As guitarist for Testament, Savage, and - briefly - Ozzy Osbourne, Alex Skolnick more than made his mark in the '80s and '90s, but it wasn't enough. Returning to study at The New School for Jazz & Contemporary Music in 1998, he focused on jazz guitar, forming The Alex Skolnick Trio as the new millennium arrived. About to release their sixth album 'Prove You're Not a Robot', we sat down with the guitar player's guitar player for a chat about his musical journey, the recording of the album, and why his return to Testament in 2008 is better than the first time around. Asking for a friend; Eamon O'Neill.
Photo; D. Randall Blythe.
Hi Alex, how are you today?
I am good, thanks.
Before we get to the new Alex Skolnick Trio album, I wanted to ask how you felt about Ozzy Osbourne's passing given that you actually worked with Ozzy in 1995.
Oh yeah, it affected me emotionally much more than I realised it would. I spent about a week in Ozzy's orbit in the mid '90s, and it was definitely a chaotic, turbulent period for him. Apparently, Zack Wylde was out, then he was in, and they weren't sure what was going on, and a lot of different guitar players were checked out. I made it to a second audition, and finally, an unannounced show [on 9th June, 1995, at Nottingham Rock City]. I never got to know him well, but in the time I spent there was never any BS about, you know, no show biz stuff with him. Maybe some people around him - there's a whole machine around somebody like that who's a major celebrity - but he was just kind of going along with that, and he was always himself. He was super funny, and what I saw ended up becoming a hit TV show [The Osbournes], and I wasn't surprised that that was the case.
You said it affected you emotionally. You obviously thought back to those days.
Well, it wasn't just working with him briefly and being around him; that's sort of a footnote. I think that certainly added to what I was feeling, but I suddenly realised that this guy's been in our lives for so long. I remember in the seventh grade hearing about him, and I was so young I wasn't aware of Black Sabbath yet. I was a big fan of Kiss and AC/DC, but that was really the only hard rock I knew. I'd just discovered Van Halen and then somebody said; "you really have to hear this Ozzy stuff", and specifically the guitarist, Randy Rhoads, and he became a huge influence. Even a lot of the so called 'cool kids' were listening to Ozzy, but then a year later, Ozzy was out and they'd all migrated to, like, Duran Duran and the English Beat, Billy Idol - which is fine - but I was sort of an outcast because I'm like; "wait, I'm still listening to Ozzy! What the hell's wrong with you guys?!"
So he was big part of my life back then, and obviously the TV show brought him to mainstream attention and into living rooms all over the world, and then that really helped bring back Heavy Metal, I think, as an art form in the USA. It certainly helped bring back the appreciation of it, which seemed to wane a bit during the years of so called 'alternative music'. And then finally, his last few records were great. I just loved the unpredictable collaborations with Jeff Beck, Elton John, Post Malone; I just thought that was really cool, so just to have suddenly have him not with us anymore, it hit very hard.
Related to that, the first album you released with the Alex Skolnick Trio was 'Goodbye to Romance: Standards for New Generation', in which you played songs by Ozzy, Kiss etc in a jazz style; was that a good way for you to introduce people to what you were doing with jazz?
Having that crossover was I suppose, a way to let your fan base from that heavier side know that you could do this music, but do songs that you know. I think it was a combination of things. On the one hand, I knew how crazy it sounded that somebody known for heavy metal actually had an affinity for jazz guitar and made it more than a hobby. I know that was an almost ridiculous notion, because it was unheard of at the time, so this was a way of acknowledging that and recognising it and also having some fun with it. I thought 'Goodbye to Romance' sounded like it could be a jazz standard, or a jazz album. If Billy Holiday had released an album called 'Goodbye to Romance', it would be totally fitting.
You started taking jazz guitar lessons in 1998, by which stage you'd left Testament, and been with Savatage and Ozzy; were you just looking for something else, or was it simply a passion for the music?
