The usual problems a band must endure from its drummer include tardiness, unfamiliarity with new material, no memory of old material, bringing their gf/driver everywhere, selling gear for food, non-ownership of drumsticks, car trouble, body odor, shortness, loss of one or more shoes, delirium, etc. But some drummer-issues can’t be predicted; for example, completion of the new Testament record has been delayed by drummer Paul Bostaph’s undisclosed injury. Singer Chuck Billy kinda explained Sunday in a radio interview:

Paul Bostaph is injured right now, so he couldn’t [work on] the record. We kind of put the record off a little while waiting for Paul. [Then] we found out he was not gonna be ready, so we brought on Gene Hoglan. Hoglan came in and crushed, killed the drums in about a week.

Awesome! Billy goes on to reveal the new album’s title, its other guest drummer, and the face-fuckingly awesome tour to be announced:

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So, technically, this is a picture of Gene Hoglan with Testament…

I have good news and I have bad news.

The bad news is, Paul Bostaph, who’s a great drummer, is injured, and therefore won’t be able to appear on the new Testament record. That’s a bummer. Hopefully Bostaph’s ailment won’t keep him away from the kid for long, ’cause like I said, dude can plan.

The good news is, Testament have recruited Gene Hoglan and Chris Adler to take his place, and those dudes can certainly play, too.

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In an alternate universe the world would be genuinely excited for new Anthrax featuring one Dan Nelson from Lawn Guyland, NY. In reality we have Joey Suckadonna ‘Thrax to look forward to on an album that will come out sometime never, and Nelson, a talented vocalist if you ask me, is left on the sidelines working on other things.

“Other things” is his new band Blackgates, also featuring superman-drummer Paul Bostaph (Testament, Exodus, Slayer, etc), guitarist Jeremy Epp and bassist Uriah Duffy (Whitesnake); the “supergroup” of sorts has a propensity to seem ridiculous before even playing a note. But ya know what? The two Blackgates songs I’ve heard so far are damn fine; solid riffing, sharp drumming and powerful vocals a good band makes. Stream via the ReverbNation widget below.

-VN

I’m posting outside of our regular hours because I was just got a press release that Exodus’ Gary Holt has been named Slayer’s temporary replacement for Jeff Hanneman (who just had emergency surgery on his arm), and that seems like kind of a big deal. As far as I’m aware at least, it’s the first time a guitarist who isn’t Hanneman or Kerry King will play and tour with the band (I mean, I’m sure other dudes have gotten up and jammed on a song or two with the band, but it’s not quite the same thing). In fact, I don’t even know of Holt having ever really played with another band.

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As any metal fan with functioning ears and discerning taste knows, Slayer are one of the most overrated bands of all time. Sure, they have some great songs, but the vast majority of their catalog is boring, generic filler. For example, I am not sure why Reign in Blood is considered such a classic when there are only two good songs on it. I mean, if “Angel of Death” and “Raining Blood” were released as the two sides of a 7″, it would probably be the best record ever released, but they decided to sandwich a bunch of crappy, lifeless songs between them for some unfortunate reason. And don’t even get me started on how tepid and uninteresting their next few records are… In fact, looking back over the past 25 years or so, it is clear to me that Slayer’s best album is a tossup between two of their mid/late 90s releases that go largely unnoticed: Divine Intervention and Undisputed Attitude.

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In a way, Testament is like The Small Faces to Metallica’s Beatles and Slayer’s Rolling Stones: a band as virtuosic, productive, and creatively astute as their deified peers, but hamstrung by bad business breaks. Another factor is the absence of an outspoken know-it-all (Slayer, Metallica), a gimmicky mascot (Anthrax), or a Mustaine-esque diva (duh) to which Testament’s marketing efforts could be anchored. Aside from singer Chuck Billy’s serious illness a decade ago, the Testament story’s most noteworthy turns include little more than the defection of a jazz-crazy guitarist and a dickish but minor betrayal by metal’s most corpulent drummer.

Even if a hypothetical Testament: Behind The Music would clock in at about six minutes, an All-Star Tribute To Testament concert event could stretch across days to cover just the highlights of their dudless catalogue. (My personal best-of runs 175 minutes. Yeah baby.) And while the band is enjoying what guitarist Eric Peterson calls “a second wind” since the return of uber-guitarist Alex Skolnick and bassist Greg Peterson for the magnificent 2008 outing The Formation of Damnation, Testament remains supplicant to sexier tourmates Slayer and Megadeth in the opening slot on this summer’s rescheduled American Carnage Tour. That seems fine by the surprisingly affable (and occasionally merry) Chuck Billy, who spoke exclusively to MetalSucks about getting hammered in Europe, how Dave Lombardo’s enabled the awesomeness of The Gathering, the quest to control their back catalogue, and their exciting-as-fuck new setlist. Emphasis on “new.”

