Testament frontman Chuck Billy has spoken about his upcoming memoir, Holding My Breath: The Two Testaments of Chuck Billy, due Nov. 10, 2026 via Permuted Press, in a new interview with Scott Davidson of Chicago’s Rebel Radio — including the emotional experience of receiving the foreword from Judas Priest singer Rob Halford.
When asked how he secured Halford and Lamb of God’s Randy Blythe to write the foreword and afterword, respectively, Billy said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth): “I did. And I had to get up a bunch of nerve to do it, because you wanna ask, but you don’t wanna be rejected. So it takes a minute to kind of get up the nerve to say, ‘Okay, I’m ready for the rejection if he says no.’ So when I wrote Randy, Randy was all in. He’s all, ‘Hell yeah. F*** yeah, man. I’ll do whatever you need.’ And then Rob as well. I finally had the nerve to reach out to Rob, and right away he came back saying, yeah, he’d be honored to do it. And within two days I had it. He wrote it. And it blew me away. It brought me almost to tears, the words he said, so it was awesome.”
Holding My Breath is co-written with Dave Erickson and structured as two interlocking testaments. The Old Testament covers the explosive birth of Bay Area thrash metal, the formation of Testament, rivalries, brotherhood and the chaos of becoming one of the genre’s most powerful voices. The New Testament is a rawer account — Billy at 38, blindsided by a devastating cancer diagnosis, drawing on his Native American and Mexican-American heritage, spiritual healers and visions, and the fierce love of the metal community. At the center is the legendary “Thrash of the Titans” benefit concert in 2001, which rallied old rivals into brothers and helped ignite a genre revival while keeping Billy in the fight.
Billy was diagnosed with germ cell seminoma — a rare type of cancer — roughly a quarter century ago, and has been cancer-free for over two decades following chemotherapy and traditional Native American healing, including the help of spiritual healers. He was declared cancer-free in 2002.
Billy has been honored with a California State Assembly recognition for his positive influence on Native communities, was part of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian exhibition “Up Where We Belong: Native Musicians in Popular Culture,” and won “Best Music Video” at the American Indian Film Festival for “Native Blood.” Holding My Breath: The Two Testaments of Chuck Billy is available for pre-order at chuckbillybook.com.
