Chuck Billy Interview-Memoir- Holding My Breath: The Two Testaments Plus Band Music & Tour Updates

Feel [music] the power, feel the feel. Turn it up on the metal voice. The metal voice. [music] Yes. [screaming] Testament's lead singer Chuck Billy. He's got a book coming out on November the 10th, Holding My Breath, The Two Testaments of Chuck Billy. Very cool. >> Yeah, >> that's it, man. [laughter] So something something very different for you know I'm sure what we spoke about but for what I've ever done in my life it was just kind of um something I wasn't looking to do but once I've done it you know I'm glad I I did it and uh it was really therapeutic actually you know going back and you know holding my breath goes back to like when I was like 8 months old so I mean that's how that's how far it the story goes back and starts from there. Really? >> Did you remember things that you forgot or you haven't thought about in a long time? >> Oh, tons. Because, you know, when we were doing the book, me and my writer, you know, we're talking to my brother and Eric [clears throat] and the guys in the band. So there's a lot of the old early stuff, childhood friends that brought back stories that, you know, I might have forgot about also like, "Oh yeah, I remember that." And then we kind of just, you know, elaborate a little bit on that. And, you know, it was uh it was definitely interesting to do that. But, you know, it was um again, I wanted to really show who the Chuck was before I was in Testament cuz like I've done a lot of interviews, talk about Testament and that whole part of my life, but never really stepped back into who Chuck was before I found the band and how and what I did to get there. So, that's kind of where I took it. And you know, you know, it's again, it wasn't something I was like, hey, I want to do this. But now at this age, and I've done a lot of things and I've been in this business almost coming on 40 years now. >> Wow. Yeah. >> Um I thought, you know, it's it's it's a good time to capture that part. And maybe now that I've done it, I'm like, you know what? We haven't done a real official Testament book. It'd be good to get the Five Guys plus all the Revolving Door of members an official Testament book. And I think that would be pretty cool and a good read. >> What about um doing a documentary? Have you done like a formal documentary for Testament? Like a really big production? >> We started one and we didn't finish it and of course band member change, you know. So, you know, there's there's footage that started a while ago, years ago. Um, you know, I mean, we've been approached and that's another thing to talk about. We've, you know, again, I'm sure that's some another avenue to revisit again, you know. >> Yeah. Yeah. [clears throat] All right. So, here's an interesting thing. Kiss started it all when we go back in time, right? And you, like many others, right? You know, young kids seeing Kiss up on stage or just seeing him. I know for me Kiss was huge, right? Uh it was the gateway to hard rock or metal or whatever you want to call it. Uh tell me about Kiss for the first time. Um well, musically just hearing the records was amazing. just seeing especially like I think that what really probably grabbed me was the live records because it looked so extreme the outfits and the the lights and and then to see the back flip the record over and you got the the crowd in there and wow it just looks like I want to be there you know it just so that kind of grabbed you and then first time I got to experience it live I was I believe um 12 years old. 1974 I seen him in San Francisco. >> Wow. >> Um so and you know that was even that was my first kiss experience. First time really in a gathering like that smelling a lot of marijuana you know you know first time at 12 years old. So there was a lot of first with that kiss thing, you know, um at that show. >> It's interesting, you know, your parents hardworking, you know, didn't didn't come you didn't come from a rich background. That's for sure. Right. and uh and and the book does talk about I don't want to give everything away but the maybe you want to talk about you know your your parents and their work ethic and >> um well I mean I think my parents come and our family comes just I think from a pretty underdog position being they both you know survived tuberculosis >> and you know my dad spent you know nine of year his years on his back you know fighting TB all the to having her lung removed and then both of them overcoming that, meeting each other in an asylum and then starting a family late in life, you know, it was it's, you know, it's almost like, wow, that story in itself, it's kind of a miracle family to be here, you know. Yeah. Yeah. >> So, you know, it's it's it's and from what they grew up with nothing to surviving something like that and starting a family, you know, the family was everything to them. So, in that sense, we're very fortunate that, you know, they did everything they could for their for their kids. >> And you came from two minority backgrounds, right? So that adds on top of the layers of, you know, trying to, I guess, get through the world, right, >> in your own way. >> Yeah. And especially from where we moved, you know, we we grew up in the Bay Area, Elserto, but then I think by the time I was four or five, we moved to Dublin, you know, and it was pretty much white suburbia, you know, so, you know, felt a little outside being the Mexican native kid is, you know, dominant, predominantly white, you know, there. And so that that whole dynamic was different. But I think, you know, again, my father wanted something better for us off the reservation and off of that life that he grew up with. So that's what it was all about, family, you know. So um you know, that played a big part. It >> It's interesting. You know, you