Posted by Greg Prato on 12/11 at 11:43 AM
Musical trends may come and go, but you know you can always count on Iced Earth and their long-time leader, songwriter/guitarist Jon Schaffer, to offer epic metal when you need it most. And on the recently-released ‘The Crucible of Man: Something Wicked Part 2,’ Iced Earth delivers again, as they wrap up a storyline that began with their 2007 release, ‘Framing Armageddon: Something Wicked Part 1,’ and managed to do so with a singer change between both albums (former Judas Priest singer Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens went bye-bye, and in came former Iced Earth singer Matt Barlow for another go-round). Schaffer recently took time out to discuss Iced Earth’s latest release, and their long and winding career.
UGO: Let’s start off with the latest album, ‘The Crucible of Man: Something Wicked Part 2.’
Jon Schaffer: Well, the second part of the ‘Something Wicked’ saga was recorded at the same time that ‘Framing Armageddon’ was - the first part. I wrote all this stuff from February 2006 until February 2007 - that’s when we started cutting drum tracks, because I had finalized all 35 or 36 songs, whatever it was. So basically, all of this was by design. ‘Framing Armageddon’ has more of an ethereal/world instrument/tribal sort of vibe - because of the way the storyline is. And ‘Crucible’ gets very dark - that’s because ‘Crucible’ opens with the birth of the main character in the story, Set Abominae. He is the antichrist to mankind, but the savior to his own race. So it’s fitting that it’s very dark, and like I said, it was done by design. It was all done in the same three-month period. The only thing that was done later was I had to finish up some of the lyrical duties after about six or eight months of touring ‘Framing Armageddon.’ But all of the recording process was done at the same time.
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