By Mark Gromen

ICED EARTH founder Jon Schaffer is in Boston when I call, fitting that the tinderbox which launched America’s fight for independence plays a backdrop for the forthcoming SONS OF LIBERTY video. “We’re doing the ‘Spirit Of The Times’, says the guitarist nonchalantly. They’re doing a movie, called Silver Circle. It’s about economic collapse and rebellion. It’s going to be animated and they’re using some (of my) music for the soundtrack and they filmed the video to be a bonus on the DVD. I even did a little cameo appearance (see Silvercirclemovie.com for more information)."

However ideologically important his political discourse side-project is to Schaffer personally, it remains a “cameo” compared to the blockbuster he’s created over the past 25 years, ie. Iced Earth. That said, the personnel carousel, especially in the lead singer slot, has been a distraction for some. Dystopia heralds the introduction of Stu Block formerly of Canuck screamers INTO ETERNITY. Schaffer is noticeably chuffed at his latest addition. “Robert Kampf, from Century Media, told me about Stu. I was like, ‘Yeah, those guys (Into Eternity) opened for us. I remember them.’ So we checked out some video. I could tell the guy had that look in his eyes, but the voice, I was unsure of, because it was so different, progressive death metal. I could hear the potential when he went into the big melodic things and the Halford like stuff. I was wondering, ‘What’s his middle range like,’ because I couldn’t find anything. That’s Iced Earth, the mid-range. Yeah, we have a dynamic scream every once in a while, but the middle range is where our music is. ‘We’ll have to explore this (guy’s ability).’ We had people submit demos, but I got a hold of Stu pretty early in the process and it just clicked. He was so excited to explore that part of his voice and music as dynamic as Iced Earth. It just felt really good.”

Schaffer has been pretty vocal about the desire to tour relentlessly, so I wonder if Block’s willingness to travel, as his former employer was sometimes the butt of jokes, opening “every” North American tour for a few years, played in his favor, when securing the job? “Maybe a little, but I can read people pretty well and certainly recognize talent, when it’s there. The biggest thing was this guy has the spirit the band needs. He’s got the melody, the aggression, the passion. Attitude-wise, he was a lot like Matt was in the early days. Very similar attitude and work ethic. His background too. Matt was into acting and drama class in high school. Stu was into that as well, so he understands the story telling aspect, the dynamic of what Iced Earth is. He gets it. I felt there was a loyalty, a commitment, that kind of spirit. You can just feel it. Everything else, we can conquer together.”

The new partnership, as Block had an amazing amount of input on Dystopia, even moreso if one believes the tight reins Schaffer has always guided Iced Earth by, is just what the mainman needed. “We discussed the themes of what he’d be writing about and ‘End Of Innocence’ was the first song we wrote together. The day before he came to try out, I sent him the music (and one other song, which became ‘Dark City’) and said, ‘See what you can come up with. You have very little time!’ He came in with that. The lyrics changed and evolved, naturally and with ‘Dark City’, the whole thing changed, but it was about half way through ‘End Of Innocence’ I thought, ‘I think we found our guy.’ I think I told him after we started ‘Dark City’; ‘You’ve got the gig.’ He very open minded. His attitude is great. He’s got the tools to do this. We spent a lot of time together, working on his vocal parts. He’s got the right kind of passion and he’s committed to the band. We’ve needed that for a long time. I’m not slighting anyone. When Tim (Ripper Owens) came in, he’d just left Priest and was strongly considering a solo career. That was always looming there. When Matt (Barlow) came back, it was under part-time conditions. He wanted to pursue his career and stay with his family. I was like, ‘Yeah, I think we can do that. Go out and tour once in a while and put out a record.’ The industry is changing rapidly and I had my awakening and I’m more energized. In order for a band to stay relevant, it needs to tour. I’ve never been happier, more focused and driven. It’s hard to walk around in life, knowing something’s wrong, but you can’t pinpoint it. It’s very liberating when you figure things out and see life clearly. I made this decision 25 years ago, that this is my career. I completely understand what Matt’s doing. I love the guy and I wish him all the best for the future, but we’re opening a new and exciting chapter of Iced Earth. Stu’s going to play an important role in that. He’s committed and that’s a great feeling to have again. It’s been about a decade since we’ve had that.”

The album has some thematically linked songs, most written about movies that feature dystopian themes, but the album’s opening title track and the (dare I say punky/Anthrax styled riffing on closer) ‘Tragedy And Triumph are both part of the Set Abominae storyline first introduced in the Something Wicked trilogy.. “I know man. When I wrote it, I was like, ‘Where is this coming from?’ It worked out perfectly, because it has a positive feel to it and that’s how we wanted to end the album. Instead of ending with a giant epic or something really dark (there’s a lot of dark spots on the album, vibe wise, peppered throughout with some hopefully inspiring stuff for people), but I wanted to end on a positive note for once. Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part.”

It was a conscious decision to bookend the rest of the material with the ongoing storyline, albeit in such a small dose. “Once we decided on the(dystopian) theme, it was definitely on purpose. It’s very dystopian, the Something Wicked story and I knew the cover idea I had would make a bitching cover and still be able to keep that theme. Some people were like, ‘We’re tried of big concept albums’ and I wasn’t really in the mood to do it. If I was, I would have done it. This is more a back to the roots, kick in the nuts (album) but it still has a thread of that (Set Abominae story) for the people that dig it. The Something Wicked storyline is in the opening and closing song and there are specific songs (about films) like ‘V’ (For Vendetta and the bonus track ‘Soylent Green’), which is about the tyranny that’s unfolding all around us. There’s definitely some of that (Sons Of Liberty mindset) in there, but it’s more veiled. It’s not a kick in the face. It is musically, or sonically, but from a message aspect, it’s a little more abstract. There’s about half the album linked to the idea of dystopia. But then there’s stuff like ‘End Of Innocence’, which Stu wrote for his mother, who is suffering from cancer. ‘Anguish And Resolve’ is one I wrote, about a teenage girl who’s contemplating suicide. She struggling with life then has this nightmare, which kind of shows her a different perspective. There are different things, but they tend to have this (dystopian) view. There is a lot of positive stuff on here as well. One of them is a bonus track, ‘Iron Will’ which is really an uplifting tune. ‘Anthem’ is pretty uplifting too. Some of this stuff is really dark and heavy, but I’d say there’s at least three or four songs that are inspiring and hopeful sounding. We wanted to offer that as well.”