talked about the US Festival. Were you were did you actually see the US Festival like like or at least partially? Was that the defining >> Go ahead. Sorry. Was that the defining moment of metal from this underground scene to becoming this mainstream um genre? >> Well, that was my first experience of a crowd and concert that big. >> You know, of course, when they announce something like that, when you're that young, you're thinking, "Holy [ __ ] I'm not missing that." you know, so 1983. So, you know, I was 21 years old, you know, I'm like, I am not missing this show. And we went and we stayed, you know, the metal night, you know, seeing I I me and my buddies were front and center for Aussie Osborne. And I kind of tell the story and how we just, you know, went down there, took a lot of drugs on the way down, and uh just a lot of a lot of stupid stuff, you I kind of just revealed in the book and you know talking about it you almost go like what a what a jerk you know kind of it's funny talking about half of the stories you know but those are the ones people remember and my friends remember and bring up and you know it's so interesting the ass festival I think that could be a book in itself right that whole sort of experience and people going to the festival it and I and I I'll say it again it was the turning point in music at least for metal, right? And and and from there everybody wanted to be in a band after that. That's my point. >> Yeah. I mean, for from every band on that bill was just a headliner pretty much, you know, but it was just for and you know, they weren't prepared in America to throw a concert that big. I remember we got lost. We couldn't even find the car cuz there was no sense of like, you know, we're at pole F5 or whatever. you know, you're you're having a a field somewhere, you know, just parked, you know. >> So, yeah, it it was uh it was crazy times, but you know, I wouldn't trade it for anything. It was definitely an experience and definitely, you know, bands that were there were like, you know, you knew there was going to be headliners, you know, from the Mly Cruz and and seeing Van Halen at midnight with David Lee Roth hammering out, you know, off his score, you know. [laughter] >> Um, you know, I know you talk a lot about also the beginning of, you know, Testament, which you've done in many interviews, right? Um, >> but I I I'll skip to parts here and there. What you've learned from Ronnie James Deio. I know you talk a lot about that in the book and uh maybe you want to just talk about that. >> Well, Ronnie was, you know, a really special guy as everybody who met him knows that he had um God man such a memory, you know, and I it doesn't surprise me by the lyrics that he writes. just so intelligent and and no matter what, every time we like see each other, he I mean, he'd remember the kids' names and or your pets names. I mean, he just had this crazy memory and um I remembered he was always the guy that just always gave times to his fans and always would have a conversation and even remember the fans by name some. I mean, that's how crazy it was. to, you know, I just and see that and go, "Holy smokes, how's he just not remember everybody? It's just amazing." So, a part of that rubbed on me. It's like, you know, that's that's why he's so beloved by his fans because he spends the time with them and gives them his time, their time, you know. So, that little bit I took to heart. I I try to spend a lot of time after shows. I'm seem to be the one out there at the fence signing some stuff or talking to the fans or, you know, doing something like that. >> Yeah. No, I think it's great. Um, and we'll we'll go right to your cancer. I found the cancer part very detailed and very interesting. You know, you really uh you you you share the experience of, you know, what it is that someone tells you, okay, you've got cancer. We hear about it. here are friends or family or whoever. But until somebody actually says to you, okay, you have cancer, you know, that shock or maybe that denial could be right is that is profound, right? It's it's um tell tell me about the feeling and I I found that probably the best part of the book >> because it rel >> you know it's totally relatable but the shock of it and I I think I I mentioned in the book how I just kind of walked out of the doctor's office. I don't think they were done with me. I just kind of you know heard the word and I think I left before I was finished. And I think that's why the doctor called my house later, you know, talked to my wife like, "Hey, you know, is your husband all right?" You know, we we weren't done and he's gone, you know, and got home and told her what they said. And that whole shock was, you know, for both of us. And again, just, you know, I'm sure we all take it differently, but just to kind of share how it hit me, you know, but but again, also how hard it hit me, but also how I think at that point I wanted to be so mentally strong and flip the switch that I was going to fight it and go, you know, beat this, you know, really sad for one day, but the next day was just like, okay, it's it's on, you know, that's the fight's begun, basically. And it's interesting how you know you did have another job at the time and how that job you had health insurance whereas I think you mentioned in the book that if you didn't have this other job with your musical career right you kind of would have been I don't know what it's like look I'm in Canada right so as for us we can understand the math but >> if you don't have health insurance in the US it's not that easy right >> it's not very easy. I mean, you don't know what to do. You sell your house, you sell everything, you get loans. I mean, you do what you need to do, I suppose, if you don't have health insurance. But, you know, now we have to have health insurance, of