Paul Bostaph Quits Testament!

Here is the OFFICIAL statement from Testament's vocalist Chuck Billy regarding the departure of Paul Bostaph:

"We just found out last week that Paul Bostaph is not coming back to the band, he's starting his own new project and doing some things on his own," Billy told Terrorizer. "So we're actually going to be holding a couple of auditions with probably small group of drummers that we chose — we don't want to have a revolving drum stool, we have a new record we want a permanent drummer.

"We're still buddies," he said. "It's just that Paul feels at this point in his career he wants to be in a little more in control of the artistic creation of the songs and with his new project, they are all involved with that process whereas with our group, Eric [Peterson, guitar] is pretty much the main songwriter and that's just the way its been with us for 25 years."

Due to a "serious injury", Paul Bostaph was unable to take part of the studio sessions for "The Dark Roots Of Earth"! Bostaph was replaced on "The Dark Roots of Earth" by Gene Hoglan. Also appearing on the album is Chris Adler from Lamb Of God, who did a couple of guest appearances.

This undisclosed injury also kept Bostaph away from the recent Testament tour with Anthrax and Death Angel. Drumming duties during this tour were taken care of by "The Atomic Clock", Gene Hoglan (ex-Dark Angel, ex-Strapping Young Lad, Fear Factory, Dethklok) and John Tempesta (Exodus, White Zombie, Rob Zombie, Helmet, The Cult).

Bostaph's new project is called Blackgates, and it features Anthrax's previous singer Dan Nelson, guitarist Jeremy Epp (The Venting Machine) and bassist Uriah Duffy (Whitesnake). The group is currently in the studio working on the pre-production part of their debut album. This is what Bostaph had to say about this NEW project:

"Our sound is drawn from all of our influences. Mostly, we don't want to be a Thrash Metal band, although we draw from that genre as well. There is something in our music for everyone. Heavy grooves, good hooks and Dan's killer pipes. I think we have an independent sound that will stand on its own."

We wish Paul Bostaph the best of luck with his new project!

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