James caught up with Eric Peterson from Testament to talk about their latest studio album 'Dark Roots Of Evil', playing Bloodstock Open Air and much more.

You have not long released your tenth studio album ‘Dark Roots Of Evil’ what’s the response been from your fans and the press?
So far it’s been really good, we thought it would do well because we’re fans of music and what we do and we think it’s a good record, we like it. To be fair it’s done better than we thought; we didn’t think it would chart at number 12 in the States, Germany and other places but a lot of hard work went into it so, you know.

What themes and stories feature within the songs of ‘Dark Roots Of Evil’?
The usual, you know Testament has always had this fantasy about prophecies, philosophies, things that happened in the past, this is more of things that are going to happen kind of thing. With heavy metal you can’t be scared to grab a topic like True American Hate, some people look at that title and go Whoah, and it’s a heavy subject.

What would you say your favourite tracks from ‘Dark Roots Of Evil’ are and why?
I like the more epic songs. “Throne of Thornes” is one of my favourites, that’s like a maiden song it’s got a kind of narrative, “Cold Embrace” because we haven’t had a slow song since “Trail of Tears” in ’93, I love that shit, I love that we included some of those blast beats in our stuff like in “Native Blood” because it fits, we tried a lot of stuff to fit in there but this was all that worked.

You have had a massive career so far playing all across the world with so many amazing bands but what would you say your main highlight as a band has been so far?
There have been a couple of them. One that comes to mind is, everything was going great you know in the early ‘90s, and then all of a sudden we had like a report “The ship is singing! The ship is singing!” and everyone was jumping off till it was just me and Chuck, for us to come back with The Gathering it just went by as a blur. I remember playing that album on stage and like 25,000 people were clapping along because they just knew what to do and stuff like that is what makes it all worth it.

You are playing Bloodstock Open Air this weekend, how does it feel to be part of the festival and playing your only UK show of the year here?
We’re coming back in November to play some club shows, this is our only festival. This feels good because we were part of the first ever bloodstock when it was less organised and was half the size, I hope it doesn’t turn into some political thing because at the moment its like a mini Wacken and that’s just fucking epic.

What can we expect from your set today?
We’re gunna be bold and play 3 or 4 new songs alongside the classic stuff, normally at festivals they only wanna hear one or 2 new ones but we’re pushing for it. We’ve got to get a good stamp on it and get used to playing them life because sometimes with new stuff you can feel like you’re playing covers because you aren’t used to it so we’ve gotta really push it.

How you managed to check out any bands at Bloodstock and will you be sticking around to check out any?
I only got here a couple hours ago I only had chance to have a shower and do these interviews, I would like to see Sanctuary though.

Where do you hope to see Testament in a year’s time?
If we’re all still here haha. Rocking it hard, new record out and jamming I love it haha.

One last random question that we ask every band, if you could be an animal out of a zebra or Giraffe which one would you be and why?
I’d pick a giraffe because I’ve always been short and I’d love to be tall.

Thanks for your time is there a message for your fans reading this?
Life is hard and Testament’s fun

Interview by James Webb