Yeah, it's a good question. It was a little of both. I definitely felt more and more of a connection to this music, and I was going to hear great jazz musicians, and I saw some amazing ones in the '90s; folks who had been around for a long time, such as McCoy Tyner - may he rest in peace - who was best known as the pianist for the John Coltrane Quartet, but also had some great albums of his own. And if you ever watch McCoy Tyner, it's exciting! It's exciting in a different way than a rock or metal concert, but it draws you in, and it has a certain energy, and it's also very musically sophisticated. You have so much dynamics and vocabulary and I was just drawn in at every concert I went to, whether it was Michael Brecker, the great tenor sax player, or the more jazz rock leaning stuff. I'd seen John McLaughlin a few times, Al Di Meola, Joe Zawinul, and these concerts just excited me.
So it was a different excitement seeing these artists?
It's not like I didn't enjoy going to metal concerts, but I think at that point having spent a number of years on tour playing and hearing the headliner or support band night after night, metal concert, metal concert. that when I was at home that wasn't the first thing I wanted to do, was rush out and hear a metal concert. I would hear these other artists and it was just a radically different scene; everybody sitting, having a cocktail, listening. I also liked that experience, and I had a growing collection of albums which were more and more my soundtrack, and I just thought; "okay, I have this technique that works for screaming lead guitar, but I feel like I have so much more to say", and I at least wanted to learn about this music. At first it was just out of curiosity, then it was a hobby, and then more and more, it just took over and became one of my musical sides.
I am good, thanks.
Before we get to the new Alex Skolnick Trio album, I wanted to ask how you felt about Ozzy Osbourne's passing given that you actually worked with Ozzy in 1995.
Oh yeah, it affected me emotionally much more than I realised it would. I spent about a week in Ozzy's orbit in the mid '90s, and it was definitely a chaotic, turbulent period for him. Apparently, Zack Wylde was out, then he was in, and they weren't sure what was going on, and a lot of different guitar players were checked out. I made it to a second audition, and finally, an unannounced show [on 9th June, 1995, at Nottingham Rock City]. I never got to know him well, but in the time I spent there was never any BS about, you know, no show biz stuff with him. Maybe some people around him - there's a whole machine around somebody like that who's a major celebrity - but he was just kind of going along with that, and he was always himself. He was super funny, and what I saw ended up becoming a hit TV show [The Osbournes], and I wasn't surprised that that was the case.
You said it affected you emotionally. You obviously thought back to those days.
Well, it wasn't just working with him briefly and being around him; that's sort of a footnote. I think that certainly added to what I was feeling, but I suddenly realised that this guy's been in our lives for so long. I remember in the seventh grade hearing about him, and I was so young I wasn't aware of Black Sabbath yet. I was a big fan of Kiss and AC/DC, but that was really the only hard rock I knew. I'd just discovered Van Halen and then somebody said; "you really have to hear this Ozzy stuff", and specifically the guitarist, Randy Rhoads, and he became a huge influence. Even a lot of the so called 'cool kids' were listening to Ozzy, but then a year later, Ozzy was out and they'd all migrated to, like, Duran Duran and the English Beat, Billy Idol - which is fine - but I was sort of an outcast because I'm like; "wait, I'm still listening to Ozzy! What the hell's wrong with you guys?!"
So he was big part of my life back then, and obviously the TV show brought him to mainstream attention and into living rooms all over the world, and then that really helped bring back Heavy Metal, I think, as an art form in the USA. It certainly helped bring back the appreciation of it, which seemed to wane a bit during the years of so called 'alternative music'. And then finally, his last few records were great. I just loved the unpredictable collaborations with Jeff Beck, Elton John, Post Malone; I just thought that was really cool, so just to have suddenly have him not with us anymore, it hit very hard.
Related to that, the first album you released with the Alex Skolnick Trio was 'Goodbye to Romance: Standards for New Generation', in which you played songs by Ozzy, Kiss etc in a jazz style; was that a good way for you to introduce people to what you were doing with jazz?
Having that crossover was I suppose, a way to let your fan base from that heavier side know that you could do this music, but do songs that you know. I think it was a combination of things. On the one hand, I knew how crazy it sounded that somebody known for heavy metal actually had an affinity for jazz guitar and made it more than a hobby. I know that was an almost ridiculous notion, because it was unheard of at the time, so this was a way of acknowledging that and recognising it and also having some fun with it. I thought 'Goodbye to Romance' sounded like it could be a jazz standard, or a jazz album. If Billy Holiday had released an album called 'Goodbye to Romance', it would be totally fitting.
