JEFF LOOMIS Says It's 'Not Feasible' To Resurrect NEVERMORE Without WARREL DANE

Metal Master Kingdom conducted an interview with ARCH ENEMY guitarist Jeff Loomis prior to the band's October 9 concert at Rebel in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. You can watch the entire chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On whether ARCH ENEMY has plans to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the "Wages Of Sin" album in 2021:

Jeff: "There's been talks of it. That was a really important album in ARCH ENEMY's time, of course. It was Angela's [Gossow, vocals] first album. I would imagine there's going to be something cool done. I don't know any details or logistics of that right now, but I would imagine something special will probably be done. That's the talk at least. We'll see. It may happen and it may not. I think it would be cool. Obviously, I come from the band NEVERMORE, but I'm a huge ARCH ENEMY fan and it's an honor to be in this band. It would be really cool to see something like that."

On whether there are any plans to resurrect NEVERMORE without deceased vocalist Warrel Dane:

Jeff: "It's one of those things where I think NEVERMORE had such a special sound and it was simply because of all the musicians that were in that at the time. Van [Williams, drums], me, Warrel, Jim [Sheppard, bass]. We had numerous different guitarists in the band throughout the years. We had Chris Broderick, we had Tim Calvert, who sadly passed away. A lot of good players. Steve Smyth, Curran Murphy. All these guys were a part of NEVERMORE in the past. Honestly, in my vision, it's important that you move on in your life. I really would like to remember the spirit and the attitude that we had as a band with the music and just move on from there. Because without Warrel, it's just not feasible, in my mind. [He is] sadly missed. He was one of my best friends. Things like that happen and it's a very sad situation. It really was. But we have the music to remember it all by."

On his brief stint in SANCTUARY:

Jeff: "I was in SANCTUARY for a very short time. I initially got the audition to come out to Seattle in '91, in April of '91. At that time, the Seattle sound was just exploding, like ALICE IN CHAINS and SOUNDGARDEN, and the grunge movement. Lenny [Rutledge, guitar], the other main songwriter in SANCTUARY really wanted to go for more of that style, I think, and kind of move away from the metal sound that SANCTUARY had with 'Refuge Denied' and 'Into The Mirror Black'. I came in and we were almost about to do a third album. We ended up doing one show. I did one show with SANCTUARY back in '91, then the band broke up. There was a little argument about what direction the music was going to go in. Lenny and Dave [Budbill, drums] went one way, and me, Warrel and Jim went the other way. We decided to stay with our roots, with the metal thing. Two or three years later, we got signed to Century Media with our self-titled release, 'Nevermore'. The rest is history. I think that we really found our sound in 2000 with 'Dead Heart In A Dead World', which was our turning point where we ended up touring almost three years on that album. After that, 'Enemies Of Reality' and 'This Godless Endeavor' were some of my favorites as well. Lots of good times, lots of good memories, but like I said earlier, you have to move on in your life and do other stuff. Now I'm focusing on ARCH ENEMY and my solo career as an instrumental artist and here we are now."

This past January, ARCH ENEMY released a compilation, "Covered In Blood", of all cover songs the band has recorded throughout its career.

Warrel Dane died in December 2017 while recording his posthumously released solo studio album, "Shadow Work".

Photo courtesy of Jackson