ICED EARTH mainman Jon Schaffer spoke to Metalexiles.com recently about a number of topics. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Metal Exiles: Why did you decide to start the Something Wicked series now and not earlier?

Jon: "The main reason was our contract with Century Media. The whole point of the trilogy at the end of Something Wicked This Way Comes was to introduce the 'Wicked' set and it was supposed to be the next two records but I decided not to resign with Century Media. I knew this was going to be a two-part series and I did not want to release one with Century and shop around for a deal with the second one. I put the whole thing on hold, did Horror Show and for SPV I did not want to open up my deal with Something Wicked because it is near and dear to my heart and I wanted to make sure things went well. So we did the Glorious Burden which SPV did a fabulous job with actually so I felt it was worth doing with them. When I first negotiated with SPV Something Wicked was part of that deal so it has been planned for years."

Metal Exiles: You have the Tim Owens thing but you have always had a revolving door. Do you think that has affected Iced Earth at all or is it all Jon Schaffer’s vision?

Jon: "Iced Earth is a vehicle for my songs, that is all it has ever been. People follow a band so they have this fantasy about how a band operates and how it must be but 99% of the time it is all horseshit because they do not know what the reality of it is. I did not start this band to be some egomaniacal rock star, I do not give a fuck about that. I do not give a fuck about being a guitar hero, those are not my goals. The guitar is a tool to write songs and Iced Earth is a vehicle for my compositions. It has also been a series struggle especially in those first 13 years with Century Media. It was a situation that most bands would have broken up under. These are all things that people do not know about and they make judgments about them and it does not bother me. Anybody that has worked with me knows that I am very fair and loyal but there is a point that I do not put up with anybody’s bullshit. At the end of the day it does not make a big difference. It has everything to do with management, record companies, booking agents, publishers. Those are the four things that matters with a bands success. It has nothing to do with Joe Blow on the drums, bass or guitar, it does not matter. If the machine is there and the product is there, which it always has been and every Iced Earth album has sold well regardless of who is in the band. People in the industry know that the record is going to sell well anyway. It is one of those things that does not concern me and no it is not all about me but it is all about my songs."