You started taking jazz guitar lessons in 1998, by which stage you'd left Testament, and been with Savatage and Ozzy; were you just looking for something else, or was it simply a passion for the music?
Yeah, it's a good question. It was a little of both. I definitely felt more and more of a connection to this music, and I was going to hear great jazz musicians, and I saw some amazing ones in the '90s; folks who had been around for a long time, such as McCoy Tyner - may he rest in peace - who was best known as the pianist for the John Coltrane Quartet, but also had some great albums of his own. And if you ever watch McCoy Tyner, it's exciting! It's exciting in a different way than a rock or metal concert, but it draws you in, and it has a certain energy, and it's also very musically sophisticated. You have so much dynamics and vocabulary and I was just drawn in at every concert I went to, whether it was Michael Brecker, the great tenor sax player, or the more jazz rock leaning stuff. I'd seen John McLaughlin a few times, Al Di Meola, Joe Zawinul, and these concerts just excited me.
So it was a different excitement seeing these artists?
It's not like I didn't enjoy going to metal concerts, but I think at that point having spent a number of years on tour playing and hearing the headliner or support band night after night, metal concert, metal concert. that when I was at home that wasn't the first thing I wanted to do, was rush out and hear a metal concert. I would hear these other artists and it was just a radically different scene; everybody sitting, having a cocktail, listening. I also liked that experience, and I had a growing collection of albums which were more and more my soundtrack, and I just thought; "okay, I have this technique that works for screaming lead guitar, but I feel like I have so much more to say", and I at least wanted to learn about this music. At first it was just out of curiosity, then it was a hobby, and then more and more, it just took over and became one of my musical sides.
Photo; D. Randall Blythe.
They're two very disparate styles; the screaming leads of metal, and the restrained jazzy sounds and off-kilter scales; is it difficult to keep them separate when recording?
Well, I think the two hardest things about it were, the feel and not approaching with the same energy, and the rhythm. The timing is very, very different, and it's learning how to how to feel the difference. Now, there's occasional overlap; I could point to certain songs by Deep Purple, or especially Van Halen where that swing's right there. You can listen to a song like 'Beautiful Girls', or 'I'm The One', and that swing is real, so they had it, but a lot of heavy metal does not. So just learning how to swing, that's a sort of foundation for improvisational music. It also comes in many different forms; there's many different types of rhythms; there's bossa nova, for example, which is Brazilian that actually, that's called 'straight eights', that actually doesn't swing, but still, you need to know how to do that. You need to know how to play a waltz, a five, four, up tempo bow, there's just so much. And yeah, it's definitely not something that you have can force yourself to learn. You have to feel it, and you have to be passionate about it.
You clearly had the passion, and the dedication to learn those intricacies.
I happen to have this Gibson Es-347 behind me up on the wall, and that guitar had something to do with it as well, because on top of going to the concerts and increasing my jazz album collection, I also loved going to vintage guitar shops with all these cool guitars like that. It's very different from these solid body machines that I was playing, which are great too, but for a different thing. I would hear great jazz players on guitars like that, and just being able to play beautiful music, alone! It's these chords! So I actually bought that guitar in the '90s and told myself; "okay, I need to get my jazz guitar playing to a professional level, otherwise the guitar goes back", so it was a deal I made with myself.
If you're not a guitar player, you might not get this, but plugging in one guitar is going to make you play something completely different to playing another, especially ones so radically different.
Well, absolutely, there's the guitar itself, and there's also the rig. So if I have one of my solid body electric guitars plugged into a big Marshall cabinet and a screaming distortion sound, yes, that's going to make me play something completely different. If I have a guitar like the Es-247, and it's plugged into a small combo amp, say, a Fender Deluxe, for example, and it's just clean with this warm sound, that's going to bring out something different as well. So I've learned to use the right gear for the right sounds. Now, there are ways of getting around that, but it would definitely be hard to play heavy metal on an archtop guitar, mainly because it would feed back. It has this acoustic quality, which is probably what makes it so great for playing jazz guitar and chord melodies. It takes some work, but you can find a way to play jazz on an electric guitar, but you definitely need a cleaner sound, and you have to roll off the overdrive. In some cases you can roll off the tone knob. A lot of us don't really know what to do with the tone knob. That's that's a really good example; one of my favourite guitar players is Pat Metheny, and he's somebody that you can hear rolls off the tone knob, and that's part of the sound.
