Chuck Billy of Testament shares memories of touring with Megadeth with mixed feelings

Chuck Billy, the singer of Testament, reminisced on the band’s first-ever U.S. stadium tour in 1990, which featured Judas Priest as the main act and Megadeth as supporting acts, on the most recent episode of The David Ellefson Show. Speaking to co-host David Ellefson, who played bass for Megadeth during the aforementioned journey, Billy said this, as transcribed by blabbermouth.net.

Well, I remember we just flew in from doing big tour over in Europe. And I guess the biggest memory is the band you played in. [Laughs] No offense, Dave, but the other Dave [Mustaine]… I don’t know if you remember that tour… Because things were growing for us, we had ordered a brand new Voelker drum riser built on a riser. All these cabinets showed up, backdrops. And I don’t know if you remember, Dave [Mustaine] pulled them from us all on the start of that tour. He’d seen it and he said we couldn’t use all of that, so we couldn’t use our riser, backdrops and stuff. And my band nudged me on, because every day K.K. or Tipton would come in and say, ‘Hey, you guys good? You guys need anything?’ And [my bandmates would] be elbowing me, ‘Dude, say something, say something.’ I’m, like, ‘No, no, no.’ And then one day [they went], like, ‘Dude, just go talk to Rob, please.’ So I went in there and I told Rob what was going on, and that day he was, like, ‘What? That is ending today.’ And he went in to production and said, ‘Testament gets everything up there. Get their drums up there, get their backdrops, get everything up there.’ And when we went on that night, I know Dave [Mustaine] was side stage by the monitors — not you, Dave; the other Dave — and his arms were crossed. And he was just having a fit that we were having everything again. And it was crazy, but that was the biggest start of that tour for us. ‘Cause things were starting to happen, and we were, like, ‘Oh, man, we just bought this big show to play for Judas Priest and Megadeth, man.’ And in the end we got to use it, and it ended up being great and it was amazing. That was probably the highlight, opening up for… Myself, I played Judas Priest songs on guitar all through high school. They were my biggest heroes ever. And that tour was just like a dream come true for me.