Chuck Billy of Testament has explained why his book about his cancer is arriving twenty five years after the illness rather than at any point before.
The answer he gave Eddie Trunk is not the one people expect. He did not wait because it was too painful to tell. He waited because he wanted to see what came of it, and what came of it was the band he is still in.
He would never have found his way back to Alex Skolnick, Louie Clemente and Greg Christian, he says, if he had not got sick. The benefit show pulled Exodus, Death Angel and Forbidden back into the same room, and all of them are still working now.
That is a reading of the Bay Area's second life that puts one man's illness at the centre of it, and it is hard to argue with the dates.
He goes for a check once a year and says he is careful about what he eats. Holding My Breath: The Two Testaments Of Chuck Billy is published on 10 November by Permuted Press.