Greg Hasbrouck from ProgPower USA conducted an exclusive interview with NEVERMORE/SANCTUARY frontman Warrel Dane recently which will be published in the ProgPower USA XII program that is distributed to all fans at the festival. Here are a few excerpts from the chat:

ProgPower USA: First of all, I want to ask you, how's Jim (Sheppard; bass) doing?

Dane: "He's been great. It's about a six month recovery period, after you have major brain surgery... the kind that he had. It's only been a little over three months now. He's doing well. Actually recovering better than they expected him to. But still, it's a little bit of a long road with something like that."

ProgPower USA: OK... what can you reveal about the new (Sanctuary) disc? Are you targeting a release date yet? Are all the songs written? Is it just a matter of tracking them? Where is everything as it stands today?

Dane: "We're in the writing process. I can give you, maybe, a little bit of an exclusive thing right now. I think the record is going to be called, The Year The Sun Died. And there's a lot of stuff playing into that, and you can read whatever you want to for right now into it. God, that song is really good. We've been working really hard on that. It's not going to sound like the old ones... it's 2011. It's still gonna be that good I think, and there's gonna be high-pitched screaming. I'm making sure of that. With Nevermore high-pitched screaming was never really called for. You know, with Sanctuary… of course it is."

ProgPower USA: So let's segue there. The obvious first question, is Nevermore done?

Dane: "No."

ProgPower USA: Definitely not? There will definitely be another Nevermore album?

Dane: "Oh yeah."

ProgPower USA: Perfect. And can you ever see yourself reconciling with Jeff and Van (Williams) or are those bridges burned?

Dane: "One bridge is burned, the other I'm still... It's like getting a very painful divorce. If you want to repair the situation you can, but there's one where I don't want to. I miss those guys. I think they made bad decisions. I'm going to Emo if I keep talking about it."

ProgPower USA: Understood. Let me ask you this. At one point, there were all these rumors about disharmony within the camp. And on the (Nevermore) forum you made the comment, "... after so many years together you become a family, of course we fucking fight, we make up..." Was that you trying to keep the peace and keeping the alarmist element from rearing its head?

Dane: "Kind of, yeah."

ProgPower USA: So, were you genuinely surprised when they quit or was that a long time coming?

Dane: "Yes... I was. I was extremely surprised and very, very upset and still am. As I... uh, yeah... I don't want to get messy."

Read the entire interview here.

The reumited Sanctuary - featuring Nevermore's Warrel Dane and Jim Sheppard - are confirmed for Progpower USA XII which is being held from September 14th-17th at Center Stage in Atlanta, GA. The line-up includes:

Friday, September 16th: SANCTUARY, IHSAHN, MOB RULES, ELDRITCH, VOYAGER, DARKWATER and CREATION'S END.

Saturday, September 17th: THERION, DREAM EVIL, LABYRINTH, RED CIRCUIT, WHILE HEAVEN WEPT and HAKEN.

For more details visit Facebook.