Prior to their triumphant performance at the BW&BK; 6-Pack Weekend this past Saturday (October 14th) at Le Medley in Montreal, QC, TESTAMENT guitarist Eric Peterson spoke exclusively with BW&BK;'s Aaron Small and offered the following update:

As far as a new Testament album goes, “I’m in the middle of pre-production,” says Peterson. “I’ve already written the record twice, but I never got to finish it ‘cause of touring or drummers, just problems with the band that have arisen. I’ve worked really hard trying to get the stuff together. What I’m doing is taking the best of both of those sessions that I worked on as well as some new stuff. Alex is pitching in some stuff that sounds really Testament-ish. He’s got his head on right; it’s killer. He’s able to separate the jazz from the metal. In the beginning he was trying to put the jazz in there a little bit, but now he’s playing better than he’s ever played. He’s more confident and having fun with it. There’s some really good highlighted tracks so far that are wow! It’s got a lot of old school elements, like ‘Alone In The Dark’ but a little heavier. It sounds like The New Order meets Ride The Lightning. I’m really excited. I don’t like to put blinders on when I write music, but I definitely wanted to sound a certain way. We’re putting our hat on for a certain era with the technology of today.”

Have you seen or heard any of Chuck’s lyrics for the new music? “No. The good thing is, Chuck has sung over all the riffs I’ve played. Not real lyrics but mumbles and melodies, and it sounds fucking killer! But the bad thing is, he hasn’t written any lyrics. It’s come to where the original lineup is meant to do something. It’s definitely going to be the great revenge.”

Recording is supposed to start, “When we get back from Australia in late February. The way things have been going, probably March or April. But there’s definitely an agenda to get it done.”

BW&BK; has heard that Nick Barker, formerly of CRADLE OF FILTH and DIMMU BORGIR may play drums on this album. “We haven’t really decided what we’re going to do,” admits Eric. “I can tell you for sure that Nick Barker will be jamming with us very soon. He’s going to be out here in my neck of the woods (California) for ten days, right after this Canadian trek. He’s going to be at my house and we’re going to jam together and see how everything works out. He’s doing the Australia/Indonesia tour, hopefully Hawaii and Japan as well. He’s going to be doing that tour with us in January/February. He got up and jammed with us on the last tour in Europe. He played ‘Over The Wall’ with us. Of course he knows the songs from his youth. When we asked him to play, he went and sat in one of his mate’s cars and listened to the song. He’s never played it before so he was tripping. I have to tell you, he got up there and nailed it! It was so good. I’ve always been a fan of Barker and the stuff he’s done with Dimmu and Cradle. I’m into that black metal genre. Chuck wasn’t really aware. He knows Nick’s face from throughout the years but after he played, every time I talk to Chuck that comes up. So we scheduled him to come out and we’re pretty excited about that. I think Nick’s really solid. It’s going to be killer to play with him. He’s got the push of the bass drum like (Dave) Lombardo. He’s got the quickness of Gene (Hoglan) and he’s got the solidness of Chris Kontos. He’s a really good drummer. Jon Allen is definitely involved too, but he’s got a lot of stuff going on. We want whoever’s going to play on the record to commit and not say they can’t go on tour because of this or that.”

Testament’s last release, Live In London, came out in 2005 on Spitfire. Are you currently signed to a record label? “Yeah, at the moment. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.”

Regarding a producer for the next CD, Eric reveals, “We’d like to work with Andy (Sneap) again. I’d like to work with Freddy (Nordstrom) and Patrik in Sweden. I’d like to work with all three of them. We’ll see what happens.”

The official live bootleg DVDs sold on TestamentLegions.com have been well received and plans are in motion to issue another one. “There’s so many of them now (nine in total). I designed all the artwork and layouts. I do all the editing myself. We’re not doing it to make money because to tell you the truth, it barely breaks even. The guys get so mad because I spend so much money putting it together, but they look cool. It’s not for the masses; it’s more for our fans. Hopefully we’re going to have a new one before Christmas. The last one we put out (in August) was Live In Istanbul. We’ve captured some good shows lately. I think the next one is going to be The Best Of. We played in the Middle East in Dubai. There’ll probably be some of that, some stuff from Finland and from the Earthshaker Festival in Germany. It’ll be a cool mixture of stuff.”