Jorge Ciudad from Chile's PowerMetal.cl spoke to KAMELOT guitarist Thomas Youngblood and he confirmed those "religious" rumors about singer Roy Khan and his current situation in the band. Here are a few excerpts from the chat:

Thomas talks about the first Kamelot show with Fabio Lione (RHAPSODY OF FIRE) on vocals, which is going to take place in Santiago de Chile:

Youngblood: "Yeah, it’s gonna be the first show and we are gonna be doing some rehearsals here in Florida before that, of course. But I’ve heard some songs with Fabio, singing some Kamelot songs like Ghost Opera, and he sings quite different than he does with Rhapsody for Kamelot, which also of course makes sense, because it’s a different approach o vocals (…) Obviously, the hi-range that he can do with songs like 'Centre Of The Universe' or 'Nights Of Arabia'… these are songs that we (silence). I think that Roy over the years, his range has dropped!, so a song like 'Nights Of Arabia' is no problem for Fabio to sing."

About the rumor that Khan has simply found religion and the music world is just a distant memory now:

Youngblood: "We love performing, we love touring, and... I don’t know if Roy has lost that, kind of... in his heart, you know? In terms of what he likes doing. I know that there are some other issues. I know that there is a religious aspect to it now that I can’t really 100% explain. Obviously we were disappointed and you know, I’m not gonna lie: I was a little pissed off about it, but at the same time, the whole band together decided 'listen, we are not gonna slow down! We’ve got this new album and we wanna come to South America.' The religious aspect is something that I wanna let him to kinda talk about, but I know that he had been going to religion classes for whatever reason, you know? Obviously, over the years of working together, being at times best friends and things like that, we have discussed all kind of topics about religion, so it’s actually very surprising to me that this is where we are at now with him! But really, I don’t really want to talk too much more about it because that’s really something I think that he should come out about, in terms of what he believes or doesn’t believe or whatever."

About the possibility of needing to find a new singer for Kamelot:

Youngblood: "All I can say is that we are not gonna fire him, that’s not my position and I... it is my position!, but I’m not gonna do that (...) if Roy decides that he doesn’t want to do this anymore, he has to make an announcement. Right now, the smartest thing for us, and the most compassionate thing is to just give him the time until the next record, when we start really working hard on the next album, and if by that time he is not ready to work or he doesn’t wanna work, then we will have to look at the possibility of getting another singer, which is obviously something that we are ready/willing to do if we have to do that."

Read the entire interview here.

Check out the entire conversation on YouTube below: