Heavy New York recently caught up with Iced Earth guitarist / founder Jon Schaffer and Blind Guardian frontman Hansi Kürsch, who discussed the forthcoming album, III, from their side project, Demons & Wizards.

Hansi: "It felt more than just natural. It was an enjoyable trip to work on this stuff. I still believe we're still talking about the first two songs ('Diabolic' and 'Midas Disease'), especially 'Diabolic', which was intended to be this statement and it had that impact when the video came out, you really could feel how amazed people were. That even increases my expectations for this album, while 'Midas Disease' is so unusual that people might be a little confused about it, but if you hear the whole album, then you will see, that's one more journey into a completely different direction. For us, that is the most enjoyable trip of all of them because it's so rock and roll-ish and let your hair down. It's more or less just letting go, and I really love that about that song. I feel it matches our personalities so well, even though it's a completely different genre."

Jon: "The music always happens organically, but the one thing we had talked about was to embrace the classic rock side of the things Hansi and I love and some of our influences. Some of my favorite parts of things that we scratched on the first two Demons records, there are some of those elements, the classic rock vibe in there, so we had that discussion beforehand to embrace that a little more." 

On February 21, Demons & Wizards will release their new studio album, III, and now present another track from this impressive opus.

Hansi Kürsch states: “Meanwhile, you all should have heard the epic ‘Diabolic’ and as second impression of III we offer you the complete opposite now: The four and a half minutes of ‘Midas Disease’! The song reminds me of one of these good old hard rock bands, playing on and on for more than 40 years, I guess you’ll know whom I refer to once you hear it. ‘Midas Disease’ has a cunning vibe, which I absolutely love. It is pure honesty.”

Jon Schaffer adds: “I had a working title of ‘Unbroken’ for this song, and when I sent it to Hansi, he instantly liked it. We both feel it added a totally different dimension to an already very diverse album. It’s straight-up fists in the air hard rock/heavy metal song, which was certainly inspired by the riffing and rhythmic abilities of Malcolm Young and I personally dedicate it to his memory. You are missed Sir Malcolm!”

III can now be pre-ordered in a variety of luxurious and limited formats, here.

Demons & Wizards is one of the most legendary collaborations in the history of heavy metal, uniting the talents of Jon Schaffer (Iced Earth) and Hansi Kürsch (Blind Guardian) who are friends for nearly three decades.

Demons & Wizards musically embodies both musician’s stylistic trademarks and has resulted so far in two hugely celebrated studio albums, Demons & Wizards and Touched By The Crimson King. Both records have been reissued in 2019 on time with the group’s extremely successful return to the world’s stages. Throughout the year, Demons & Wizards presented an impressive stage production and intense sets, toured North America for the first time, performed at renowned festivals such as Wacken Open Air (DE), Hellfest (F), Sweden Rock (SE), GMM (BE), Barcelona Rock Fest (ES), Copenhell (DK), Chania Rock (GR), Metaldays (SI), and played shows in Moscow, London and many more.

Now, the band presents III, a stunning monument of dynamic and powerful heavy metal that simply has all you would expect from these iconic musicians. III is epic, melodic, crushingly heavy, atmospheric, and all in between. 65 minutes of heavy metal mastery.

Ttracklisting:

"Diabolic"
"Invincible"
"Wolves In Winter"
"Final Warning"
"Timeless Spirit"
"Dark Side Of Her Majesty"
"Midas Disease"
"New Dawn"
"Universal Truth"
"Split"
"Children Of Cain"

"Diabolic" video:

The III recording lineup consists of:

Hansi Kürsch - Lead & Backing Vocals
Jon Schaffer - Rhythm and Lead Guitars, Bass Guitar, 6 and 12 string Acoustic Guitars, Mandolin, Keyboards, Backing Vocals

Guest Musicians on III:

Brent Smedley - Drums
Jim Morris - Additional Guitars, Backing Vocals
Jake Dreyer - Additional Guitars
Ruben Drake - Bass
Thomas Hackman, Olaf Senkbeil, John Jaycee Cuipers, Zakery Alexander, Jeff Brant, Todd Plant, Jerome Mazza - Backing Vocals
PA’dam chamber choir - Classical Choir