Alex Skolnick has exclusively revealed that he was on standby for Megadeth in 2016. The guitar virtuoso made the revelation while chatting to eonmusic about Metal Allegiance's show at the Anaheim House of Blues tonight, January 23.
One of the elite breed of guitar shredders from the 1980s, Skolnick was famously a student of Joe Satriani, along with Steve Vai and Metallica's Kirk Hammett, and was even sought out by Ozzy Osbourne, playing a gig with the Black Sabbath legend in the UK in 1995.
When eonmusic's Eamon O'Neill put it to Skolnick that he would have been a perfect fit for the Big Four originators, he admitted that he had been on the radar of band leader Dave Mustaine for some time.
Said Alex: "I heard through the grapevine, many, many years ago [that they were interested]. I don't know, if I'd made a call secretly, and reached out to management, or whatever, and said, 'hey, I really want to give this a shot,' I'm sure maybe it could have happened, but it was, pre-Marty [Friedman, 1989], and it was during the time Testament was just up and running, and I knew, 'okay, if I were to join this other thing...' At that time with Testament, we were really finding our footing, and establishing a sound with albums like The New Order and Practice What You Preach, like now essential albums, and it just seemed like, 'okay. I'm a part of this thing.' And I think at that point Megadeth had already had three guitar players, and there'd been so many members, so it was just clear, 'okay, if you're in Megadeth, you don't know how long it's going to last.'"
It was then that Alex revealed that he had been on standby for Megadeth as recently as 2016, on reserve for Kiko Loureiro whose wife was pregnant at the time. "There were a couple shows, actually, as recently as the Kiko Loureiro era, where I was on standby to fill in", he said. "Kiko's wife was giving birth, so there was a possibility of that, and they didn't know exactly when it was going to be, and there was a possibility it was going to conflict with a show or event. So it was on standby. I learned the songs. I was ready, but as it turned out, he didn't need to miss any shows. I've always been friends with the Megadeath camp, you know, mad respect for the band, but I like my role as... occasional possible understudy is as far as it's gone."
Read the entire interview at eonmusic.co.uk, where Alex discusses the Metal Allegiance show, how his commercial ambitions were misunderstood, and how he came to rejoin Testament in 2006.
Skolnick recently spoke with Metal Insider, and in addition to discussing supergroup Metal Allegiance, he also spoke about the forthcoming new album from Testament. The band's follow-up to Titans Of Creation, which was released in 2020 via Nuclear Blast, is expected this year.
Metal Insider: Looks like you will be releasing a new album in 2025? Is there any timeframe when the album title or first single will be announced and when can we all expect the release date to be?
Alex Skolnick: "I don’t think we have decided on a title yet but the music is almost complete. There is a few tracks left to be done, in between my trips I have been plugging away at my parts, there is a couple vocal tracks left but it is very close. The album title will be decided once all the music is recorded."
Read the complete interview at Metal Insider.
