Geeks Of Doom's Obi-Dan has issued an interview conducted with ICED EARTH mastermind Jon Schaffer. An excerpt from the chat follows:

Q: Iced Earth is pretty much booked up for the summer in Europe, then in January you are coming back for a big tour. Do you feel more at home here, is there a bigger response when you come to Europe?

A: "I don’t know, man. I mean, we are as successful in the States as we are in Europe, I would say they are equal. Clearly if you look at the per capita, the population, in a country like Greece we are much bigger there compared to anywhere else in the world, but that’s a very small market. Our goals are this summer we’re going to be recording the new studio album and in between the weekends where we perform festivals we’re going to be tracking. First we’re going to be rehearsing, working on the new songs and doing some in-person writing together. We got about seven songs finished so far and I think we’ll have another six or seven. We’re going to track in Europe and play festivals on the weekend and at some point I’ll be flying to Florida to mix the album there at Morrisound then we have a big announcement to make in the next week or two about more touring that’s going to happen in October, November, and then our headline world tour starts in January. So we’re starting in Europe but we’re going to be doing North, Central, South America, Asia, Australia, hopefully New Zealand this time around, so it’s a process. But we do love Europe, we love coming there, we’ve been coming there for 23 years now and have a lot of very loyal fans. So it’s cool but I wouldn’t say that it’s necessarily different or bigger than the States. You have to look at it in a market base. But Germany is certainly like a second home to me just because I’ve been going there so long and I have a lot of very good friends there."

Q: And so are we looking at a new album end of this year early next year?

A: "Yeah. I mean, if we can stay on track, if we don’t have any delays, we would really like to shoot for an October release for the new studio album. If we end up having some kind of a delay because it’s going to be such a tight schedule and tight timeframe in order to hand the master into the label in order for them to get it prepared for an October release...then it’s going to be January when the new stuff comes out. But I think we’re going to make the deadline happen, I feel pretty confident about that. I’ve already got the theme happening, the album cover art concept is happening, the artist is starting to work on it this week. We’re really ahead of the curve on a lot of that stuff so we’re in good shape and I think unless something crazy happens we should be able to stay on point and have that October release."

Read the complete interview at this location.

Earlier this week, Iced Earth announced that Brent Smedley will be stepping down from drum duty for personal family reasons. The new drummer will be Raphael Saini and will be performing with the group starting this summer.

“I have family members that are elderly and frail and need my help here in Jacksonville,” Brent Smedley says. “It’s been one of the hardest decisions of my life but I simply cannot commit to the kind of schedule the band deserves and requires so I decided to ask permission to step down from my post.”

Iced Earth comments; “Brent has been a valued member of the group for a long time. We thank him for his contributions, friendship and energy and wish him all the best for the future. We want to welcome Raphael with open arms and are expecting for our fans to give him the welcome he deserves”

Iced Earth just released a concert from their World Dystopia Tour in many different formats, including BluRay, DVD and CD. Entitled Live In Ancient Kourion, it shows the band playing to a rabid, packed house in an ancient amphitheater in Cyprus and storming through an encompassing setlist of both fan favourites and deep catalog material.

The summer will be spent recording and mixing a new studio album entitled Plagues Of Babylon and playing various summer festivals. A headline tour has been announced kicking off in January 2014.