course, but back then as an artist, you know, I probably wouldn't have had health insurance. So, um, and again, I think in my life and my story, the way things have happened for me, they've happened for reasons. and and Tiff getting in the car wreck to me having to go to work to sustain money for the family to getting the health insurance to bam, I have insurance. I'm covered when I needed it, you know, just all just all the way all the dots connected. I look at the way, you know, in my life, the way they it all worked out, you know, and it's I've been very lucky and fortunate, but I do see connections and things that I got through. I mean, the biggest thing to get through was when I was younger, thinking, you know, my life expectancy was 38 years old, you know, then that was going to be it. And of course, when you're a teenager, you know, 38 sounds old, you know, you know that when you're that young. So, I I don't know what that number significance, but that was the number. So, of course, when I hit 38 and I'm diagnosed with cancer, of course, I'm thinking, "Oh, it's true. it's going to it's I'm I'm this is it. >> And then to find a way to get through it the other way and the way I did with the native healing and the medicine men and all that it was really just so unreal, you know, it's even hard to tell the story cuz it's so unreal. But everybody with me was with there with me and experienced it with me what happened and it was just it it's just crazy. And then I came out the other side. But again, I think when we wrote the book, that was kind of the turning point in how we figure to call it the two testaments of Chuck Billy because before the ailment, before the gathering record right around then, different band, different guy, getting sick, me not thinking I was going to play again to get another opportunity, especially with the original guys, moving forward and making some good records, you know, it was kind of like that was the pivot, but also the benefit that was thrown for me. The Thrash of the Titans show in the Bay Area which brought back the whole Bay Area scene pretty much in my opinion from Death Angel to Exodus to Forbidden to Violence to Heathen, you know, all these bands, you know, that were pretty much I think calling it quits came back together for that once. Even Legacy came back together, the original guys. So um it revived Testament but it revived all these other bands. So it was just a weird the way it all hap had to happen and happened it just in my story you know it was just a weird crossroad. So again as I told the book and told the stories and put all the dots together with my writer you know it was just you see your life definitely different looking from the outside in. You know, >> actually, I found it quite amusing that you pooped out the cancer and you go, "You know what? That's it. I'm done. It's gone." [laughter] >> Yeah. >> Right. I mean, but it was it was it was just like that. And my wife, she thought it was out of my mind, you know. Shut up. Go back to bed. You know, and you know, and I said, "Seriously?" You know, but to actually go through that, experience that and think, "Wow, it's real." and then go to the doctor's appointment the next week after the blood the scans and the blood work to be told, "Okay, the tumor's still there, but it's cancer-free, you know." >> Crazy. Yeah. Well, there must be some >> right away. And I kind of just said, "I know." You know, basically like, "I I know." You know, >> the toxins must have just kind of came out, right? And but the thing is being mentally strong and saying yes it it just and the overwhelming feeling I just I knew it and I and it just and for him to say that and I don't know if I would have said no it's still there if I was would be crushed or whatever but it's like I knew and and and that and when he told me that I was blown away. I told Stiff when I my wife when I got home, "You're not going to believe it. Tumor's [snorts] cancer-free." She we she just both were like, "Oh my god, that's that you got to be [ __ ] kidding me." And so now the challenge was the tumor's too big to have an operation. How do we shrink it? And that's when I met the next medicine man, Lupon. And I went up to the Sierra Foothills and he's the one who lived with the wolves and showed me techniques how to shrink the tumor and you know so just all the people I met along the way and the way I got through it the native way was just a really heavy experience for sure you know. >> Yeah. No, I I enjoyed reading it from that perspective that you're mentioning. You know it wasn't your typical rock and roll and doing some drugs and partying all night long. It was there was a lot of reality there. a lot of truth, you know, which is very cool. Um, looking back musically from, I guess, the beginnings of of being a singer songwriter, what would you have changed? Would there be anything you would have changed? You said, you know what, I should have done this instead of that. It would equal a better sort of outcome >> as a singer songwriter. >> Yeah. At the beginning, at the start. >> Yeah. I mean, Thinking back, I probably would have probably focused to be a better lyricist for sure, you know, at the beginning trying to tackle it, not knowing how to write, you know, basically poetry, you know, um that and you know, I I think for me it h everything happened so fast. I think I was learned pretty quick cuz we did four records in four years and coming from a different background thrown into a thrash metal band and then adapting to it pretty quick, you know, it was learning. I don't know how much I would change of that, but I think maybe focusing more on the business part of it. I think, you know, not really focused on that. And after you go back 30, 40 years, you look back and you maybe think of some things. Maybe you might want to do a secure