Best of 2008: Testament

Favorite song:
The third track off the Whitesnake record, “Call On Me.” It’s got the heart and soul of hard rock.  It’s got great guitar licks in it. For Whitesnake, it really captured the spirit of that band.  It doesn’t have all of that reverb and 80’s sound, it just sounds like the first Led Zeppelin record:  it’s timeless; when you put it on with that raw, in your face clarity to it, I like records like that.  You put it on and it still sounds great today, and that’s what we went after on the new Testament record:  Not to go with weird reverbs but to make everything sound like how we sound in the room, so that way it doesn’t sound kind of dated or anything.  It just sounds like a band [laughs].

Best new artist:
I’ve been so busy with touring and just being a father of 3 kids and just focusing on what I’m doing, I didn’t really have time to discover anybody.  In the past I have had a lot of fun discovering bands which is cool but I don’t know if there’s too much of a new wave of bands coming through. Music is hard.  It’s just all about whether whatever kind of style it is, it should be able to hit you like “wow that’s great” whether its any type of music.  So that’s what I listen for too.  I’m fond of all different kinds of music.

Best tour memory:
Well we had some great shows, we did some European stuff and did Metal Masters, Japan was really good and Australia too.  The Metal Masters tour was really fun but the home show – that was a great show.  The whole place was packed for us at, you know, 5:30.  But everyone showed up, in LA and San Francisco the audience was totally great and we were really on our set -- that was a great show on the Metal Masters tour.

Proudest achievement:
Getting my first signature guitar.  I’ve been doing this for 20 years and now I’m getting recognized more as a guitar player than just with Testament and Dean [Guitars] is doing a signature series which we’re introducing at NAM next year, so I’m really proud of that.  It’s a really great guitar; it’s built really good -- I actually just got a copy of it last week and gave it my blessings.  It’s going to be a good guitar.

Current events you addressed on your album:
There’s some stuff that’s personal to me on there. There’s stuff that’s happened a while ago that we talk about now, like my father passed away (Chuck [Billy, vocalist]'s too) and the song “Leave me Forever” is about a bad relationship that I’ve gone through that stirred up some emotions.  A lot of it is stuff that’s happened to us since our last record, so it’s not like 2008 kind of stuff.  We like to talk about things that we’ve experienced and I think that’s what keeps us real.  I love records like that because that’s when you can use music as therapy.  You know, when you don’t have anywhere to turn or somebody to talk to, you can put on a song and it’ll make you feel better.  So that’s pretty cool.

One thing you learned this year:
How to make a great meatball.

What’s the secret?
[Laughs] I can’t tell you.  I like to cook a lot so I learned some pretty good new recipes and different dishes and stuff.  To make something and have it taste really good after you’re done and not have it be a total mess (which has happened to me before), that’s always fun. 

Biggest disappointment:
Everything’s really turned out pretty good for me. I mean, Obama won otherwise that would have been disappointing, and then my band put out a great record and we’ve done a lot of touring.  Probably the one thing that’s disappointing to me is, I really wanted to have something ready to record for my other band Dragon Lord, and I haven’t gotten around to getting that done yet, but it’s on its way.

Most expensive purchase:
I bought my daughter a nicer camera -- a Canon Rebel. She’s really into photography.  So that’s probably the most expensive thing I bought.

One thing you cut back on because of the recession:
Just overall buying for everyone I’m trying to conserve.  I’m not going out and eating and not driving as much.  I was trying to conserve on fuel, but actually gas prices have gone down which is great because I have to travel 70 miles to go to practice in Oakland (I live in Sacramento).

Resolution for next year:
I don’t know, I haven’t thought of it yet.  Saying I’m not going to drink anymore [laugh] that won’t last too long when you’re on the road like “ah give me a beer!” I’m working on that.