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Metal fans, let’s take a collective moment to consider ourselves blessed with some big Peters. Peters who will take you firmly from both sides of the mixing board with confidence and expertise. Sweaty, bulging-veined Peters whose live shows leave willing multitudes spent, sated, slack – and more than a bit bruised. These Peters, thanks to generous endowments of talent, stand fully erect as superstars in real metal. Each of metal’s hugest Peters share a rock hard work ethic, hardly pausing for rest between releases captured on tape and performances in the flesh, after which they simply move on to violate again in another city.

For the second installment of MetalSucks’ Metal’s Biggest Peters, I phoned Testament’s Eric Peterson, for whom I had no fewer than ten-thousand questions. But Peterson is busy building the next classic Testament record and preparing for the Slayer/Megadeth-headlined American Carnage tour – or, simply, the Slaygadethstament Tour – so I’d have to wait for another day to press him about producers Tony Platt and GGGarth Richardson; nor would we discuss Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo’s career performance on The Gathering, the record that re-launched Testament as a metal juggernaut; neither was there an opportunity to probe Peterson’s feelings on the infiltration of Testament by an unapologetic jazz devotee in godly guitarist Alex Skolnick; and I’d have to refrain from following-up on his passing mentions of good new music and jerkface Dave Mustaine. Still, the genial and passionate Peterson opened up about the diplomacy required to lead a metal band, Testament’s surprising new setlist, the potential for blastbeats on the follow-up to 2008’s triumphant The Formation of Damnation, and his surefire plan to improve the disaster movie 2012.

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The metal community has been using the phrase “It’s their best album since…” a lot as of late. As though spurred on by the nineteen year old kids who now play the music they created better than they do, the Elder Statesmen of Thrash – or EST – have been enjoying a renaissance.

But here’s what sets Slayer apart from the pack: while you could certainly say that “World Painted Blood is Slayer’s best album since Season in the Abyss” and be telling truth, you could have said “It’s their best album since Seasons in the Abyss” about any album since Diabolus in Musica and been telling the truth. Slayer didn’t only just recently get awesome again – they really never stopped being awesome, despite what the scene snobs might have you believe.

But World Painted Blood finds Slayer sounding even more like the band that created the Holy Trinity than Christ Illusion did, so people are even more excited about than they were about that last offering. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

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Dan Nelson is already a legend, and not necessarily in a good way. Like Gary Cherone or Blaze Bailey, he’s going to go down in history as a dude who was hired to be the new singer for a well-known band, only to get the boot fairly quickly; unlike Cherone of Bailey, the work he did with this particular well-known band will either never see the light of day, or slip out only as a bootleg. A fairly limited number of ‘Thrax fans ever got to see him perform live with the band, so really there’s only a small part of the population that has any sense of what his contributions may have been, positive or negative.

But Nelson is from Strong Island, and ain’t gonna let no Scott Ian or Charlie Bananas get him down. According to Metal Underground, Nelson has started a new project with drummer Paul Bostaph.

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D.X. Ferris certainly thinks so, and listening to the record again this week, I’m starting to agree with him (I actually think that the Paul Bostaph years in general are underrated, and that the recent Slayerenaissance began with God Hates Us All. But I digress.). Diabolus has an incredible sense of groove – something Slayer are not usually known for – and, of course, reunited them with Rick Rubin for the last time.

Here’s the band playing the album’s opening track, “Bitter Peace,” in Argentina in ’98, probably right around the time Diabolus was being released.

-AR

I mean, really. The above headline is so unfair. Lots of perfectly respectable metal musicians give lessons when they’re not touring ’cause it’s a good way to make some extra money.

Of course, those musicians tend to be talented, hard working, blue collar dudes in real metal bands. And, also, y’know, musicians.

And none of those words describe John Otto, the Limp Bizkit* skinsman/resident hobbit who is now offering drum lessons for $150-$200 a pop (depending on if you want a little alone time with him or don’t mind sharing him with someone else who thought that “Rollin’” was a good song). Having never taken a drum lesson, I have no idea if that’s a fair price or not, but if I were gonna take a drum lesson and it was gonna cost me $200, I would probably want it to be with Dave Lombardo or Gene Hoglan or Paul Bostaph or Kevin Talley or Jiminy fuckin’ Cricket, or at least, like, David Silvera.

Anyways, you can get more info here. Please book something soon and help Mr. Otto get his Ferrari out of the shop – Fred and Wes tell him the LB reunion is still at least a year off and he really, really needs that car to get laid.

-AR

*Frodo – uh, that is, Otto – is apparently also in a band called The Killer and the Star, but I think even fewer people have heard of them than have heard of Black Light Burns.