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Eric Peterson on Testament and 40 Years in Thrash
Episode 015 – Eric Peterson | MAKE // BREAK
Eric Peterson is the founding guitarist and primary songwriter of Bay Area thrash legends Testament, a band that’s spent more than four decades pushing heavy music forward while peers have fallen away. With Testament’s fourteenth album Para Bellum, he’s still co-producing, evolving the band’s sound, and keeping the riffs sharper than players half his age. In this episode of MAKE // BREAK, Eric sits down with host Lance Marwood to unpack the real cost of that longevity: the grind of touring and airports, staying physically ready for extreme music, protecting creativity in an AI era, and why horror films, cult novels, and personal taste still shape everything he writes.
👀 What you’ll hear
- Unpack how Eric turned flyering, bar gigs and bad jobs into a four decade thrash career
- Explore why Para Bellum still feels like a first album and how Testament keep evolving
- Dig into riff writing, flow states and what separates a cool idea from a career song
- Break down the ugliest parts of touring, airport purgatory and staying physically ready for stage intensity
- Debate AI, taste and keeping music human, plus horror movies, cult fiction and weird reading recs
🕰️ Chapters
00:00 Intro, Testament overview and setting up Para Bellum
01:15 Make or break moments, legacy decisions and early DIY grind
03:30 Old school flyering and networking vs today’s digital promotion
06:45 Ageing, health and playing extreme thrash into your 50s
09:30 Touring realities, airport lines, boredom and burnout on the road
14:30 Writing Para Bellum while chasing the feeling of the first records
20:20 Taste, identity and how horror and cult films feed Eric’s imagination
28:45 Books on the road, Master and Margarita and other strange reading recs
32:30 Riff writing, flow state jams, Logic demos and editing with the band
37:30 Surviving industry shifts from tape trading to streaming, algorithms and AI
44:20 Legacy, repeating yourself without cloning old riffs, and ACDC as a model
48:40 Honest advice for bedroom players learning Testament riffs on YouTube
🔗 Guest Links
https://www.testamentlegions.com/site/
https://linktr.ee/TestamentLegions
https://www.instagram.com/ericpetersonofficial/
http://www.enterthedragonlord.com/
🔗 MAKE // BREAK & Host Links
https://open.spotify.com/show/5GDOUd909p7ir2W74M9teg?si=cbc7e01e13ba4a20
https://instagram.com/lowkeyhellish
https://tiktok.com/@lowkeyhellish
🔗 V13 Media Links
https://v13.net
Subscribe for more MAKE // BREAK conversations and drop a comment on how AI should shape metal’s future
(explicit language)
#MakeBreak #EricPeterson #Testament
View all episodes
By V13 Media GroupEpisode 015 – Eric Peterson | MAKE // BREAK
Eric Peterson is the founding guitarist and primary songwriter of Bay Area thrash legends Testament, a band that’s spent more than four decades pushing heavy music forward while peers have fallen away. With Testament’s fourteenth album Para Bellum, he’s still co-producing, evolving the band’s sound, and keeping the riffs sharper than players half his age. In this episode of MAKE // BREAK, Eric sits down with host Lance Marwood to unpack the real cost of that longevity: the grind of touring and airports, staying physically ready for extreme music, protecting creativity in an AI era, and why horror films, cult novels, and personal taste still shape everything he writes.
👀 What you’ll hear
- Unpack how Eric turned flyering, bar gigs and bad jobs into a four decade thrash career
- Explore why Para Bellum still feels like a first album and how Testament keep evolving
- Dig into riff writing, flow states and what separates a cool idea from a career song
- Break down the ugliest parts of touring, airport purgatory and staying physically ready for stage intensity
- Debate AI, taste and keeping music human, plus horror movies, cult fiction and weird reading recs
🕰️ Chapters
00:00 Intro, Testament overview and setting up Para Bellum
01:15 Make or break moments, legacy decisions and early DIY grind
03:30 Old school flyering and networking vs today’s digital promotion
06:45 Ageing, health and playing extreme thrash into your 50s
09:30 Touring realities, airport lines, boredom and burnout on the road
14:30 Writing Para Bellum while chasing the feeling of the first records
20:20 Taste, identity and how horror and cult films feed Eric’s imagination
28:45 Books on the road, Master and Margarita and other strange reading recs
32:30 Riff writing, flow state jams, Logic demos and editing with the band
37:30 Surviving industry shifts from tape trading to streaming, algorithms and AI
44:20 Legacy, repeating yourself without cloning old riffs, and ACDC as a model
48:40 Honest advice for bedroom players learning Testament riffs on YouTube
🔗 Guest Links
https://www.testamentlegions.com/site/
https://linktr.ee/TestamentLegions
https://www.instagram.com/ericpetersonofficial/
http://www.enterthedragonlord.com/
🔗 MAKE // BREAK & Host Links
https://open.spotify.com/show/5GDOUd909p7ir2W74M9teg?si=cbc7e01e13ba4a20
https://instagram.com/lowkeyhellish
https://tiktok.com/@lowkeyhellish
🔗 V13 Media Links
https://v13.net
Subscribe for more MAKE // BREAK conversations and drop a comment on how AI should shape metal’s future
(explicit language)
#MakeBreak #EricPeterson #Testament