SEFOTEU\\ Drummer PAUL BOSTAPH Quits TESTAMENT

TESTAMENT frontman Chuck Billy has confirmed to U.K.'s Terrorizer magazine that drummer Paul Bostaph has left the band.

Due to a "serious injury," Bostaph was absent from the recording sessions for TESTAMENT's new album, "The Dark Roots Of Earth", which is scheduled for release on April 27, 2012 via Nuclear Blast Records. He was replaced in the studio by Gene "The Atomic Clock" Hoglan (ex-DARK ANGEL, ex-STRAPPING YOUNG LAD, FEAR FACTORY, DETHKLOK), who also sat behind the kit for select dates on TESTAMENT's recent North American tour with ANTHRAX.

"We just found our last week Paul Bostaph is not coming back to the band, he's starting his own new project and doing some things on his own," Billy told Terrorizer. "So we're actually going to be holding a couple of auditions with probably small group of drummers that we chose — we don't want to have a revolving drum stool, we have a new record we want a permanent drummer."

According to Chuck, the split with Bostaph is amicable. "We're still buddies," he said. "It's just that Paul feels at this point in his career he wants to be in a little more in control of the artistic creation of the songs and with his new project, they are all involved with that process whereas with our group, Eric [Peterson, guitar] is pretty much the main songwriter and that's just the way its been with us for 25 years."

LAMB OF GOD drummer Chris Adler plays on one track on "The Dark Roots Of Earth", which was helmed by veteran British producer Andy Sneap (MEGADETH, EXODUS, NEVERMORE, MACHINE HEAD, ARCH ENEMY).