The new album is 'Prove You're Not A Robot', which is your sixth; you must be really proud of that.
I happen to have a copy right here, and the cover, that's my photograph. That was actually taken in San Diego, believe it or not. I was just walking around and I just happened to be walking through a walkway next to a building that was under construction, and that's why it looked like that. The person who got me into photography is my friend Randy Blythe from Lamb of God, who's a fantastic photographer. I knew I wanted this for the cover, and I wanted band photos that went along with that, so I called Randy and asked if he could recommend someone for that, and he said; "I'm doing it!" So all the shots of the band are by Randy [nb; the shots used in this article are from those sessions].
I'm assuming that's New York City that the band pics were shot in?
Yeah. It's a part of New York called Bushwick, which is starting to get popular, but it was kind of one of the last artist sanctuaries in the city. It's one of those places where, if you're twenty-something and you're an artist or musician, and you're moving to New York for the first time, that's where you go. Now I think it is catching on, like Soho in the '80s. Now that's the trendiest place, and then Williamsburg and Brooklyn was like that. A lot of these places they're like artist havens, and then they become trendy. So this is Bushwick, and it still feels like an artist haven, but I think it's on its way to being trendy. But it's a fun place to walk around, and we got some great photos.
Well, I think the two hardest things about it were, the feel and not approaching with the same energy, and the rhythm. The timing is very, very different, and it's learning how to how to feel the difference. Now, there's occasional overlap; I could point to certain songs by Deep Purple, or especially Van Halen where that swing's right there. You can listen to a song like 'Beautiful Girls', or 'I'm The One', and that swing is real, so they had it, but a lot of heavy metal does not. So just learning how to swing, that's a sort of foundation for improvisational music. It also comes in many different forms; there's many different types of rhythms; there's bossa nova, for example, which is Brazilian that actually, that's called 'straight eights', that actually doesn't swing, but still, you need to know how to do that. You need to know how to play a waltz, a five, four, up tempo bow, there's just so much. And yeah, it's definitely not something that you have can force yourself to learn. You have to feel it, and you have to be passionate about it.
You clearly had the passion, and the dedication to learn those intricacies.
I happen to have this Gibson Es-347 behind me up on the wall, and that guitar had something to do with it as well, because on top of going to the concerts and increasing my jazz album collection, I also loved going to vintage guitar shops with all these cool guitars like that. It's very different from these solid body machines that I was playing, which are great too, but for a different thing. I would hear great jazz players on guitars like that, and just being able to play beautiful music, alone! It's these chords! So I actually bought that guitar in the '90s and told myself; "okay, I need to get my jazz guitar playing to a professional level, otherwise the guitar goes back", so it was a deal I made with myself.
If you're not a guitar player, you might not get this, but plugging in one guitar is going to make you play something completely different to playing another, especially ones so radically different.
Well, absolutely, there's the guitar itself, and there's also the rig. So if I have one of my solid body electric guitars plugged into a big Marshall cabinet and a screaming distortion sound, yes, that's going to make me play something completely different. If I have a guitar like the Es-247, and it's plugged into a small combo amp, say, a Fender Deluxe, for example, and it's just clean with this warm sound, that's going to bring out something different as well. So I've learned to use the right gear for the right sounds. Now, there are ways of getting around that, but it would definitely be hard to play heavy metal on an archtop guitar, mainly because it would feed back. It has this acoustic quality, which is probably what makes it so great for playing jazz guitar and chord melodies. It takes some work, but you can find a way to play jazz on an electric guitar, but you definitely need a cleaner sound, and you have to roll off the overdrive. In some cases you can roll off the tone knob. A lot of us don't really know what to do with the tone knob. That's that's a really good example; one of my favourite guitar players is Pat Metheny, and he's somebody that you can hear rolls off the tone knob, and that's part of the sound.
