Mystery Solved: Warrel Dane to Perform Nevermore’s Dead Heart in a Dead World with Solo Band

Nevermore’s neo-classic Dead Heart in a Dead World turns 15 this month. So when frontman Warrel Dane announced that the album would be performed in full at a handful of European shows this coming November the world got to wondering: just who would be performing it? A reunited Nevermore? Sanctuary? His solo band?

Turns out it’s the latter, not a reunited Nevermore. Cripes! Still, it should be a pretty neat treat for European Nevermore fans. In an interview with That Drummer Guy transcribed by Blabbermouth, Dane explains how the plans came together, starting with a gig in Brazil earlier this year:

I [played the whole record] in Brazil with the band I have down there. And some European promoter guy saw some of the YouTube videos and found out I was doing that and wanted to bring it over there. [So I was like], ‘Okay. Fine with me.’ People went fucking apeshit in Brazil when I did that. It was crazy! Sometimes they were singing the words so loud that I could not even hear myself on stage. Brazilian fans are very into it — to the tenth power. They’re crazy.

[The musicians in my Brazilian band] are all very good, and they can play the shit perfect. It’s gonna be fun.

When Nevermore was all still playing together, we always talked about doing the whole ‘Dead Heart’ record at some point. The first time I went to Brazil and did a solo tour, I was playing mainly solo songs from my solo record and a couple of Nevermore songs and a couple of Sanctuary songs, and people were always, like, ‘are you ever gonna do ‘Dead Heart In a Dead World’, the whole thing? You’ve gotta do it. Please! People wanna hear it. I’ve heard that so many times down there. And I think it’s the right time to do it, because it is fifteen years old. I can’t believe that record is freakin’ fifteen years old. It seems like yesterday to me. Time flies when you’re getting old. [Laughs]

So that solves that.

But wait! There’s more!

Later on in the interview Dane goes on to provide an update on the progress of a new solo record, the first since 2008’s Praises to the War Machine. He says he’s writing it currently, it’s gonna much heavier than the former, and he hopes to start recording around March, potentially with producer Chris “Zeuss” Harris. Praises to the War Machine –co-written with Peter Wichers, ex-Soilwork — was a highly underrated record, and it’s high time for a follow-up.

Listen to the full interview below.