Jon Schaffer

Jon Schaffer — born in the United States in 1968 — is the founder, guitarist and principal composer of Iced Earth, and the author of one of the most recognisable rhythm guitar vocabularies in American heavy metal. His mark is a specific picking technique: galloping riffs played with mechanical precision, in patterns of repeated triplets that produce a sense of continuous riding. It is not solo virtuosity — it is endurance and exactness in the right hand, sustained across whole tracks. Bands of American and European melodic metal copied that device for decades. He writes practically all of Iced Earth's material, including the concept albums that defined the band: The Dark Saga (1996), based on the comic Spawn, Something Wicked This Way Comes (1998) and its two-volume sequel, and The Glorious Burden (2004), whose second half is a thirty-minute suite about the Battle of Gettysburg. He also maintains Demons & Wizards, a project alongside Blind Guardian's Hansi Kürsch. In 2021 he was arrested for taking part in the breach of the United States Capitol on 6 January of that year. He was the first of those involved to plead guilty, admitting obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress and entering a restricted area carrying a weapon, and went on to cooperate with prosecutors. He was sentenced in 2024 to three years of probation, community service and a fine. Iced Earth ceased activity after the episode.