Gene Hoglan comments on his departure from Testament: “I need to keep moving forward”

Gene Hoglan, who was the drummer in Testament from 1996-1997 and from 2012-2022, officially left the band for the second time a while ago.

In a recent episode of the Talk Toomey podcast, Hoglan comments on the reasons behind his decision. According to Hoglan, the decision was made by mutual understanding and amicable agreement between the band.

“During the pandemic, I took time to start curating a lot of my projects, a lot of the things going on, so when I was laying things down on the calendar, they were just starting to kind of conflict with some of Testament’s plans, and it’s understandable.

“So when it came down to, ‘Man, we all have to do something here.’ And it all came together pretty easy, pretty quickly for Testament. When I was, like, ‘Guys, I don’t know if I can make all what you need, and I know you guys need somebody there slamming for you guys the whole round.’ Bringing in a guy for a few dates here and there while I take off and do some one-off kind of things, or while I’ve had album projects planned for coming up in summer 2022 planned in 2021 kind of thing.

“So it just became a situation where it’s, like, ‘Man, you guys need to keep moving forward. I need to keep moving forward myself. You never know about the future, but at least for right now, we’ll get you guys somebody else.’ And look who they ended up with — the mighty Mr. Dave Lombardo. Win-win all over the place. Testament fans are super happy.”