better or cut a better deal or some things like that, you know, just things like that. But again, we've been very fortunate in our life and career, especially after our Atlantic record deal was over after six records that we started a label. You know, Johnny Z, you know, he came through and helped us out. And that was the best thing ever happened for me and Eric and Testament, you know, is that we started a label and started licensing our music. So, >> we always own the master recordings and the musics. We just licensed it to people. So, we've been pretty fortunate in that sense. >> Yeah. What What was it like being in the boardroom with the ritual and they go, "Guys, we need a black album. Come on, guys." Was it was it really a push with the suits? Did the suits really push hard? Show you all these charts and the graphs and look, we got to go here to here to here. Well, that's Atlantic, you know, and it's a big machine, you know, and they all their artists were on charts and on radio and, you know, of course they want us to be the softer side of Testament, not the Thrash Metal band, you know. So yeah, that was a kind of a battle in itself in those early years to come out of Megga Force Records after the New Order, Practice What You Preach to all of a sudden them going, "Hey, you know, we need some radio songs and next, you know, there's an guy that's called the ANR guy, you know, coming to see the band to talk about the next video and radio song and what do we got in the pipeline, you know, and we're like, "Oh [ __ ] really? that's all they're focused on and it's totally changing. So, you know, of course, and next thing you know, we're writing the ballads and the legacies and, you know, songs gear, I guess. So yeah, that that was the battle jumping off a thrash metal band believing in 2 years writing 20 songs of thrash to all of a sudden you know they wanted something a little different you know and >> you know that that that was a struggle back then and but again it was a part of that era too you know there wasn't it was such a new era and a lot of 80s hairstyles was still, you know, selling records. People were selling records back then, you know. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um I enjoyed the book, Holding My Breath, The Two Testaments of Chuck Billy. Uh it's going to be November 10th. Uh any updates in the Testament world, you guys are um touring wise or music-wise or anything going on? >> Well, we just did a we just got home. We just got home from tour. We got a break right now. Um, Eric and Chris are writing this week, but we are planning to go back in next July to to start recording the next record. >> I already think I got eight or nine tracks from Eric and Chris for the next record. So, we're getting an early jump on it. And >> so, what I've heard so far, it's it's right up the vein of what we've been doing. So, >> very, very nice. >> Good direction, good vibe. Yeah. >> Here's a a great album, by the way. Great album. >> Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. >> So, I think the album cycles are getting shorter now, right? Is that what it is? >> Well, they are. I mean, we our our life expecties are getting shorter. You know, we're not getting any younger. So, I mean, you know, we can't wait four years every record. So, you know, we're like, we got two records more with Nuclear Blast. So, we're like, "All right, let's knock them out." And and eventually, I'm sure at some point we're going to have to sit down and go, "All right, what is the final three-year plan?" and and call it quits, you know. So, we're not there yet. Maybe I don't know. Who knows? 6 7 8 9 10 years. I don't know. But I know do know we got two more records in us. So, uh [laughter] next summer we got another one. But it's it's it's great because it feels right up the vein of the Parabellum record, >> you know. So, it's it's all the songs are feeling different, but real testament. So, >> very good. be good. It' be fun to dive in and get into it. >> All right. So, 2027, good news. New album coming out. Uh, is there anything you want to say about your book? >> Um, just that, you know, thanks for people to take the time to check it out. It's definitely not the Testament book. Uh, it's my story, but you know, you can find it all over at Amazon if you want to look there or chuckbillybook.com or you can go to premiercollectibles uh.com where you can find it there, which premiere actually has some extra cool signed copies and things like that. So, that's, you know, but and I'll be doing some appearances the the release date. You know, I'm actually doing one at in Dublin where I grew up. Oh, nice. >> At the first bar I ever had a drink at. So, it used to be called a Chartreuse Moose, but now it's the back lounge. And actually, Phil Deml, he bought the bar. And so, we're going to do a little signing and meet uh Q&A there with them. And uh you know, I believe Brian Posain, the comedian, he might come down and host it for us. And doing another one down that same week uh in Southern California with Jose and Sirius. So, >> you know, just going to >> get up and then uh I'll be I'll be actually hitting the road once we get on tour early next year and doing a lot of of appearances, you know, during the day at either bookstores or record stores, signing, doing some Q&A about the book and talking to the fans. >> It sounds like a plan, my friend. Thank you very much for your time. I wish you all the luck. Looking forward to some music, new music as well. And hopefully you guys will uh you know come around Canada. Another tour there. Every time you're here in Montreal, you guys kick some serious butt. >> We're coming through early next year. The tour hasn't been announced, but it will be really soon. Okay. Um >> so keep your ears open, but we're definitely coming there early uh 27th. Love it.