Testament is one of the most successful American thrash metal bands over the years. The band was originally formed in San Fransisco, USA, under the name Legacy in 1983 by Eric Peterson (guitar), his cousin Derrick Ramírez (guitar), Louie Clemente (drums) and "Zetro" Souza on vocals. Over the years the band has had lots of line-up changes and therefore they have connections with lots of other bands on the American thrash metal scene.
In 1985 they recorded their first demo called "First Strike Is Deadly" and in 1986 they changed their name into Testament. After the successful debut album "The Legacy" they played the Dynamo festival in Holland and recorded a live EP. Their second album made Testament one of the world's biggest metal bands and a tour was arranged with Megadeth, Voivod, Anthrax, Judas Priest and others. Their third album "Practice What You Preach" sold more than 400 000 copies.
In 1991, Alex Skolnick did a tour with Jazz bassist Stuart Hamm. After that Alex returned, and they started to write songs for the upcoming album. In 1995 the band, after several new line-up changes, was dropped from Atlantic Records and they therefore decided to create their own label called Burnt Offerings Inc. In 1996 Testament split up during the pre-production for the seventh album. Chuck told that he, Eric and Chris would form a new band called Dog Faced Gods while James left to do a personal project and Greg formed the band Flangue. However the band returned with a new line-up stronger than ever.
TESTAMENT
