ARSIS TO TOUR WITHOUT JIM MALONE. WAIT, WHAT?
Firewind’s headlining tour of North America with Arsis, White Wizzard, and Nightrage begins in just a couple of weeks, and that’s a great line-up and I’m excited to go…
…only we just got a press release saying that Jim Malone won’t be touring with Arsis. Here’s a statement from the man himself:
“Due to professional and personal commitments I am unable to tour with Arsis at this time. For the upcoming tour with Firewind, rather than drop off the tour entirely, we’ve decided to hire live musicians, some of whom have long been associated with my band. I have given Nick [Cordle, guitarist] and Noah [Martin, bassist] my blessing and am certain the lineup will be great. My sincerest apologies to anyone who is annoyed or disappointed by my absence. Please go and support Arsis and check out some of our new songs, which they will be playing every night!”
With all due respect to the other members of Arsis, that idea seems, well, totally bizarre to me — like, if Megadeth were to announce a tour without Dave Mustaine bizarre. Jim Malone isn’t just the key creative element in Arsis — he’s been the only constant in the band since its inception. In short, Jim Malone IS Arsis. And we don’t even know who these “live musicians” are! Is it someone awesome? Just some random dudes standing on stage? WHAT THE CRAP IS HAPPENING HERE?!?!
I’ll be kinda curious to see this Malone-free Arsis, but, mostly, I’m pretty bummed out by this news.
You can get tour dates here. Below, watch a video of Cordle discussing the tour, which, as kind of a way to appease us fans I s’pose, includes pre-production demos of some new material… which, in all fairness, sounds pretty frickin’ sweet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2mzBXH5M9Q
-AR
