Iced Earth

Having steered Iced Earth through more than their fair share of line up changes, Jon Schaffer is one of metal’s most long standing and resilient figures.

We were lucky enough to catch up with Jon at the commencement of the band’s European tour…

Interview w/ Jon Schaffer (Guitars)

of Iced Earth

By Cameron Chambers 

How are you this evening John? 

Ok man, how are you? 

Yeah good thanks man. I know

we've strapped for time this evening so let's get on with it! 

Let's do it. 

Last night was the opening

guys? 

Uh, it was good. It wasn’t actually

the opening date though... I think we’ve actually played eight or

nine shows now.  

Always good when you get up

to date info off the net. 

Ha ha. It’s going good though.

It's getting better all the time.  

The band... well, this lineup

hasn’t had that many shows together but we’re getting tighter and

more comfortable with eachother every show. 

Is the current set list a good

recent record “Framing Armageddon”? 

We're doing four or five songs

off the new album and then mixing up the setlist from a lot of different

eras of Iced Earth. I would never do too much from a new album... I've

always found that to be disappointing as a fan if a band does that. 

A lot of times people haven't

had a chance to absorb your new material yet and when you have a catalogue

as big as ours... well, that can be special to a lot of people so we

like to touch on different eras of the band. 

“Framing Armageddon” has

– was there any relevance to releasing it on September 11^th? 

It has no relevance whatsoever.

This story is ten years old so... I came up with the story way before

the whole nine/eleven thing so yeah, it really has no relevance. 

It's just science fiction man..

some twisted horror conspiracy story that I came up with years ago. 

The themes that populate “Framing

carried out in the name of god and country? 

Nope. The story has been set in

stone and has nothing to do with anything that has been going on recently. 

There's been nothing happening

in recent events that's any different to anything else that's happened

in human history. Shit's been going on for years so this is nothing

new.  

The final chapter in this thematic

2008 – are the lyrics for this record decided on already? 

It will definitely not be called

that... it's purely a working title. It's... I'm working on it at the

moment.  

Basically all the drums, rhythm

guitars, bass and a lot of the leads are already finished but I'm umm,

yet to finish writing the lyrics and the vocal arrangements. Once that's

finished the goal is to track the rest of the record in January and

then get it mastered in February. Once that's all done we're shooting

for a May or maybe June release.  

“Framing Armageddon” is

Dennis and Brent had an influence on how the album turned out? 

Not really actually. Because Dennis...

you haven't seen the credits by asking that question obviously. 

Troy played a couple of guitar

solos... he probably only played two minutes on the album. Dennis only

played fretless bass on the intro to The Clouding and the intro

to one other song. I did the rest of the bass because he came into the

band really late. 

I wrote the whole thing by myself

in my own studio on my pro tools rig so the record had very little to

do with outside stuff. Our other guitarist Tim came up with a couple

of riffs that I used for songs but that's about it. 

Over the last 10 years it

your opinion on the current crop of metal bands? 

I don't really have an opinion...

I don't give a shit what anyone else does. I don't have any time to

worry about what anyone else does... I'm only worried about keeping

Iced Earth alive. 

I'm not concerned with other bands

and trends and flavours of the week. I don't give a fuck... I just don't

have any time for it. 

My days of music being a hobby

or as a fan is gone. It's unfortunate... I'm a writer and a band leader

and it takes every waking moment just to keep moving forward. I don't

follow what's going and I don't care. I just worry about what Iced Earth

does. 

Once your current European

line up? 

Umm, yeah, it's gonna be awesome.

Obviously the Heaven And Hell thing is cool... I'm a big fan

of Black Sabbath and I always have been. It's an honour to be able to

do this! 

I love Ronnie (James Dio) to death...

he's one of the greatest people I've met in the music business and besides

that, I'm a fan of his music. It's awesome and I'm looking forward to

it! 

It's a big opportunity for us

because prior to this we've only done one show in London in twenty years

so it's a market that's never been worked properly. It's just a great

opportunity for us to do some work over there. 

