Testament has long secured their legacy as the unofficial fifth member of the so-called “Big Four” of thrash metal (Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax). As one of the few Bay Area thrash bands still around from the genres early years, and certainly one of the few bands that are still putting out consistent releases, Testament is about to head through Alberta with fellow thrashers Exodus and headliners Megadeth, who are celebrating 20 years since their monumental release Rust in Peace [Capitol, 1990].

While the concert’s line-up is sure to get any metal fan’s heart pumping, according to Testament’s lead singer Chuck Billy, the fans aren’t the only ones.

“We’re excited,” he reveals. “We’ve been talking about doing a Testament/Exodus tour for a long time, so we’re glad it’s all coming together, especially with Megadeth.”

On this tour, Megadeth will be playing Rust in Peace in its entirety, but Testament has something special planned as well: they will be performing their now-classic debut album, The Legacy [Atlantic, 1987]. Having been around since 1983, the Oakland, CA band has seen its fair share of line-up changes, so it’s interesting to note that the current line-up is almost exactly what it was during the Legacy era, with the exception of drummer Paul Bostaph, who first performed with the band in 1993, and has been a permanent member since 2007. High-octane guitarists Eric Peterson and Alex Skolnick, and the animated Greg Christian on bass, round out that line-up.

This isn’t the first time they’ve busted out the whole of The Legacy as their set list, but it’s the first time they’ve toured it, and without the support of other material.

“We did it last year in Holland, England and Japan,” Billy explains. “They were special events that we were playing and we decided to do that. But we did it with The New Order [Atlantic, 1988], so we actually did two records back-to-back. It went really well. At first we were on tour doing our thing, and then that show came up at the end of the tour. We weren’t sure how it was going to go over, but we thought it would be kind of fun and cool, and when it was all said and done, it was actually better than we expected, and we had a good time and enjoyed ourselves up there.”

Finally now, North American audiences will get the new, albeit classic material from the band and, according to Billy, the decision was an easy one for the band.

“When the question arose for us to do it on this tour, it was like, ‘Well, yeah, we had a great time, so why not?’ For us, we did almost 200 shows last year, and everyone saw the same songs, so it’ll be nice to play a whole new array of songs that we haven’t gotten to play,” says Billy.

When asked whether or not he thought the younger crowd would latch on to the classic album, Billy nods, “I think they will. The point of it for us is that everybody keeps talking about this ‘thrash revival’ and resurgence of metal and all that stuff. For us, it’s like, ‘Okay, here’s the nine or 10 songs that started our career; here’s what we started with.’

For the people that don’t know us, and maybe by reading something about what this is about, they will kind of understand, coming into it knowing that, ‘This is what they’re about; this is what they started.”

He goes on to say, “For me, I think a lot of our songs from the early days, off the first record, have really stood the test of time. A lot of songs still sound like they were songs that could have been written today.”

When it comes to the evolution of Testament’s sound over the course of their career, Billy sees one big difference.

“What it all amounts to is the tuning of the guitars now. We used to tune to E, (because) my voice was a lot higher. I was a lot younger, and when I started singing, I didn’t know what key I wanted to sing in, they just wrote the songs and I had to sing them in that (key),” he recalls. “As time progressed, we started tuning the guitars down a little bit and it ended up suiting my voice more. It made my voice a little stronger and more powerful, and I could perform those older songs with a bit more power. At that point, I was like ‘Hey, I’m more comfortable with this tuning.’ From ’86 to now, it’s night and day,” says Billy.

While they’re not as young as they were when they first recorded The Legacy, the band will still play the whole album note for note, including the vocals.

“I’ll do all the same screams and the parts, but they’ll be in the different tuning,” Billy notes. “I could probably do the other ones (in the original tuning), I just wouldn’t want to do it night in and night out. Where my voice is right now, I’m definitely accustomed to tuning it like this.”