Often, the positive vibe Schaffer mentions comes in the form of acoustic interludes. While not unheard of in the past, they’re more prominent than on any other album. “There’s only two songs,” he briefly protests, “Anguish Of Youth’ and ‘End Of Innocence’. In the beginning of ‘Anthem’, yeah. If you analyze the catalog, there’s always been those moments where we go into a more emotive (phase), almost Pink Floyd in some respects. I don’t know if we caught that with this album, but we have in the past. I love the dynamic. That’s what makes Iced Earth what it is. You’ve got parts that are full blown raging, parts that make you want to cry, parts that make you want to slam your head against the wall, some you can sing along (be it the music, or vocal sections). It’s an emotional rollercoaster ride and if we ever lose that, it stops being Iced Earth.”

The first note people hear from Block will be a piercing scream that introduces ‘Dystopia’, destined to be the live opener on tour. Was it important to hit the fans with that sort of vocal calling card right out of the gate? “No, that was actually a last minute addition. Stu said, ‘Would it be cool if I do this (scream) here?’ I was like, ‘OK, but not a high, falsetto thing, because that would be too cliché.’ We did it and it feels real good. It sort of describes the horror. What was more important to me, by opening with ‘Dystopia’, was to show, in one song, some of the different colors in Stu’s voice: the vitriol and anger in the verses, the Halford like stuff in the pre-chorus and in chorus you’ve got the cool, melodic soaring stuff. So in that first song you get a taste of what Stu can do. It’s a new way of singing for him. He never pushed, or worked his middle range. He’s thrilled about it. He’s got so many tools to work with. He gets it and is excited, because he didn’t know he had it in him. It’s a relief to me, to have a partner who can help with the vocal melodies and cadences. Lyrics have never really been an issue in the past, but Stu has contributed quite a bit. We worked on stuff together and he wrote a couple of songs on his own. I wrote a few on my own. The bulk of the record, we did together, as far as his parts. It takes a lot of pressure off my shoulders, knowing we have that chemistry. That was really what determined him getting the gig. I had him do a couple of old tracks for an audition, but what it came down to was can we work together, what can we create, do we have chemistry. We definitely do and he gets our sense of humor, which is really important.”

Of the recently issued Festivals Of The Wicked DVD compilation, Schaffer says, “When that crew was following us around, it was just a few weeks after Matt had come back. It was kind of old and outdated and took way longer than it should have, to get finished. It’s cool, but it’s not the definitive DVD. It’s the best live one we’ve done yet, but it’s festivals and old catalog mostly. It’s not Iced Earth headlining, where we control our own dedicated film crew. That’s the DVD I’m looking forward to making: where we have our stage show and our thing going on. Our plans are to do a live DVD after the next album with Stu. We’ll have a lot of new material and recording a fair amount from Horrorshow on, because that stuff’s not been captured in the live set yet.”

Hopefully people will still be interested in purchasing music in a few years, as Schaffer has intimated (via comments about Spotify) that the industry needs to re-think how it does business. One of those concessions this time around was additional bonus tracks. “The label really needed them to help them sell physical product,” he contends. “We did two (“Iron Will’ and ‘Soylent Green’), but we also did a couple of cover tunes. I think Itunes gets an exclusive and there’s one that might be for exclusive download. Century Media needed that and we’re trying to cooperate the best we can.” There was never any debate which tunes would make the final album running order though. We just (recorded) those (extra tracks) at the end. I hate to say it, because I think every song is strong, but maybe the ones that stayed on the main version of the album were the most hooky. People in our little group here think ‘Iron Will’ is one of their favorite songs, but I expect the real fans will buy the digi-pak version and get everything anyway. My favorites are ‘Dystopia’ and ‘Anthem’ (both video tracks, no less), but ‘Dark City’ is up there too. Labels are becoming less relevant every day, as are hard copy magazines. The news is out on the internet worldwide within an hour of when it happens. Everything is changing, but at the end of the day, I hope it will be better for the artist. If you can deliver product directly to the fans, then the bands will finally prosper. When you take a pie and divide it up, what a band actually gets for all its work (after label, management, agents, retailers, distributors…) is a pretty small chunk. That’s the one good thing that could come out of this, but then you’re relying on people’s integrity. In today’s world, there’s not a whole lot of that. Everyone feels like they’re owed something for free. They don’t realize we bust our asses to make this music a reality and if you have a generation of kids growing up with that attitude, it’s a tough thing to turn around. In the old days, when the album was out, the tour would support the album. Now, it’s an advertising gimmick to go out on the road. Unfortunately I feel that’s what the digital age has brought us. Luckily Iced Earth has a loyal fan base that wants the artwork and physical product, but I do see the writing on the wall. We’re going to forge our future and destiny, touring our balls off and planting the seed in a lot of countries we’ve never played. We’ll never be the victim!”

You can take the politics out of the lyrics, but you can’t take the politics out of the man.

For more details visit Icedearth.com.