Before they were called Iced Earth, the band had been known under the name of Purgatory for roughly 3 years. They released several demos under that name, but had to change it because there already was a band with that name from Cleveland.
If you want to know more about the time as Purgatory, please check the history in the Purgatory section!
Changing their name was not good for Iced Earth as they had been well known locally under the name "Purgatory" But, in late 1988, things started to look real good for the band: They once again entered Morrisound studios and recorded their now legendary "Enter The Realm" demo tape, with engineer Tom Morris. They pressed about 1000 copies of it and sent them out to the record labes and the music magazines, one of them being Germanys RockHard magazine. This was the turning point in Iced Earth's history: RockHard made "Enter The Realm" Demo of the month, later it even became "Demo Of The Year". Naturally, the music industry got interested, and they got their record deal with Century Media. Around that time, drummer Greg Seymour left the band because he had some personal things to deal with, and Jon thought that Greg's single bass drumming method limited the bands sound. He was replaced by a friend of Randy Shawver, Mike McGill, who had been Iced Earths lightning guy before he became their drummer. Iced Earth entered Morrisound studios and released their debut album, simply entitled "Iced Earth" in 1990. In the next year, the band toured Europe with Blind Guardian. The tour was a huge success and up to today, Iced Earth has strong ties with Blind Guardian, the highlight of it surely being Jon Schaffers and Hansi Kürschs (from Blind Guardian) side project "Demons & Wizards". After that tour, the next band member was to be replaced: Jon felt that Gene Adams wouldn't be able to handle the more complex melodies for the songs he was writing, and so he was replaced by John Greely. Also, Mike McGill had to sort out some personal issues, so they recruited the drummer of John Greely's previous band, Richey Secchiari. With this line-up, they recorded their second album, entitled "Night Of The Stormrider". The album sold well in Europe and Japan. They also toured with Blind guardian again on their 1992 tour. Wherever they played, the people were full of enthusiasm, and the band didn't dissapoint them, as they always had time for their fans after the shows. But after the tour, there already was the next line-up change: Jon decided to kick John Greely off the band, because his and John's points of view were incompatible. After a nationwide advertisement and the auditioning of more than 10 singers, Jon decided on Matthew Barlow.
After "Night Of The Stormrider" had been quite succesful, Jon felt that he had to renegotiate Iced Earths record deal. But, unfortunately, their record company didn't feel that this was necessary. So, the band decided to strike until their requests would be heard by the record company. For over 3 years, the band didn't release anything and didn't play any shows. Finally, in 1995, the record company renegotiated Iced Earths record deal, and they recorded their third album, "Burnt Offerings". The material on this album was written in the years before, and reflected their rage with some of the heaviest music they've ever made. The song "Burnt Offerings" deals directly with the record deal shit they've been through, it's lyrics talking about Iced Earths rage. The band played a couple of local shows in Tampa, then they headed to Europe as a part of the Summer Metal Meetings 1995. Originally, they were supposed to go on tour RAGE after the Summer Metal Meetings, but because Matt had a bad virus infection, they had to cancel those dates. When they were back in the states, Rodney suddenly decided to leave Florida and the band. He came back later, but his place in Iced Earth was already filled. Jon thought that Rod cracked when he played under pressure live or in the studio and wanted to record the next album with a professional musician He decided on Mark Prator, the session drummer from Morrisound Studios. As Jon liked Comic books a lot, he had the idea to write a concept abum around the Spawn comic. He discussed the idea with the creators of the comic, Todd MacFarlane Enterprises. They approved, and even let Iced Earth use some artwork of Spawn #50. There was some talk abouit Iced Earth making the soundtrack for the upcoming Spawn motion picture, but in the end, the soundtrack was made by the usual trendriding cocksuckers. Meanwhile, Iced Earths album about Spawn, entitled "The Dark Saga", came out in 1996. As the music was slightly simpler than on the albums before, and maybe also by cause of Matts excellent voice, the album won Iced Earth thousands of new fans. After recording the album, bassist Dave Abell decided to quit the band because he got married, and Iced Earth decided on Keith Menser from "Mystic Force" as replacement. But not for long. He can be seen on the cover photos on The Dark Saga, but when they went into the rehearsals one week before their european tour started, and Keith didn't know a note of Iced Earths songs, he was kicked off the band again. Their new drummer, Brent Smedley, who had joined the band in the same period, had brought a young bassist, James MacDonough to the rehearsals a few times, and Jon decided to hire him. This line-up then toured the Summer Metal Meetings 1996 in Europe.
