Riot Fest 2019 - Saturday
photo by James Richards IV

Testament's Chuck Billy says he's recovering from COVID-19; Death Angel issue statement on drummer

The sad/scary news recently broke that — following the Testament / Exodus / Death Angel tour in Europe — some members of those bands and family and crew members had confirmed cases and/or symptoms of coronavirus. Testament frontman Chuck Billy and his wife both had confirmed cases, Exodus (and Slayer) guitarist Gary Holt said he had symptoms, and Death Angel drummer Will Carroll has been “very sick” and in the ICU, though it hasn’t yet been made public if he tested positive for COVID-19 or not.

More updates were made today, including the good news that Chuck Billy’s condition is improving. As MetalSucks points out, Chuck did a video interview with The Metal Voice, and he said:

We just made it out of Europe so we said let’s be proactive and see where we can go get tested since we were on tour. They said to us if you don’t have symptoms you can’t get tested so we didn’t get tested. Then as the days went by we started to feel sick and then we called again and they recommended we get tested. By that time we had been in communication with band members and the crew from the bands that traveled with us. It seemed a lot of us were sick with a lot of the same symptoms. For me my symptoms were, my body ached, headaches, just felt wiped out. First I thought it was just jet lagged but then it came on like you knew you were sick and it didn’t let up. A lot of sleeping. I really didn’t get the fever, just the coughing, tired just slept a lot. Then we did the drive through tests and it took 7 days to get results. So by the time we got our results we were getting better, it slowly was going away. I noticed the first day or two it was huffing and puffing just walking to the bathroom and back but it didn’t get any worse. We weren’t over exerting ourselves. Getting better as time went by, resting and isolating ourselves. Hopefully people will do the right thing and stay isolated as long as they can.

[…] My wife and I feel like we’re in pretty good health. Right away, we isolated ourselves, quarantined and just haven’t left and we’re just riding it out and feeling better as the days go on.

I think today was probably our most active day. We’re up and out, trying to get out and do some things, where before, we were just shut down, stuck on the couch.

We’re glad to hear it! Chuck also said that he’s “sure” Testament’s April tour with The Black Dahlia Murder and Municipal Waste is going to get postponed, not that there’s anything surprise there.

Here’s the full interview:

In other news, Death Angel have issued an official statement on Will Carroll’s condition:

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your overwhelming support, well wishes, and kind words regarding our friend and brother Will Carroll. The messages have reached us and all of his loved ones. We ask that you keep putting that wonderful energy out there for him. It will help all of us, and most importantly Will, to get through all of this.

We also ask that at this very sensitive time to also please respect his family’s space and privacy, as well as ours regarding this matter, as we all want the same result…Will’s full recovery as soon as possible.

Once again, we all truly appreciate the incredible support and love for him! Please keep it up!

We look forward to reuniting with all of you on the other side of this sensitive time that is new to all of us.

Until then…
Please be safe and kind to each other!
We’re all in this together…And United we’ll live forever!!

With love,
DEATH ANGEL

Exodus vocalist Steve “Zetro” Souza also recently said on his YouTube show Zetro’s Toxic Vault, “If I have [the disease], I don’t have any symptoms of it.” Good news.