“I’d sit in the corner practising scales”: Alex Skolnick didn’t get involved in the “chaos” of the Bay Area Thrash scene during Testament’s early days because people were “drinking for the sake of it”
The idea of partying during the Bay Area’s thrash metal heyday might bring to mind scenes of beer-fueled mayhem, shredding guitars, and enough debauchery to make a rock ‘n’ roll biographer weep with joy.
But not for Testament’s Alex Skolnick, who says he used to “sit in the corner practising scales” instead of indulging in the “chaos” of it all.
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Looking back on his early days of navigating the Bay Area, Skolnick – who was just sixteen when he joined Testament and eighteen when their debut album, The Legacy, came out – shares a valuable life lesson for aspiring musicians: Don’t get caught up in the party scene just for the sake of it.
“That Bay Area scene could be chaos, but because I was so shy and also because I was the youngest member of Testament, I’d sit in the corner practising scales and trying to learn,” the guitarist tells Metal Hammer.
“There’s a place for cutting loose, but even back then for me it always made sense to celebrate when there was something to celebrate,” he adds. “If you’re just letting loose every night, which is what was happening in the band at that point, it’s just drinking for its own sake. I could never keep up anyway so I didn’t try!”
As a self-admittedly “painfully shy and socially awkward” teen, Skolnick says that even “going onstage was a trial” when he first started – though things would eventually get better with practice.
“At the first gig, when there was a clean intro or a part where the band wasn’t playing full-on, my hands would shake so much I could barely hit the notes,” Skolnick recalls. “If you’re lucky enough to get to the point where you’re on tour, playing night after night, there’s nothing like that to help you get over it, but it was still very scary.”
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