Testament guitarist Eric Peterson was recently interviewed by Niclas Müller-Hansen of Rock Sverige. During their chat, the topic of late, great Rush drummer Neil Peart, who passed away on January 7, 2020, at the age of 67, after a more than three-year battle with glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer, came up. An excerpt follows: 

Are you a big Rush fan?

Eric Peterson: "Oh my god! Come on, Neil Peart! First of all his drumming influenced everybody, especially a lot of black metal stuff. Drumming is obvious, but lyrically it was just taking everybody to another place. The width of that guy! He was the Professor. Laughing at him when he joined the band, like 'What a geek!', but then seeing how deep he was. I guess he had the last laugh. 'Little do you know, I´m going to be the guy writing all your songs.' I was going to post something on Instagram, but I didn´t even know what to say. I was just dumbfounded. One of my favorite bands."

Have you ever met the guys?

Eric Peterson: "I never met them and I´ve never seen them live. I really enjoyed 2112 (1976), Hemispheres (1978) and then later Permanent Waves” (1980). I think when they put out Moving Pictures (1981), I still dug that record but their songs were getting shorter. I was just a big fan of their story telling, especially when Hemispheres came out."

To read the complete interview, visit this location.

Testament will release their thirteenth studio album, Titans Of Creation, on April 3 via Nuclear Blast.

Just as the elements of this planet thrive within all living creatures, each musician in Testament represents a necessary component of this latest musical creation.The band recently launched their multi-part series examining each member in their respective element. Today, the band releases the third episode where Eric Peterson details his life in his element:

Watch more "Element" trailers below.

Titans Of Creation was produced by Chuck Billy and Eric Peterson while Juan Urteaga of Trident Studios handled co-producing, recording and engineering. Andy Sneap was responsible for the mixing and mastering of the album. Eliran Kantor stepped up once again to create a new masterpiece of artwork for the cover of this release.

Titans Of Creation will be available in the following formats:

- CD Digipak
- Light Blue Cassette (Limited to 250)
- DLP + CD Mail-order Box Set (Limited to 1500)
* Includes Earth Element Vinyl
- Vinyl
* Fire Element Edition Vinyl (Limited to 2150)
* Air Element Edition Vinyl
* Water Element Edition Vinyl
* Blue Vinyl (Limited to 500; Retail)
- T-shirt
- TS+ DLP bundle

Pre-order the formats of your choosing here. Pre-save the album on Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer, here.

Tracklisting:

"Children Of The Next Level"
"WWII"
"Dream Deceiver"
"Night Of The Witch"
"City Of Angels"
"Ishtars Gate"
"Symptoms"
"False Prophet"
"The Healers"
"Code Of Hammurabi"
"Curse Of Osiris"
"Catacombs"

"Children Of The Next Level" visualizer:

"Night Of The Witch" lyric video:

"Element" trailers:

Steve Di Giorgio:

Alex Skolnick: