BANDHISTORY
BANDHISTORY
In 1991, the band recorded and published their first album : "ICED EARTH". This Cd was inspired by the METAL sounds from the early 80s. Bands like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Metallica and Black Sabbath were their main influences. That disc was no big success at all. I think that the main cause for that were the bad vocals because the songs sound really great today with the fantastic voice of Matthew Barlow !!! After the tour through Europe, Jon kicked Gene and Mike out of the band because they weren`t what Jon was looking for and besides that they got shit rock star mentalities. Both drank much too much and Gene was ruining his voice by smoking hash and similar bullshit. After their leaving John Greely and drummer Ricchie Secchiari became new band members, but I think that these two guys were not much better then the old ones. 1992 was the year when ICED EARTH put out their second album "Night of the Stormrider". There are some really great songs on it and I like very much the dark cover and the dark atmospere on this Cd. It is a tale devised by Jon, featuring a man who is betrayed by religion and grows with hate and anger. This poor man is strongly influenced by nature's dark forces and so his aim is to destroy Earth. He ended in hell for eternity. However that should change !!! After many member changes and after a three year lasting pause, ICED EARTH returned with the absolutely great vocalist Matthew Barlow and the drummer Rodney Beasley. Matthew is for me the best singer in the Power Metal scene and I guess that one cause for the now relatively big success of the band is him. Though all these problems they went on to make their first killer album, "Burnt Offerings". That record is one of my most loved Cds and certainly one of the best ICED EARTH albums !!! For me "Last December" and "Dante`s Inferno" are the highlights of this really cool album. The Cd is filled with anger, energy and power. Perhaps it was a kind of expressing their feelings about the former, hard times !! 1996 is the most important year for ICED EARTH because the managed their breaktrough with their absolutely best work : "THE DARK SAGA" !!!!!!!!! In my opinion this Cd is one of the really best METAL albums on our planet !!! There are only fantastic songs on it, one great song succeeded the other !!!!!! Besides that on the disc is my most loved ICED EARTH song : "THE HUNTER" !!!! In 1997, ICED EARTH released "DAYS OF PURGATORY", a double CD that is a compilation of remixed and remastered songs from 86-94. The old songs became a new life with Matthew Barlow as singer !!! As I said before Matthew is for me the best vocalist in the POWER METAL scene and so he and the new band members James McDonough and Brent Smedley made the songs from the PURGATORY times to that what Jon had originally intended them to be !!! In 1998, unfortunately Randall Shawver left the band. A big lost for ICED EARTH, but Larry Tarnowski joined the group then. He is a young and very talented man and I like his kind of playing guitar. In this time Brent Smedley left the band, too because of some psychological problems. That is very sad and I hope that he`ll soon be able to handle his life in a right way again !!!! So he wasn`t able to play on the new album which is called "SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES" and so Mark Prator had to do the recordings again !!! This record pleases me very much (mainly the Something Wicked-Trilogy !!). Although I still like "The Dark Saga" better, this album is one of the best METAL albums !!!!
ICED EARTH is the best POWER METAL band on earth which came originally from Tampa, Florida. There Jon Schaffer founded the band "Purgatory" with the drummer, Greg Seymour. They made some demo tapes with this band, e.g. "Psycotic Dreams".
At the beginning not everything went as they had intended. Jon and Greg slept in abandoned houses and got only one meal a day. Times were hard for the two man, but soon things became better.
That days were also the time when they changed their name from "PURGATORY" to ICED EARTH. Jon`s best friend who died in an accident at the age of 16 always liked the name "ICED EARTH". So Jon used the new name in memory of his best friend.
Jon Schaffer looked around for bandmembers and found at last the vocalist Gene Adams, bass player Richard Bateman and guitar player Randall Shawver. But a short time later Richard Bateman left the band to enter "AGENT STEEL". Jon took on staff the bassist Dave Abell to replace him. The newly formed ICED EARTH went on to record their demo "Enter the Realm" whith the great songs "Colors", "Nightmares", "To Curse the Sky"', "Solitude" and of course "Iced Earth". Some weeks after recording this demo, drummer Greg Seymour quit the band. Now Jon stood quite alone there and he had to find quickly a new drummer because the band had for a longer time negotiations with a record company. After a short search Mike McGill became the new drummer.
"Night of the stormrider" was much better than its predescessor and it sold about the double in Japan and Europe, but it wasn`t still a really big killer album.
This LP is a so called "concept album" which shows Jon Schaffer`s view of the story of the comic book series "SPAWN" from Todd McFarlane that is my favourite comic art (of course besides PURGATORI). "The dark Saga" is a very emotional album, but also very heavy, dark and powerful. Shortly said : It is a geniuos piece of HEAVY METAL !!!!!!!!
During the recordinfs of this album and shortly after it there were once again some changes in the band. For recording "The Dark Saga" they used a professional drummer named Mark Prator who is from Morris studios. Mark Prator is an excellent drummer and he did a fantastic job on that album. Jon seems to have a similar opinion because he says that Mark has the "groove".
They also hired new members : The drummer Brent Smedley and bass player Keith Menser, he was fast replaced with the "bass monster" James MacDonough. James and Brent are very experienced and great musicians, what they always prove live on stage !!
The former Bass player Dave Abell left the band because he lost the joy to tour around the world.
STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION !!!
