I Don’t Buy It
Jon Schaffer says he picked up a guitar last Thursday for the first time in years, and that he can feel “the creative energy starting to swell.” I don’t buy it. Not the sentiment, not the timing, not the aw-shucks “it just happened” framing. This is a man who’s been building toward exactly this moment for a while, and we’re supposed to read it as a guy reconnecting with his muse.
Here’s the thing nobody who loves this band wants to say out loud: Iced Earth is one of the reasons I play metal at all. Horror Show is a record I still spin — “Wolf,” “Dracula,” Richard Christy’s drumming on that album genuinely shaped the player I became. The Dark Saga and Something Wicked This Way Comes are untouchable. The Ripper Owens run gets unfairly dismissed — The Glorious Burden and the Gettysburg trilogy are massive. Even the Stu Block era had real songs in it. And Demons & Wizards, his project with Hansi Kürsch, was its own kind of special — I caught them live in late 2019, right before the world fell apart. So this isn’t a hater swinging at a band he never cared about. This is a fan. That’s exactly why it stings.
In a new interview with Daniel Harris (The Rageaholic), Schaffer says new music is coming — on his timeline and nobody else’s. He’s promising more Sons of Liberty material first, his politically loaded side project, and won’t rule out another Iced Earth album, though he commits to no dates, no tour, nothing concrete. “It’s gonna happen on my time,” he says.
The context is unavoidable. Schaffer turned himself in to the FBI in January 2021, days after he was photographed inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6. He was initially charged with six crimes, including using bear spray on police — but those charges were dropped. He pleaded guilty to two: obstruction of an official proceeding and trespassing on restricted grounds while armed with a deadly weapon, and he cooperated with prosecutors against others in exchange for a lighter sentence. He got three years’ probation in October 2024 and was later pardoned. His bandmates were gone long before that — Stu Block and Luke Appleton resigned, Kürsch ended Demons & Wizards, and Century Media quietly scrubbed him from its roster.
I want to be clear this isn’t about left or right. I land in the middle, and most issues are messier than a team jersey. It’s about what metal is supposed to be — for everybody, for the outcasts, for the masses. Watching one of the genre’s defining songwriters at the center of that day was one of the most disappointing things I’ve experienced as a fan.
So when Schaffer says the creative energy is swelling, my honest reaction is: maybe it should stay where it is. New Iced Earth music feels less like an if than a when. The real question is who’s left willing to make it with him, who’s willing to book it, and who’s willing to show up. I loved this band. I’m not sure I want this comeback.
Source: Jon Schaffer interview with Daniel Harris (The Rageaholic)