Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke to Vocalist of Testament Chuck Billy about the bands upcoming new studio album, Para Bellum that will be released on Nuclear Blast on oct 10 , 2025
In the chat Billy talks about the writing and recording of the new songs as well as talks about Steve Zetro’s (Ex singer of Exodus) contributions.
When asked about the the album overall
“Once they all saw all the songs are written, it just came such a diverse collection of music riffs and lyrics where it just makes the record really flow and just has a nice, record that you can listen start to finish and just as it sound and feel the same. It’s one of those things where you’re always trying to outdo yourself every record and somehow we did it again. And the downside is when are we going to write a shitty record? It’s because we’re due to write a shitty record. It’s coming up. So, um but this one isn’t it yet. So, I’m just happy and looking forward to the fans to listen to it, check out because to me, this record sounds current. It sounds modern. It doesn’t sound like a band that’s been 40 years around rehashing the same riffs, going through the same motion, taking the easy route out. We’re still being challenged. We’re still getting creative after 40 years of making music, which is awesome. If we didn’t tour anymore, I would just be happy creating this new music. There’s just so much variety of riffs. Sometimes you might go, “Well, that’s not just Fast and Furious. Wow, that’s got some groove. That’s right. Or or whoa, what? That ripped. What is that? You know, it’s it’s And I was even the same way listening to it for the first time. So, for us to finally complete it, put it all together, it’s like, wow, man. Good job, Eric. Good job, Chris. I give them props because they worked very hard. Yeah. Chris Dovas, the new drummer for Testament. He took it to another level .”
When asked about the phrase Para Bellum and the meaning behind it
Para Bellum (meaning), ‘Prepare for War’ is such a current thing that’s going on in the whole world and it seemed to be more appropriate for this record especially with the artwork. I let Eric work on the art and we had a different title and it really didn’t fit (so when the song) Para Bellum was written and what it meant what it stood for you know it was just perfect for the fit for the album cover there is a it’s definitely a theme of war throughout a lot of the songs. “
When asked about the writing of the opening track ‘For the love of pain’
“Chris Dovas (new Drummer) wrote the lyrics to that. First time a new member has ever wrote lyrics for the band. And it’s funny because he just had some time on his hands one weekend and decided to write it and actually demo it up and sing it and sent it to us, just for fun. And we’re like, “Cool, right on, dude.” You know, he’s so into it. And I actually went and wrote the song (originally) with Steve Souza (Zetro). And when I got into the studio, it just didn’t feel right. So at that point, I said, “Hey, let’s put up Chris’ demo. Let’s have a listen to that. Pull up his lyrics and let’s have a listen.” So after we listened, I said, “You know what? let me have a shot at that and let me just put my two cents on it. And that’s what I did. I recorded it, gave it to Eric (Peterson), and then Eric took it one step further and in the little fast guitar black metal section, Eric decided to sing on that, which is right up his black metal vocal alley. So, it was kind of cool that again now me and Eric are sharing lead vocal lines on a song again, which works really well. And I know talking to a lot of people, their first impression when they heard the record and the first song, it’s like, “Wait a minute, is this New Testament? Did someone send me the wrong record? You know, but in the end, you know, it just sets the pace. Chris wrote it (the lyrics) and Chris’ wife um she works in I guess in the hospital but with law enforcement like when people are you know she has to see if they’re criminally insane. And him and her came up with the idea ‘For the love of pain’ just through her work and what she does.”
When asked if Zetro made any more contributions to the new album?
“Yeah, we wrote three songs, but only one of them made it (on the album). The other two I wrote but ended up re-writing them’
When asked about a social media post with him and Zetro working together and what it referenced
“It was like the next day that he got it might have been that day or the next day that he got the news that he was out of Exodus. So I said, “Okay.” Because me and Zet (Zetro) have been writing for a long time and I had to write lyrics. I said, “Zette, I know you’re not busy now, so I’m coming over. I got some lyrics to write, you know.” So yeah. ” (laughs)
When asked about the song High Noon
“That’s another one that we actually wrote with Zette that didn’t work in the studio and I just had this thing in my head something about a gunslinger. There was this line, you know, the life that a gunslinger lives and it just fit in the riff. And if that one line, I’m like, “Okay, I now I have this visual of this western and a a gunslinger walking the streets and sitting in a saloon drinking whiskey and just being challenged and challengers keep coming through those swinging doors all day long and all his he’s just drunk drinking defending his title.” And so I had this visual. So I go, “You know what? Hold on. Let me go home and I’m going to rewrite this thing.” And at first when I told Eric and everybody about the gunslinger, they’re like, “I don’t know, man. I don’t know if that’s going to work. That’s not very metal.” But it worked and it made sense and it felt like it was the right fit and it grew on everybody after that. Like, you know, that’s one of my favorites. So, it’s just weird the way that everything just kind of came together. “
When asked about the song ‘Witch hunt’
“Actually me and Zet wrote that song. Okay. This is one of the songs that me and Zette wrote that made it. Um it was you know Eric has working titles when he has riffs and that one had the working title of Witch Hunt. So instead of me and Zet just trying to figure out what we’re going to do in another topic, we said, , let’s just play off WITCH HUNT, but let’s take it as literally. A witch hunt with witches and burning them at the stake and stuff, but also let’s use the witch hunt like a political witch hunt. So we kind of tied the both of them together and made them both together. It worked really well because you can interpret it either way by listening to the lyrics. Yeah. But it was one of those that were just like fast and furious.”
When asked about his relationship with Zetro today
“He got me into the band and he is best friends with my younger brother and we go way back. When we toured with Exodus, me and him were the ones who are on the five mile walks every morning and we write really well together. We sit down and we don’t mess around. We get to work and we write songs to complete them. Maybe over the years I’ve gotten a little more confident in my own writing myself, but I like bouncing the ideas off somebody and I like having somebody else’s opinion because then it opens my mind.”
When Asked about the orchestrated ballad “Meant to be” and the rumours there would be a duet
” I was originally going to have a female vocalist sing with me on the choruses. Um, but that didn’t happen. We didn’t find the right one. So Eric just said, “Just you sing it. Let’s just leave it at that. Maybe down the road we could revisit it and maybe do a a re-release with a girl singing or do something. The song, reminded me like Return to Serenity(Song). just had that classic Testament guitar feel at the beginning, but then pushing it a little bit more, you know. At first I was a little nervous because it’s like an eight-minute song. I’m like, “Holy [ __ ] there’s going to be a lot of words on this song.” And um but in the end, you know, I found my place where I needed to sing and it was a really emotional song and I really wanted to set it up and and have the listener interpret it maybe like it’s a love song between two people, but in reality it’s actually a love song between humanity and the planet Earth. So if you go back and you listen to it, you’ll hear my little references about what we’re doing to our planet. But after everything that’s said and done, what we’ve do to this planet, mankind is going to still continue and evolve and we’re meant to be here.”
When asked about a USA/Canada tour in 2026
” We’re going over with Obituary, Destruction, and Nervosa to Europe 2025. And it’s called Clash Thrash of the Titans. So, we play Thursday at Aftershock in Sacramento, the festival, and then Friday, we fly to Europe, land Saturday, and start the tour Sunday. So, we’re trying to line something early 2026 (North America). So the agents are just hustling trying to put some stuff together. I think our goal is to spread out the touring because usually we just get maybe one American tour per record cycle and I don’t think that’s enough. So I really want to split it up and see if I can cover more ground and come back to the same places in one in one record cycle. Yeah. But we’ll see.”