The new album is 'Prove You're Not A Robot', which is your sixth; you must be really proud of that.
I happen to have a copy right here, and the cover, that's my photograph. That was actually taken in San Diego, believe it or not. I was just walking around and I just happened to be walking through a walkway next to a building that was under construction, and that's why it looked like that. The person who got me into photography is my friend Randy Blythe from Lamb of God, who's a fantastic photographer. I knew I wanted this for the cover, and I wanted band photos that went along with that, so I called Randy and asked if he could recommend someone for that, and he said; "I'm doing it!" So all the shots of the band are by Randy [nb; the shots used in this article are from those sessions].
I'm assuming that's New York City that the band pics were shot in?
Yeah. It's a part of New York called Bushwick, which is starting to get popular, but it was kind of one of the last artist sanctuaries in the city. It's one of those places where, if you're twenty-something and you're an artist or musician, and you're moving to New York for the first time, that's where you go. Now I think it is catching on, like Soho in the '80s. Now that's the trendiest place, and then Williamsburg and Brooklyn was like that. A lot of these places they're like artist havens, and then they become trendy. So this is Bushwick, and it still feels like an artist haven, but I think it's on its way to being trendy. But it's a fun place to walk around, and we got some great photos.
What was the process for composing this time?
I wrote a lot of these on piano for the first time. During the pandemic I got my piano playing up a little bit - not to the point where I'm interested in performing as a pianist. Certainly, that that would take some more work - but I know my way around the piano, and I would get into these compositions, and I ended up with enough musical ideas to transfer them to guitar and turn them into the songs you have here.
I take this isn't like a Pro Tools type thing and you were in the studio with the with the three-piece, and feeding off each other.
Yeah, that's another thing that's so fun about doing this; it's very interactive. It requires live performance. It's the band playing together, and technology is used at a minimum, which kind of connects to the title in a way. Yeah, we were in the studio at the same time, and we worked out the songs in rehearsal by playing live. It's music that can't be phoned in and it can't be built up, track by track. It's really based on live performances and just picking your favourite live performance.
There's some great guitar tones the album; from acoustic to, on opener 'Parallel Universe' where you use little bit of distortion for a Steve Vai kind of feel.
Well, when I did the first disc with the trio, I was really going for the classic quote, unquote "jazz guitar tone"; a hollow body guitar through a combo amp, and I pretty much stuck with that, and most of the album and the following records stuck with that. I feel like I've done that enough, and even though that's the main sound on this record, it's far from the only sound. I just I feel like there's a freedom to explore different sounds, which I've been getting into, and it's been a lot of fun to do that, and it's been fun using different types of gear. On 'Parallel Universe' it sounded good to just bring in a kind of distorted, smooth, instrumental rock sound on the solo.
It's really beautiful, and works brilliantly.
Thank you. Some of the others, a lot of it has this Fender Deluxe from 1965 that I picked up a couple years ago. That's just one of the best sounding amps, and I used a few different guitars. I had a loner guitar by Roger Sadowsky. He's this great builder who's best known for basses he builds that Nathan [Peck}, our bass player plays, but he makes amazing guitars, and his workshop is very close to where we recorded the album. He actually loaned me the guitar that was in his showroom, and I was just crazy about that guitar. I eventually bought that exact guitar from him, and you hear that on some of the songs. I also use this great Gibson Es-347, it's very similar to a 335, but it's got a special type of body, and it's got its own character. And the acoustic guitar is one i i bought myself as a treat. I wasn't sure how I would use it, but it's a beautiful vintage guitar from the '30s. It's an old Gibson parlour guitar, one of those small guitars, and it just sounds like it has a microphone, even when you play it by itself. The sound is so big! I also brought some of my regular acoustic guitars,
Is there ever a temptation to bring some of the jazz into Testament? After all, Marty Friedman added Spanish guitar into Megadeth's 'Holy Wars'.