In August 1996, Iced Earth started out on their next project: They planned to rerecord their older stuff, especially from the "Enter The Realm" demo tape and the first 2 albums with their new line-up. It ended up becoming a double CD (single CD in the US), featuring 17 partly rerecorded tracks. The 2 CD version also had different versions of the songs "Burnt Offerings" and "Dantes Inferno", as well as 2 other songs of "Burnt Offerings" in their original versions.This album was called "Days Of Purgatory" (in tribute to the bands old name). After the release, they once again toured Europe, this time with Nevermore. This tour also led them to Greece, where they got a response so enthusiastic, that the band promised to record a live album there. In late 1997, though, Randy Shawver decided to quit the band. He was replaced by a young guitarist from Chicago, Illinois, 19-year old Larry Tarnowski. The band also moved back to Indiana again in that time. In early 1998, the band returned to Morrisound Studios in Florida again to record their next album. Since Brent was unavailable at that time, session drummer Mark Prator once again filled in. The album, named "Something Wicked This Way Comes" was a big success, and won them a lot of new fans. It features songs very different from each other, and has a boring pattern in the songlisting for the first 10 songs, that goes heavy song-soft song-heavy song-soft song etc. The album ends with the "Something Wicked Trilogy" about a comic character Jon invented named Set Abominae. It also includes the first real ballad, named "Watching Over Me" about Jons old friend Bill Blackmon. In late summer 1998, Iced Earth played Europes biggest Metal festivals, like the "Wacken Open Air" or the "Dynamo Festival". They played some shows in mid western USA before going on their big headlining Europe tour. After that, they joined Blind Guardian once again for some shows in Spain. In January 1999, the band returned, as promised, to Greece, to record their first live album. They recorded two shows on January 23rd and 24th and released them as a triple CD (2 CDs in the US) with over 3 hours of Iced Earths best music in excellent live quality, named "Alive in Athens". The album went gold in Greece in January 2000! They also released a limited edition of the "Melancholy EP", primarily for radio promotion. It featured 3 Iced Earth originals and two cover songs, "Electric Funeral" by Black Sabbath and "Shooting Star" by Bad Company. Towards the end of the year, they began touring North America. In early 2000, Jon Schaffer and Hansi Kürsch from Blind Guardian released the first album of their side project Demons & Wizards, simply entitled "Demons & Wizards" The music of D&W , to me , sounds like a simpler version of Iced Earths music with Hansi Kürsch on vocals. In March 2000, Iced Earth recruited also a new drummer, since Brent Smedley had left the band in late 1999. His name is Richard Christy, and before joining Iced Earth, he played with Death and Control Denied. Later, Jon Schaffer underwent surgery to get rid of a neck injury he got more than 2 years before during an intense stage performance. He then took off for somke headlining gigs with his side project "Demons & Wizards" in Europe. Later, it was discovered, that his neck wasn't fully healed, and he underwent surgery again. Although his doctors didn't allow him to carry more than 10 kilo, he played the 2000 Wacken open Air just a few weeks later (now with Iced Earth again), with a very light guitar and a neckbrace. There was a change in the line-up of Iced Earth in November 2000 again. Bassist James MacDonough has left or was fired out of the band for unknown reasons. The new bass player was Steve DiGiorgio. Before joining Iced Earth, he worked with many bands, including Death, Sadus, Testament and Control Denied, where he played with Iced Earth drummer Richard Christy. Iced Earth released another version of the "Melancholy EP" on the 8th January 2001. This version is unlimited and featured two more tracks: Another Cover version (The Ripper by Judas Priest) that was recorded for a "Tribute to Judas Priest" Sampler years before, and a live version of "Colors" from the Alive in Athens shows. At this point, all the material for Iced Earths next album "Horror show" was already written, and the base tracks already had been recorded in the Morrisound studios. January and part of February were used to perfectionalize the songs in Jons new studio in his basement. After all that was finished and the photo shots for the album and promotional pictures were done, Steve DiGiorgio suddenly stopped all communication with the band, neither replying to emails or phonecalls nor to letters or faxes. After a few weeks, Jon got a