TESTAMENT was recently forced to postpone three Russian tour dates scheduled for early July. Vocalist Chuck Billy explained the unfortunate situation to BW&BK; scribe Aaron Small earlier today. “The promoter never sent any money to us. He never signed a contract or sent a deposit. We’ve been trying to get him to do this for months and he never got back to us, so we finally cancelled the shows. We’re not buying our own plane tickets to Russia - only to show up and find out they’re not going to pay us. But I just got an email yesterday saying that a different promoter took on the shows and we’re actually moving them to the end of July now.”

As far as progress on the new album goes… “We’ve got about eight songs,” says Chuck. “We’ve been rehearsing at my house – in the living room actually. We’ve got a really cool set-up; it’s really relaxing. There’s such a good vibe right now, we’re really getting a lot of stuff done. And we’re not leaving the house! We’re sleeping there, living there, everyone gets up and writes and plays. No one gets a break from the music. It’s working this way ‘cause everybody lives so far from each other. Nick (Barker, drummer – formerly of DIMMU BORGIR and CRADLE OF FILTH) lives in England, Alex (Skolnick, guitarist) lives in New York and Eric (Peterson, guitarist) lives in Sacramento (California) – two and a half hours from where I live. It’s not like we can all just shoot down to the studio. We’ve got to plan it out. So we all just stay at the house and live and write the record throughout the whole weekend, or however many days we have. We’re actually getting a lot done and it’s coming along very well. It’s funny because it’s very heavy and it’s very melodic and catchy. It’s kind of trippy but it’s another expansion of Testament again. All of our records touch on something a little new every time.”

Unable to reveal any song titles at this point in time, Chuck did answer the burning question, will the new album be out this year? “Definitely! It’s been a long overdue record, but we don’t want to rush it and put out something that sucks. Everybody’s heart is fully into it. Hopefully we’ll get to record it in July or August.” When asked which label would be releasing it, Chuck replied, “Well, we’re actually free agents right now. We just got our release from Spitfire, which was sold to Sheridan Square. So we’re free agents in Europe and America. We still have our deal at Universal in Japan. So we’re just taking all bids right now. There are five or six labels sending in bids. It’s kind of nice because it’s been eight years since the last record. The company we were with, we weren’t happy with ‘cause they weren’t doing a good job at all. But the offers that are coming in are really respectable. We’re just waiting to see who’s the best game in town ‘cause Testament’s been through so many labels and so many of them have filed bankruptcy. We want to get a label that’s going to be around for a long time.”