Iced Earth founder/guitarist Jon Schaffer has issued the following update on his search for a new guitarist:

"Greetings,

The new Iced Earth guitar player is an absolutely fantastic player from the UK named Tim Mills. Tim is the owner/founder/visionary of Bare Knuckle Pickups, which is an incredible company providing state of the art handwound pickups from England, which is how I met him. I highly recommend any and all serious players to check out his website and try a few of his p/ups, they absolutely rule.

As for his playing, it's awesome, very melodic, very tasty and he has great original ideas and songwriting abilities as well. He's here now and we're really inspiring each other and coming up with some great parts together. It's been a very long time since I've felt this kind of chemistry and I'm very psyched about it. It's an ingredient that's been missing for a very long time, so it should bring some very cool results.

It's a good thing I always call Tim Owens 'T'; that will help with the two guys in the band named Tim factor........ ;-)

There's more good news coming soon!

Jon Schaffer"

The search for a new guitarist began last month when Iced Earth axe Ernie Carletti was arrested on charges of rape.

As reported a few days ago (here), old drummer Brent Smedley, (drummer for Iced Earth in the later 90's) has rejoined the band.

Iced Earth current line up goes as follows:
Jon Schaffer - Guitars
Tim 'Ripper' Owens - Vocals
Tim Mills - Guitars
Brent Smedley - Drums

Source:	icedearth.com
Band profile:	Iced Earth