Jimmy Kay from The Metal Voice spoke to former Iced Earth vocalist Matt Barlow, the current singer of Ashes Of Ares, in a video Skype. Barlow is set to release his new Ashes Of Ares album, Well Of Souls, on November 9th via Road Records. Check out the interview below.

Barlow spoke about his musical history with Iced Earth, the reasons from him exiting the band twice, his thoughts on the re-recordings of the old Iced Earth albums with Stu Block on vocals, and the musical direction on the upcoming Ashes Of Ares album, Well Of Souls

On the musical direction of the new Ashes of Ares album Well of Souls compared to the debut:

Barlow: "The new album is a bit different from the last album, some ideas were established throughout several songs so we have a trilogy type set up with this and Well Of Souls is a kind of concept within that idea and story line. Without giving too much away, in a big picture aspect  it's our connection as living beings with our living earth. It's sort of a horror sci -fi kind of concept. The whole album does not have a theme but there are some elements that are in parallels. We have a song called 'Sun Dragon', that is kind of like an earth ending story. A lot of these ideas are about a grander scale, our place in the universe and then there are some personnel songs as well. Also, I threw in another vampire tune, which is kind of an ode to novelist Ann Rice, which is our only ballad on the album. I would say overall with this record there is a lot more darkness than in the last one. Another song is 'The God Of War', which is kind of an homage to our band name." 

On Jon Schaffer's plans to re-record his first five or six Iced Earth albums with Stu Block on vocals:

Barlow: "Whatever I contributed to the writing of the songs I will still receive payment, from a financial aspect. If people want to buy the record again that's great for me financially because I still get writing credit for it. In regards to performance rights, I signed away my performance rights in the past. I got paid for my performance. I don't have a problem with it because if they re-do the record it doesn't hurt my feeling at all, and the original records will always be out there. It is so hard for musicians to make a living, so if Jon Schaffer can make some more money to keep Iced Earth going, more power to him. It is his livelihood, it's his company. Just like I hope that the original singer, Gene Adam, was not offended when I re-did his vocals on Days Of Purgatory."

Greece's Rockpages issued an interview with Iced Earth guitarist Jon Schaffer earlier this year, where he addressed the possibility of re-recording the Barlow-era albums with Stu Block.

Says Rockpages: "We ask Jon about the latest Incorruptible album and he seems not only confident but certain that this is a record that it will be considered a classic Iced Earth opus in the years to come. We truly share his emotion although we reckon that Dystopia has a better chance of entering the realm of the classic albums of the Iced Earth discography. Jon politely disagrees although he totally respects our opinion... after all, here at Rockpages we put Incorruptible in the glamorous Top Ten position of the best albums of 2017.

"The conversation turns to Stu Block and it is crystal clear that Jon Schaffer is not only proud of his bandmate but most importantly he is really proud and happy of his friendship with the Iced Earth singer. Jon reminds us that Stu Block has given more shows than any all the other previous singers of Iced Earth... combined! Pretty impressive, really!

"When we hand him over the now famous Rockpages Bag Of Tricks, Jon is genuinely happy to share a memory or two of some of his most beloved items of the past."

Watch below: