This Reads Like a Threat
This feels more like a threat from Jon Schaffer than an answer to a question. Mark my words: he and Matt Barlow will be making new Iced Earth music, and my guess is 2027.
In a new interview with Spain’s Metal DJ Phoenix, Schaffer was asked whether he could reform the band with Barlow, who fronted Iced Earth from 1995 to 2003 and again from 2007 to 2011. “I think anything’s possible,” he said. “I just don’t know, because the music has to be there.” He went on: “There’s gotta be new music that’s truly inspired. Because I hate the music business. I always have. Iced Earth is like a cage.”
That last part is BS. Not the feeling, the framing. He’ll tour. He said in April that new music was coming, just “on my timeline.” Iced Earth has been dark since February 2021, when Stu Block, Jake Dreyer, Luke Appleton and Brent Smedley all walked out over January 6. Schaffer was pardoned in January 2025. Nothing legal stands in his way now. The only open question is whether anyone still shows up, and testing that is exactly what a YouTube interview is for.
So here’s the prediction: new drummer, new second guitarist, new bass player, and quite possibly someone who has been in the orbit before. He already brought Mark Prator back to cut live drums for the Sons of Liberty reissue in July. He’s not starting from zero. He’s testing the water.
He wouldn’t be the first guy in metal to torch his public life and come back anyway. Look at As I Lay Dying, where Tim Lambesis pleaded guilty to soliciting his wife’s murder and the band has since cycled through entire lineups and kept touring under the same name. Schaffer’s situation is different, it wasn’t domestic violence, but his politics did real damage to how the music lands and to how fast he can get back on a stage.
Buckle up, folks. And honestly? I don’t know how to feel about it. The last few Iced Earth records weren’t very inspiring, and I can’t imagine this is going to be some radical change of heart.
Source: Metal DJ Phoenix
Photos: Jon Schaffer by Klaus Hellmerich (CC BY-SA 4.0); Matt Barlow by Alexandre Cardoso (CC BY-SA 2.0), both via Wikimedia Commons. Composite by Weapon K Media (CC BY-SA 4.0).