James caught up with Jon Schaffer from Iced Earth for a short 5minute interview to ask him about the Bloodstock experiance and the bands latest album 'Dystopia'.

How did you find the whole writing and recording procedure for ‘Dystopia’ compared to your previous albums?
There was a renewed sense of energy behind the process this time around, it was a really big step seeing what was happening in my own country, and it’s one of those things where you feel that threes like 1000 pounds weighing on your chest your whole life, unable to figure out what’s wrong then when you see it you feel alive again. That’s the process that led to this direction, Stu coming in as well was a really cool thing because vocal wise I’ve never had a writing partner like that, I still did all the musical arrangements but we had a lot of fun the whole time.

Many people claim ‘Dystopia’ to be one of your best albums if not the best, do you agree with this?
I do agree with that, I can’t pick between them it’s like trying to pick a favourite child it doesn’t work that way. I have attachments to certain songs but I can’t pick an album. We’ve done so many cool things over the years thought we’ve had a hell of a ride so we’ve been fortunate.

Is it harder to play songs live that you have a very emotional attachment to even if you wrote them a long time ago, does it ever get easier?
Yeah it’s hard, sometimes it can be difficult to sing “Watching over Me”, it’s hard for Stu as he feels it too, if he can see fans crying their eyes out in the front row it’s really hard, I’m like “no kid’s I can’t look at you, I got a job to do haha” but yeah it adds to the experience.

You are playing Bloodstock festival today, how does it feel to be playing such a solid metal festival as your only UK Festival of the year?
We’re playing other UK shows but there are no other festivals, we weren’t a last minute addition but we were late as we’ve scheduled this alongside our Cypress recordings that we’re doing at the moment but we’re up for some fun

How was your set today?
I think it went well, Stu though for the first time in 130 shows is having some problems with his voice, I’ve been on tour with a lot of singers and he’s seriously an animal. We did 12 shows in a row in Eastern Europe in the winter and had no problem but the last few days due to our tour bus air-conditioning breaking down have had no sleep which has hit him. We killed it though regardless of what he had wrong with him, he still gave it his all and it paid off!

Will you be sticking around at Bloodstock to check out any bands?
No I won’t have chance I’ve been so busy since I got here and when I finish all these interviews I will go to sleep because I have to be up at 5 am and I can’t sleep on airplanes so I have to get some sleep.

So what do you have planned for the rest of the year?
Big thing in Cypress, live DVD and recording. We’re 130 shows into this tour and we’re going to need a break, everyone’s exhausted. I’ll get 3 weeks off and then have to start working on arrangements, there’s word of another support tour in America which if confirmed will make it even less of a break and some European shows in December.

One last random question that we ask every band, if you could be an animal out of a zebra or Giraffe which one would you be and why?
I’d choose a giraffe, I like to see what’s coming at me.

Thanks for your time is there a message for your fans reading this?
Thanks for all these years of support, we’ll see you out there.

Interview by James Webb