Testament lead guitarist Alex Skolnick shared some important details about their search for a new drummer to replace Gene Hoglan in his latest appearance on the Meet Me for Coffee Podcast. He admitted that a possible audition would be too overwhelming and tiring for the remaining members.
Earlier this year, Testament announced their longtime drummer Gene Hoglan’s departure from the band by releasing a statement from their official Facebook account. The band stated that Hoglan’s solo projects and other works coincided with Testament’s upcoming tour, which was rescheduled to 2022 due to the global pandemic. Therefore, they didn’t want Hoglan to postpone his work, so they decided to part with the drummer.
Hoglan, who first appeared on the band’s ‘Demonic’ but officially joined the band in 2011, shared another announcement to emphasize that it’s time to start a new adventure after playing with Testament for ten years. However, he sent his best wishes to the remaining band members. Therefore, Testament began to look for a new drummer to replace Hoglan, and Alex Skolnick said that they didn’t have too much time considering the possibility of starting their tour soon.
Skolnick detailed the search saying that it would be crazy to announce an audition because thousands of drummers from all around the world would want to join it. It’s impossible to listen to all of them and decide which one is better, so they prepared a shortlist including both famous and young generation drummers. The guitarist added that the list made it easier to recruit the next drummer even though their friends have been sending some names as potential candidates.
Skolnick stated in his interview the following:
“Yeah, I think at this level, it could be crazy to do an announcement that the band is auditioning. We would just be overwhelmed. We would get overwhelmed with applications. Instead, there’s what we think of as a shortlist that’s being looked at. It includes some known drummers, some that are more up and coming, like, more recent generation drummers.
We’ll have no problem. I mean, I think everybody who’s being considered is really good. No question. These are tough shoes to fill, obviously. Very big shoes, big shoes, metaphorically and in real life but, you know, there are some great drummers out there. I just think among the several that are being considered. I think it’s probably going to be one of them.
Of course, I’ve gotten messages from several drummers myself, or friends or bandmates of drummers. ‘Hey man, if you guys are looking, check this guy out.’ I’m just telling everybody, well, you know, there’s the shortlist. If it doesn’t end up being anybody from the shortlist, then we’ll see, but we have to decide soon because yeah, there could be a tour not that far away.”
You can check out the interview below.
