Backstage at Heavy TO, TESTAMENT vocalist Chuck Billy discussed his band’s forthcoming album, The Dark Roots Of Earth, exclusively with BraveWords.com. The tattooed frontman revealed that it was guitarist Eric Peterson who came up with the title. “It came pretty quick because we were at it for months working on the record, then when we decided we were going to try to fulfil a deadline and get a record out this year, it all just snowballed. That came out first and it sounded really good.”

As far as personal significance of The Dark Roots Of Earth, Chuck offered the following, “Being Native American, it has a different meaning for me - being grounded and set in tune with the earth. But we’ve always been a band that’s touched on stories of the earth or Nostradamus predictions, things like that on all our records. So it was kind of fitting; I’m big into the planet. When I first heard it, I dug it.”

Lyrically the new material deals with “things that happen every day. There’s a lot of things having to do with the earth, war of course. It’s odd that some of the songs I wrote have a lot of earth vibes in them, and then finding out the title of the record after as I was writing about that anyhow, everything just kind of fell into that. We’re still working; we have seven songs complete with vocals. All the music’s recorded. Eric just got back from London and finished all the guitar tracks. Drums are all done; Gene Hoglan (who sat behind the kit on Demonic in 1997) played drums on it.”

Speaking of drums, it’s public knowledge that Paul Bostaph is not playing on the album because he’s injured. But what isn’t known is the extent of that injury, what’s wrong with him? “I don’t want to talk for Paul because I think he should do that, but we do know he has a wrist injury that he rehabilitated. He’s been doing therapy for it with his doctor; it’s a touchy thing. You want to make sure you do the right thing. We’ve always told him not to worry about it, just get better. We’ll be here when you’re ready to go. I know he rehabbed the wrist, but I don’t know what point he’s at now? I know he’s not going to make the tour.”

In addition to the mighty Gene Hoglan (DEATH, STRAPPING YOUNG LAD, FEAR FACTORY), Chris Adler from LAMB OF GOD is playing drums on a couple of songs. “When we decided we were going to meet a deadline, it was like, okay, who’s playing drums? That was the first thing. So we put some feelers out there and a couple drummers got back to us. Chris actually was one of the first, but he was doing a Lamb Of God record so the scheduling wasn’t working. So we gave him a couple of tracks that he could do for us while he was doing his record. It worked out well, he had fun with it.”

The tentative release date for The Dark Roots Of Earth is “October sometime. But I don’t think we’ve ever put out a record that we weren’t ready for it to be out. So who knows what happens in this business? That’s the date we’re shooting for. It’s our career, our music, and we want the fans to enjoy it. We don’t want to be kicking ourselves in the ass because somebody else made us do something. We’ve got a tour planned coming up at the end of the year.”

Chuck leaked details of the aforementioned tour in July during an interview at the Rockstar Mayhem Fest; the lineup was supposed to be TESTAMENT, ANTHRAX, OVERKILL and DEATH ANGEL. However, shortly thereafter Overkill vocalist Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth said that his band will not be part of this tour. “Okay, well then Overkill’s not on that, I take it back – Testament, Death Angel and Anthrax. That’s what I heard, but I’m not their agent. I’m sure they heard the same thing. I heard about this tour a month ago so I’m sure they knew of it as well. So for them at the last minute to decide not to do it – I don’t know the reason but it’s too bad. It would have been fun. We haven’t toured with those guys in over 20 years, same with Anthrax. I thought that was a good package but the three will be great, if we add a fourth band – bonus.”

In other live news, it’s been reported that Testament cancelled their participation in the Sweden Rock Cruise, which sails October 6th and 7th. Chuck is quick to set matters straight, “We never cancelled – we never booked.” Despite cruise organizers advertising Testament as headliners, Chuck is adamant that he “never saw an offer come across the table. Then I heard that we’re on some cruise – really? If they want us to play so bad, get us over there. They know how to do it.”

Testament’s previous album, The Formation Of Damnation, released in 2008, was incredibly well received. Does that act as a weight on your shoulder now, serving as pressure for The Dark Roots Of Earth to be just as good if not better? “Well yeah, you always want it to be better or just as good. I think at this point in our career, well we’ve always wrote for ourselves, but you never quite know until it’s all done. Just working for as many years as we have, we know the songs are going to come out. But I think this record’s definitely, I’d say maturing. It’s not slam the world; it’s got a little more dynamics. Testament never does the same record twice.”