Guitarist Jeff Loomis and drummer Van Williams are teasing the return of their longtime band NEVERMORE.
Earlier immediately (Friday, December 27),Loomis and Williams each shared a one-minute video teaser containing numerous NEVERMORE-related imagery and what look like the silhouettes of Loomis and Williams together with the textual content “Resurrecting The Dream”. The teaser ends with the NEVERMORE brand together with the road “A New Chapter Rises” and the 12 months “2025”.
NEVERMORE successfully break up up in 2011 when Loomis and Williams introduced their departure from the band resulting from private variations with singer Warrel Dane and bassist Jim Sheppard. Warrel later described NEVERMORE in an interview as “the best band that alcohol ever ruined.”
Dane died in December 2017 in São Paulo, Brazil on the age of 56 whereas recording his posthumously launched solo studio album, “Shadow Work”. The musician reportedly had a coronary heart assault throughout the night time and couldn’t be revived.
Based on guitarist Johnny Moraes, who performed in Warrel‘s solo band, Dane had a historical past of dependancy and different well being points. “His well being was already very weak due to his diabetes and his issues with alcoholism,” he mentioned.
The instrumental components for Dane‘s follow-up to 2008’s “Praises To The Warfare Machine” solo album had been virtually accomplished and he had begun laying down his vocals shortly earlier than his dying.
In a 2019 interview with Steel Grasp Kingdom, Loomis was requested if there have been any plans to resurrect NEVERMORE with out Dane. Jeff responded: “It is a type of issues the place I feel NEVERMORE had such a particular sound and it was merely due to all of the musicians that had been in that on the time. Van, me, Warrel, Jim. We had quite a few totally different guitarists within the band all through the years. We had Chris Broderick, we had Tim Calvert, who sadly handed away. A number of good gamers. Steve Smyth, Curran Murphy. All these guys had been part of NEVERMORE prior to now. Truthfully, in my imaginative and prescient, it is necessary that you just transfer on in your life. I actually want to bear in mind the spirit and the perspective that we had as a band with the music and simply transfer on from there. As a result of with out Warrel, it is simply not possible, in my thoughts. [He is] sadly missed. He was one in all my greatest mates. Issues like that occur and it is a very unhappy scenario. It actually was. However we’ve the music to recollect all of it by.”
In 2018 interview with France’s Loud TV, Loomis said about Dane‘s passing: “It is a unhappy scenario with one in all my greatest mates that I grew up being in a band with. [He was] the most effective lyricists in metallic, I consider, that was ever on the market — a superb individual. He was a troubled individual too on the similar time; he had some points. We had many nice instances collectively prior to now, and we had many dangerous instances, however I might say that the great instances outweighed the dangerous. And in the long run, we had been speaking nonetheless as mates, and we talked in the long run earlier than he handed away. We had been on good phrases. It is a very unhappy loss to the music neighborhood and he’ll be nicely remembered as one of many nice vocalists of a metallic period.”
Loomis added that Warrel had been “battling ingesting and issues like this” for years earlier than he died. “I am not moving into an excessive amount of element there,” he mentioned. “He had some troubles. I am gonna miss him loads. He was an excellent buddy of mine and he was an exquisite human being.”
Requested if there was any speak of a NEVERMORE reunion earlier than Warrel handed away, Jeff mentioned: “I feel that when you do one thing for such a very long time and also you make your mark within the music world, generally issues do have to return to an finish. And, sadly, with my scenario with NEVERMORE, after 18 years of being within the band, it marked type of an finish of an space. And for me personally, it was type of shifting on to a different chapter in my life. There was talks, like possibly [in late 2016] about possibly doing a reunion present, however it by no means occurred, in fact. Clearly, now it is not going to occur.”
Loomis “amicably” left ARCH ENEMY in December 2023 and was changed by Joey Concepcion.
Jeff, who was the principle songwriter in NEVERMORE, joined ARCH ENEMY in late 2014, however was not concerned within the writing for the latter act’s final two albums, 2017’s “Will To Energy” and 2022’s “Deceivers”.
