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Friday, September 26th 2008
INTO ETERNITY Check In From The Road
Canadian extreme progressive metal innovators INTO ETERNITY are
currently blazing through North America on tour with Iced Earth in
support of their latest effort, The Incurable Tragedy. In addition, the
band is excited to announce a few new shows alongside the legendary
Testament and labelmates Suicide Silence (see
www.myspace.com/officialintoeternity for their complete itinerary).
Troy Bleich (bass) checks in with the following tour update: “It’s been
a pretty crazy week for all of us in the INTO ETERNITY camp. The
insanity began when we found out that Tim would not be coming with us on
the Iced Earth tour. Our initial reaction was to cancel, for how could
we go on without our founding member? After much discussion, we decided
that a replacement shredder would be flown in from New York with only
five days of practice, that I would try and figure out how to sing and
help out on vocals as best as can be, and that Stu would take over the
rest of the vocal responsibilities. Easy, right?
“When we started the 14-hour death drive to the first show in
Minneapolis, I can’t convey how strange the feeling was of leaving the
city without Tim — not to mention that this fill-in shredder had only
five days to practice the tunes, and that none of us had ever met him.
No worries, right?
“We arrived in Minneapolis a day early and picked up our new shredder
from the airport. It turned out his name was Sean Maier. Sean and Justin
worked that night and the next day, and crammed as much into his
overloaded head as possible. The first show was definitely not perfect,
but as a band we could not believe how well Sean played. There
definitely was a collective sense of relief within the band after we
realized the first show had passed and no train wrecks occurred.
“The improvement has been steady with every show. It’s awesome to watch
such an accomplished musician take on such a huge task and do so well.
Beyond his playing abilities, Sean has also become a good friend and fit
in to this rolling circus easily. We’ve unofficially coined this tour
the ‘Hell or High Water Tour,’ for the way we look at it, our backs are
against the wall and we have nothing to lose and everything to prove.
“We’ve now had seven shows together, and it really is going better than
expected. We all owe our thanks to Sean for his relentless hard work and
focus. The biggest realization, though, is how accepting our fans have
been. The unconditional support we’ve received through such trying times
has been amazing. We cannot thank our fans enough for sticking with us
and supporting the band unconditionally. Thanks again, and we’ll see you
all on the road!”