I'd be all for it, but you know, the guys, they go in the directions they want to go in, and I try to work with that. It's funny, I've never had a Testament album coming out at the same time as a Trio album, but it just worked out so Testament comes out next month, and then the Trio the following month. But there is the first slow tune we've done in a while that's called 'Meant to Be' and it has a string section. I brought in a fellow I work with in the city sometimes, one of the best cello players, Dave Edgar, and he's done work with Evanescence and even pop stuff like Coldplay, and anyway, the song came out great. It's based on a part I came up with on piano that I converted to guitar and added to this intro that Eric [Peterson] had, and Chuck [Billy] built a vocal melody based on my original melody. I love how it came out. I didn't exactly try to make it jazz, but there's a solo that certainly has some jazz colour to it. The tone is definitely not the tone; it's definitely more sort of inspired by David Gilmore, for example, but I think if you were to break down some of the phrases, it certainly has some jazz elements.
Testament are returning to Ireland in just a few weeks, and I wanted to ask what your memories were of playing here in 1988, particularly in relation to playing in Belfast when the troubles were still raging.
I think that was the first time. I know we also played Dublin on that tour, but Belfast stood out. I remember it well because of the troubles, and I remember just driving through the streets, and I'd never seen anything that. It really felt like a war zone, with overturned cars and burned out buildings and soldiers. I also remember going to have a Guinness at a little stand. Basically, it was like a three-seat pub in the middle of the war zone. One of the organisers offered to bring us there. Most of the guys were scared, but Chuck and I went, and it was a real adventure. They told us just don't mention anything about the troubles, don't say your English, don't say you're Protestant. I said; "well, that's not going to be a problem!"
It's been a while since the Trio has played in Ireland; are there any European dates planned?
We played in Temple Bar in 2017, so not too long ago. We've got some dates in the US. We did some European dates back in March, and the only UK date was London, but we're going to try to get there next year as well. And yeah, Testament is going to be over there all of October, and then there's a week of the Trio in the Midwest and on the East Coast, and then back in early January, going back to the west coast and playing San Francisco Bay Area, Portland, Oregon, Seattle and places like that, straight into the NAMM show, so that should be exciting.
You've been in Testament much longer than you were the first time; is it better this time around?
Oh yeah, no comparison. I think the band being older and wiser helps a lot. I think the first time around there were a lot of learning experiences. and it just was challenging. There were a lot of challenges. Everybody was sort of finding themselves. I was finding myself, and I think coming back to it, I had this whole other identity. When I came back to it, I was still a full time musician; maybe not as busy as we are now, but I always had gigs, and I kind of felt like; "okay, I proved I can be an all round musician, somebody that doesn't just do heavy metal. I'm a full time musician, whether I'm in the band or not". I think it's better for all. I think we're better with each other, I think everybody agrees, and it's also understood now that I have other instrumental projects I do. I play with virtuosos like Percy Jones, the basis for Brand X; we have a project called PAKT. I play with Stuart Hamm; we just played about a month and a half ago out in LA I'm on his latest record.
I think having that balance of being an all around player and not just the guy from this one band, for me, that makes it better. And I think for everybody else too, we sort of learned how to have fun. It's not a toxic environment this time. It certainly got to be that way at the end of that first period of the band, and I think also just there's more appreciation. I think also, we were in a period where, even though it was the late '80s and Metallica was blowing up, and it seemed promising, very quickly it became the '90s and alternative culture, and suddenly it felt like our kind of music was being sort of dismissed by the industry, and it was very strange. I think by the time I came back, that was done, and even some of those biggest figures from that period have embraced metal. It was never against heavy metal; Dave Grohl, for example, he narrates the Lemmy movie and does metal events, Billy Corgan has come out as a huge metal head. He never disliked metal; it was never him who said; "this is what's happening".
Tom Morello is another example.
Oh, absolutely. I mean, look at the great job done he's done at events like inducting Kiss [into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014] and curating the final Sabbath Ozzy show. So the environment's much different, and, yeah, by the time I came back, you also had Ozzfest, and somehow, the fact that the band was able to come back and learn the a lot of the lessons from the first time around, it's just made this period much better.
You're incredibly busy, and I'm guessing your year 2026 is mapped out, but what's next for you?
