INTO ETERNITY WITHOUT TIM ROTH? THAT’S LIKE PORN WITH NO PENETRATION!

Into Eternity’s new album, The Incurable Tragedy, just dropped last week (read David Bee Roth’s review here), and now the band is getting ready to hit the road with Iced Earth – an appropriate tour mate for IE if ever there was one. Just one little problem: guitarist, founder, and all around main man Tim Roth won’t be on the tour.

In a War & Peace-length statement, the band explains…

“All of us in the band, and especially Tim, have been looking forward to this tour with Iced Earth for months. Over the years, Iced Earth has been a huge influence on INTO ETERNITY, as anyone who owns Dead or Dreaming [the group’s second album, which features a picture of Tim
wearing an Iced Earth t-shirt] knows.

“Unfortunately, the events of the past two years have recently taken their toll on Tim. Emotionally, he’s a rock, but there are some important legal, financial and family-related matters at home that he needs to take care of right now. However, he’s given us his blessing to do the tour without him so we can honor our commitments to our fans (who won’t get a refund if the support act cancels), and continue to promote an album that we all very much believe in.

“Luckily, Sean Maier from our labelmates Blessed By A Broken Heart has agreed to fill in on super-short notice. From what we’ve seen and heard on his MySpace (www.myspace.com/guitarsfrommarz), Sean’s an amazing shredder, and we can’t thank him enough for stepping in. Meanwhile, Stu is going to do his best to handle all of Tim’s vocal parts, as well as his own. The vocal harmonies won’t be as rich, but Stu vows to do the best he can.

“Please know and understand that INTO ETERNITY’s lineup is not changing, and that Tim will rejoin the group on tour as soon as humanly possible. Again, it’s not that Tim doesn’t want to do this tour; it’s just that he can’t right now. Over the last three years, Tim has led INTO ETERNITY through 300+ shows with death metal bands, power metal bands, prog-metal bands, metalcore bands and everything in between. We’ll miss him out there, but the show must go on.

“Thanks again to all the fans around the world who picked up The Incurable Tragedy. We weren’t sure how people would respond to such an emotional roller coaster, but we couldn’t be more grateful for our fans’ continued support. We can’t wait to see you all on tour.”

Well, that sucks.

I would never discourage anyone from seeing a Roth-less Into Eternity (as long as it really is only temporary) – I have too much love for this band to deny them some hard earned road moolah – but it’d be hard to blame anyone for skipping such a show. And Maier strikes me as an odd temp, although that could just be because I don’t like Sucked by a Sucking Suck very much (Although, as a friend recently predicted, they will probably be the biggest band in metal by the end of the decade. Talk about an incurable tragedy.).

Whatever the case may be, I sure do hope that Roth’s legal/financial/family issues all get cleared up soon. ‘Cause I was really looking forward to seeing Into Eternity live again, and I just can’t imagine it will be the same without Roth.

-AR