How do you think the Lamb Of

like yourselves? 

I don't know and I don't really

care. They'll know we're there. We're heavy and we're intense.  

Some people think being heavy

is defined as tuning down and doing cookie monster vocals. To me, that's

not heavy... it's cheesy. I'm not saying Lamb Of God is cheesy but I

find people's definitions to be funny. 

Heavy music moves people emotionally

and you can do that with three notes... like the song Black Sabbath.

It doesn't mean you need 250 BPM on the double bass and vocals with

no melody... you can make people react through melody... like our song The Clouding, it's heavy emotionally. 

I've never concerned myself with

things like that. If we do a festival and it's a mixed bill people are

either gonna get it or they won't. I won't lose any sleep if the don't...

it's not a goal to try and please everyone. You just do what you do

and do it honestly. Even if it's not their thing they can appreciate

the honesty.

Who are some bands you’ve

something different? 

Actually... I'm into Wolfmother

big time! I think they're cool. It reminds me of old Black Sabbath and

Zeppelin... like those days. 

It's, you now, probably one of

the few bands I've heard recently that I feel like if they keep their

heads together then they can really do something. You can hear their

influences but they have the ability to put their own stamp on it.  

That's usually where people fall

short. Other bands use their influences too much and don't have a voice

of their own and i'm not just talking about the vocals... I'm talking

in general. Those guys can develop even more as they go on if they keep

their heads together and don't get too big too fast and get involved

with drugs and listen to their management too much.  

It'll be interesting to see what

happens. They are one of the few bands I've got excited about in a while.

A lot of people are like “it's not metal” but fuck it! I've

heard so much generic metal it's nice to hear something refreshing.

The market is saturated with so much bullshit most of the time that

I'm like... well, it's rare that stuff appeals to me.  

I'm somewhat jaded... I realise

that. I'm in this business and have been for so long that your perspective

changes. Even you, as a journalist, once you listen to twenty CD's a

day your opinion of what's good and what's not will change and you'll

find it harder to hear something that's different or any good. 

What have Iced Earth got planned

after your UK tour? Is an Australian tour on the cards any time soon? 

Yes, we're going to get there

in 2008. I'm sure of it! Actually, Hanzi from Blind Guardian has put

us on to a promoter that's interested and it's something we've wanted

to do for a long time. 

It's looing more and more like

it's going to happen all the time. I've been to Australia on a vacation

with my mother once and it was great. The people were cool and I loved

it... I had a great and it would be great to take the band over and

see what the fans are like.  

My first priority though is to

get part two wrapped up. Once I get home I'll tae four or five

days off to rest and spend some time with the family and then I'll hit

the studio to knock it out. That's the plan and once part two

is done then we can move on to lots of touring.  

We've got a lot of touring to

do! 

Demons And Wizards (Jon’s

are we going to be hearing a new record? 

No... that probably won't be happening

actually. Hanzi's only now just wrapping up the Blind Guardian stuff

and I'm just getting started with Iced Earth. I doubt we're going to

do anything for a few years. 

We squeezed the last Demons

album in and it wasn't really fair to the record in some ways... it

could've been better. We both knew if we didn't do it then it would've

been another four or five year wait.  

We wanna avoid that this time

and just do it properly... you know, give it the time it deserves. We'll

be spending more time on it, more so on the writing process than anything.

We want to put something out that we're really happy with. That band

isn't about staying on a schedule... it's about friendship and doing

it when we feel like it.  

That’s all we’ve got

time for mate, is there anything else you’d like to say? 

Nah. I just wanted to say thanks

for the support over there. We're excited about coming over there and

our record company has said that there's more interest in Australia

than ever before. We're just looking forward to coming over there! 

Cool. Have a good show this

evening. 

Take care brother.

Moral of the story kids...

and treat it like a job! 

For more information on Iced Earth

head to: 

http://www.icedearth.com