Obviously with these main projects with the new albums coming out, but also the band with Percy Jones has some cool stuff coming up. I'm also looking at doing some different instrumental music. I love the Trio, but this is our sixth album, and it's been twenty years with these guys, which is amazing, but I think, doing the acoustic songs on the new record, and also a lot of the acoustic playing that I've done on my own and for Instagram clips and stuff, it's got me really excited about acoustic, and the Testament song as well, the song 'Meant to Be', the slow song, that has a big acoustic element as well, so I don't know yet, but yeah, I'm kind of feeling like a big acoustic project coming on!
Alex Skolnick Trio's 'Prove You're Not a Robot' is released on 7th November 7 2025 via Flatiron Recordings.
I wrote a lot of these on piano for the first time. During the pandemic I got my piano playing up a little bit - not to the point where I'm interested in performing as a pianist. Certainly, that that would take some more work - but I know my way around the piano, and I would get into these compositions, and I ended up with enough musical ideas to transfer them to guitar and turn them into the songs you have here.
I take this isn't like a Pro Tools type thing and you were in the studio with the with the three-piece, and feeding off each other.
Yeah, that's another thing that's so fun about doing this; it's very interactive. It requires live performance. It's the band playing together, and technology is used at a minimum, which kind of connects to the title in a way. Yeah, we were in the studio at the same time, and we worked out the songs in rehearsal by playing live. It's music that can't be phoned in and it can't be built up, track by track. It's really based on live performances and just picking your favourite live performance.
There's some great guitar tones the album; from acoustic to, on opener 'Parallel Universe' where you use little bit of distortion for a Steve Vai kind of feel.
Well, when I did the first disc with the trio, I was really going for the classic quote, unquote "jazz guitar tone"; a hollow body guitar through a combo amp, and I pretty much stuck with that, and most of the album and the following records stuck with that. I feel like I've done that enough, and even though that's the main sound on this record, it's far from the only sound. I just I feel like there's a freedom to explore different sounds, which I've been getting into, and it's been a lot of fun to do that, and it's been fun using different types of gear. On 'Parallel Universe' it sounded good to just bring in a kind of distorted, smooth, instrumental rock sound on the solo.
It's really beautiful, and works brilliantly.
Thank you. Some of the others, a lot of it has this Fender Deluxe from 1965 that I picked up a couple years ago. That's just one of the best sounding amps, and I used a few different guitars. I had a loner guitar by Roger Sadowsky. He's this great builder who's best known for basses he builds that Nathan [Peck}, our bass player plays, but he makes amazing guitars, and his workshop is very close to where we recorded the album. He actually loaned me the guitar that was in his showroom, and I was just crazy about that guitar. I eventually bought that exact guitar from him, and you hear that on some of the songs. I also use this great Gibson Es-347, it's very similar to a 335, but it's got a special type of body, and it's got its own character. And the acoustic guitar is one i i bought myself as a treat. I wasn't sure how I would use it, but it's a beautiful vintage guitar from the '30s. It's an old Gibson parlour guitar, one of those small guitars, and it just sounds like it has a microphone, even when you play it by itself. The sound is so big! I also brought some of my regular acoustic guitars,
Is there ever a temptation to bring some of the jazz into Testament? After all, Marty Friedman added Spanish guitar into Megadeth's 'Holy Wars'.
I'd be all for it, but you know, the guys, they go in the directions they want to go in, and I try to work with that. It's funny, I've never had a Testament album coming out at the same time as a Trio album, but it just worked out so Testament comes out next month, and then the Trio the following month. But there is the first slow tune we've done in a while that's called 'Meant to Be' and it has a string section. I brought in a fellow I work with in the city sometimes, one of the best cello players, Dave Edgar, and he's done work with Evanescence and even pop stuff like Coldplay, and anyway, the song came out great. It's based on a part I came up with on piano that I converted to guitar and added to this intro that Eric [Peterson] had, and Chuck [Billy] built a vocal melody based on my original melody. I love how it came out. I didn't exactly try to make it jazz, but there's a solo that certainly has some jazz colour to it. The tone is definitely not the tone; it's definitely more sort of inspired by David Gilmore, for example, but I think if you were to break down some of the phrases, it certainly has some jazz elements.
