On January 14th, TESTAMENT vocalist Chuck Billy will be appearing at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Albuquerque, NM to celebrate becoming the first Native American entertainer to be permanently featured in one of the famed establishment's memorabilia displays.

Photo by Aaron Small

Noisecreep's Carlos Ramirez asked Billy about his upbringing. "My father is Native American, and my mom is Mexican, and she also has some Native American blood in her. My father was raised on the Hopland Indian reservation, which is about two hours north of San Francisco. I was born in Oakland, Calif., and for the first five years was raised in Los Cerritos, Calif. After that, we moved to Dublin, Calif., and I pretty much grew up there. My father owned two properties there, and I remember going to the reservation a lot as a kid. When my father retired, he moved there permanently."

The singer told Noisecreep life on the Hopland reservation during the '70s and '80s was radically different from the existence he knew back at his Dublin neighborhood. "There was just so much freedom on the reservation. I hate to say it, but they were just a bunch of wild Indians [laughs]. It was crazy back then. Our tribe and reservation is really small, and before we ever had a casino on the land, there wasn't a lot of hope. There wasn't any money around, and it just felt desperate. It was dire, especially with education and basic resources like that. The kids didn't even have the basic stuff other kids have in the rest of the country. So a lot of kids didn't even bother going to school."

To read the article in its entirety, click here.

Testament will issue their new album, The Dark Roots Of Earth, later this year via Nuclear Blast.

In live news, the band is gearing for a US tour with ANTHRAX and DEATH ANGEL. Confirmed dates are as follows:

January

22 - House of Blues - Las Vegas, NV
23 - House of Blues - Anaheim, CA
24 - Marquee Theatre - Tempe, AZ
26 - The Midland by AMC - Kansas City, MO
27 - Egyptian Room at Murat Center - Indianapolis, IN
28 - Piere's Entertainment Center - Fort Wayne, IN
29 - Expo Five - Louisville, KY
30 - The Orange Peel - Asheville, NC

February

1 - Stadium Green Iguana - Tampa, FL
2 - Tabernacle - Atlanta, GA
3 - Lifestyle Communities Pavilion - Columbus, OH
4 - Bogart's - Cincinnati, OH
6 - Crocodile Rock - Allentown, PA
7 - Rams Head Live! - Baltimore, MD
8 - Best Buy Theatre - New York, NY
10 - Austin's Fuel Room - Libertyville, IL
11 - Ground Zero - Traverse City, MI
13 - The Waiting Room - Omaha, NE
15 - The Depot - Salt Lake City, UT
17 - Ace Of Spades - Sacramento, CA
18 - Knitting Factory - Reno, NV
19 - Avalon Nightclub - Santa Clara, CA