statement from Steve's management (of whose existance hedidn't even know) telling him that steve wouldn't be able to join the band on their planned world tour in fall 2001. As participation in that tour had been one of the main conditions for Steve to join the band (he'd promised he'd play there to get in), Jon decided to sack him. Not only that, he decided to completely erase Steve's picture from Horror Show. He was edited off the picture in the Horror Show booklet as well as all other pictures that had been taken with the band and him together. His 'Thx To' list was taken out of the Horror Shopw booklet, and his name was put right at the end of the list of guest musicians. After all this issued had been cleatred up, "Horror Show" finally hit the stores in late June. The album features 9 songs about famous monsters or other characters from Horror Stories, just as Jack the Ripper, Damien (Omen trilogy), Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolf or Jekyll & Hyde. The tenth Iced Earth composition on there, Ghost Of Freedom, is a patriotic ballad, the elenth song is an Iron Maiden cover, Transylavannia. On one of the songs, "The Phantom Opera Ghost", Matt and a guest singer, Yun Hui Percifield, do an absolutely amazing duet, something that Iced Eatrh have never done before, but completely fits Iced Earth's music. The band planned todo a world tour in the fall then. Originally, it should've been America first, then Europe. But as they couldn't piece together a tour in the US at the time they wanted, they decided to start in Europe. All the shows were booked for the August/September tour, when Iced Earth got the long awaited oppurtunity to tour the US with a major metal band, Judas Priest. This was an opportunity that Iced Earth, still pretty underground in the US, had been waiting for like their first album giot out. As the dates of the Priest tour interfered with their own tour dates in Europe, Jon decided to postpone the European tour to January 2002. However, when the tour start was only 3 days away, the terrible terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington took place. The world was in shock, and Judas Priest decided to postpone their tour - to January 2002. By that, Iced Earth were off the bill again, because they just couldn't postpone their European tour yet a second time. Things found a good end for Iced Earth nevertheless as Dave Mustaine invited them to join Megadeth on the second leg of their US Tour. Iced Earth thanked him by playing an amazing show every night. In January & February Iced Earth then headed to Europe to play their European tour. They played without any suipport act, but had an amazing 3-hour show with three different sets and stage setups, highlighting the different eras of the band. The first set contained songs from the fierst three records, the second & longest set songs from "Dark Saga" & "Something Wicked..." and the third set was songs of their latest abum, "Horror Show". Between the sets were short breaks in which the stage setup was altered. The tour didn't go down without problems though: When the band wanted to travel to Budapest in Hungary to play their concert there, they were stopped by the hungarian custom police, and accused of smuggling pyrotechnics and merchandise into the country. They were kept at the border for a full 36 hours, then were released. They instantly headed to Vienna in Austria, were they arrived just in time to play a (shortened) gig. The pyrotechnics and merchandise were confiscated. In Athens, Greece, the demand for tickets was so big that Iced Earth had to play a second gig there. Overall, they played 31 shows in 13 countries. After that, they went on tour in the US and Canada in April and May for about a months. They played sets between 100 and 120 minutes and had In Flames and Jag Panzer as support acts. To honor the victims of 9/11 the band opened the US Dates with a metal version of the US National anthem. At the show in San Francisco, they got the gold awards Alive in Athens had won in Greece - over two years after the album went gold! The reason for this delay was that the original gold records were destroyed when they were shipped to the US, and it took a lot of time until they got replacements. After the tour had finished, Jon went back into writing mode, simultaneously writing material for the next Iced arth and Demons & Wizards records. At the same time, he also negotiated with several record companies over a new record deal. In January 2003, Iced Earth then signed a deal with SPV/Steamhammer records. Their first release on the new label will be their 7th studio abum, entitled "The Glorious Burden". It will be recorded in April and release will be in late August/early September.