Testament are returning to Ireland in just a few weeks, and I wanted to ask what your memories were of playing here in 1988, particularly in relation to playing in Belfast when the troubles were still raging.
I think that was the first time. I know we also played Dublin on that tour, but Belfast stood out. I remember it well because of the troubles, and I remember just driving through the streets, and I'd never seen anything that. It really felt like a war zone, with overturned cars and burned out buildings and soldiers. I also remember going to have a Guinness at a little stand. Basically, it was like a three-seat pub in the middle of the war zone. One of the organisers offered to bring us there. Most of the guys were scared, but Chuck and I went, and it was a real adventure. They told us just don't mention anything about the troubles, don't say your English, don't say you're Protestant. I said; "well, that's not going to be a problem!"
It's been a while since the Trio has played in Ireland; are there any European dates planned?
We played in Temple Bar in 2017, so not too long ago. We've got some dates in the US. We did some European dates back in March, and the only UK date was London, but we're going to try to get there next year as well. And yeah, Testament is going to be over there all of October, and then there's a week of the Trio in the Midwest and on the East Coast, and then back in early January, going back to the west coast and playing San Francisco Bay Area, Portland, Oregon, Seattle and places like that, straight into the NAMM show, so that should be exciting.
You've been in Testament much longer than you were the first time; is it better this time around?
Oh yeah, no comparison. I think the band being older and wiser helps a lot. I think the first time around there were a lot of learning experiences. and it just was challenging. There were a lot of challenges. Everybody was sort of finding themselves. I was finding myself, and I think coming back to it, I had this whole other identity. When I came back to it, I was still a full time musician; maybe not as busy as we are now, but I always had gigs, and I kind of felt like; "okay, I proved I can be an all round musician, somebody that doesn't just do heavy metal. I'm a full time musician, whether I'm in the band or not". I think it's better for all. I think we're better with each other, I think everybody agrees, and it's also understood now that I have other instrumental projects I do. I play with virtuosos like Percy Jones, the basis for Brand X; we have a project called PAKT. I play with Stuart Hamm; we just played about a month and a half ago out in LA I'm on his latest record.
I think having that balance of being an all around player and not just the guy from this one band, for me, that makes it better. And I think for everybody else too, we sort of learned how to have fun. It's not a toxic environment this time. It certainly got to be that way at the end of that first period of the band, and I think also just there's more appreciation. I think also, we were in a period where, even though it was the late '80s and Metallica was blowing up, and it seemed promising, very quickly it became the '90s and alternative culture, and suddenly it felt like our kind of music was being sort of dismissed by the industry, and it was very strange. I think by the time I came back, that was done, and even some of those biggest figures from that period have embraced metal. It was never against heavy metal; Dave Grohl, for example, he narrates the Lemmy movie and does metal events, Billy Corgan has come out as a huge metal head. He never disliked metal; it was never him who said; "this is what's happening".
Tom Morello is another example.
Oh, absolutely. I mean, look at the great job done he's done at events like inducting Kiss [into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014] and curating the final Sabbath Ozzy show. So the environment's much different, and, yeah, by the time I came back, you also had Ozzfest, and somehow, the fact that the band was able to come back and learn the a lot of the lessons from the first time around, it's just made this period much better.
You're incredibly busy, and I'm guessing your year 2026 is mapped out, but what's next for you?
Obviously with these main projects with the new albums coming out, but also the band with Percy Jones has some cool stuff coming up. I'm also looking at doing some different instrumental music. I love the Trio, but this is our sixth album, and it's been twenty years with these guys, which is amazing, but I think, doing the acoustic songs on the new record, and also a lot of the acoustic playing that I've done on my own and for Instagram clips and stuff, it's got me really excited about acoustic, and the Testament song as well, the song 'Meant to Be', the slow song, that has a big acoustic element as well, so I don't know yet, but yeah, I'm kind of feeling like a big acoustic project coming on!
Alex Skolnick Trio's 'Prove You're Not a Robot' is released on 7th November 7 2025 via Flatiron Recordings.
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