Source: Bravewords.com

Guitarist JEFF LOOMIS (ex-NEVERMORE) is featured in a new interview with Ultimate-Guitar.com. An excerpt is available below:

UG: Why has it been four years since you last released “Zero Order Phase”?

Loomis: “Well what happened was obviously a lot of readers out there know I was in a band called Nevermore for many, many years. We were going on 15 or 16 years or something like that together as a band and that kind of was a huge deal for me and to leave that band was also a huge deal. After being together for so long things just didn’t work out anymore and it happens to many bands. You get together for a long time and sometimes a band can be like a marriage because you’re on tour with the same bunch of cats forever. But that was really one of the reasons that it took so long. Just because I had other things going on with Nevermore such as records, touring, etcetera. When Nevermore broke up, which was a little more than a year ago, I was sitting around at home going, ‘What am I gonna do? Am I just gonna sit around and do nothing or am I gonna keep going?'”

UG: That’s when you started thinking about a new solo album?

Loomis: “Obviously I chose to stay busy with music because that’s what I do and I immediately started writing for Plains Of Oblivion. That’s kinda what I did, man. I just kinda stayed busy and started putting music ideas together and had the idea of getting a lot of guest guitar players on the record as well. I started getting to work at that and I just thought, “Hey, what would be a good idea getting some of my hugest inspirations as I was growing up as a musician on this record.” I started sending emails out to Marty Friedman, Chris Poland, Tony MacAlpine and they all obliged to do it so I’m more than happy.”

Photo by Hannah Verbeuren

UG: Drummer Dirk Verbeuren played on the album. What were you looking for in a drummer?

Loomis: “Somebody that was incredibly aggressive and a monster. It’s funny because Dirk is that guy and I consider him to be the best metal drummer out there. It’s funny how that all worked too because he plays in a band called SOILWORK, which is a very popular band. It was probably about a year-and-a-half prior to the recording of the record that I saw them on tour and I was talking to Peter Wichers, the guitar player, on their tour bus and I was telling him my idea about recording another record. We were discussing musicians and stuff like that and he’s like: ‘If you need a drummer, here’s your guy right here’ and he just points over at Dirk. Dirk is very cool except that he’s very quiet. When I was on the tour bus that night he didn’t really say much. He’s one of these amazing talents that’s just a quiet guy that kinda just sits back and listens. I looked over and was like: “Wow, you’d really be into that, Dirk?” And he’s like: ‘Oh, yes.’ So that’s kinda how it came to be. I basically wrote all the songs and just started sending him simple arrangements and stuff like that and he just got to work on it. He flew up to Seattle for about four days and got all his drum tracks done in three. So it was quite incredible to watch him do his thing.”

Go to this location for the complete interview.