TESTAMENT frontman Chuck Billy has confirmed that he has commenced work on his debut solo album.
“Well, it started [to be] in the works, but then things just kind of got held up,” he revealed in a new interview with “Not These Two F*cking Guys.” “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. Glen Drover [ex-MEGADETH] is gonna write some songs… I haven’t approached my cousin Stef [Stephen Carpenter] from the DEFTONES yet, but I’m gonna see if he’ll wanna write a song with me. I tried to reach out to Joe Bonamassa [to see if he wants to] write a song with me.”
Speaking about the musical direction on the album, Billy said: “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].”
“I’ve done these compilation records for this Cleopatra label, and I’ve done anything from Michael Jackson to Christmas songs,” he continued. “And every time people hear it, they go, ‘Man, that’s kind of cool.’ And I was thinking about it — it’s fun to do, and it’s challenging and different. So when I think of a solo record, I want it to be different — I want every song to kind of have its own personality and stand on their own. So that was kind of my goal. If I do a solo record — maybe I’ll do a few, but if I do one solo record, I want it to really be something that [is] challenging to me, different for me and different from [people’s] expectations, when somebody puts it on, [but] that they’ll enjoy it still.
“So that’s what I wanted to do. So I’ve been telling [the various guitar players], ‘Just start writing. Put the song together for me. But don’t think metal. Don’t think TESTAMENT. Don’t think the bands you’re in. Just write something cool that’s got a vibe. And give it to me. Let me do my thing on it.'”
