul” — though Skolnick believes metal is safe from such wretched technical torments. “It’s impossible for it to sound like guys walk into a room, hit a tune and radiate like human beings,” he says.

And through all their winding sonic journeys, lineup changes, and trials and tribulations, the sounds of each era of the band radiate something distinctly human. “They’re all just different types of us, you know?” Peterson says.