Nevermore is one of those bands that, despite not having been in existence since 2011, I will continue to fly the flag for. In fact, when I reacquired many of their albums that I used to own in college, that box set actually came with a flag that I could wave!
In a noteworthy announcement made on December 27th, guitarist Jeff Loomis and drummer Van Williams teased that they are bringing Nevermore back from the dead. Obvious to those that are fans of the band, vocalist Warrel Dane cannot join them, having passed away in 2017 from a heart attack. The bass chair, long occupied by Jim Sheppard, will also be filled by a newcomer. Nonetheless, I am harbouring significant optimism for this reformed band. I feel that their music deserves to be heard by more people, and making a return to touring (and recording) will shed light back on their previous incarnation.
I count myself as forever fortunate for having seen Nevermore live, having done so during their stint in the inaugural lineup of the Megadeth-led Gigantour in 2005 at what was then called the Molson Amphitheatre in Toronto. For those that missed out on that tour, click here to watch their performance of “Enemies of Reality” from the touring festival’s Montreal date. I think they only got to play four songs at the show I attended, which saddened my brother and I, but it remains the part of the concert I cherish the most. I never had the opportunity to catch them in a smaller venue, but one show is better than none considering some concerts that I missed out on over the years.
I’m going to make this something of a legacy set of trading cards to honour the band’s history to date. I usually refer to the music cards I make and share here as “Classic Lineup” cards, so what will this mean for my chosen lineup? See below to find out.
I want to begin by starting with a card of the man who is no longer with us, vocalist Warrel Dane.
Does this design look familiar to any card collectors out there? I avoided baseball and hockey this go-around, going with a football card design by choosing the 2011 Score design as my basis here. The year of the set matches the year that Nevermore broke apart, and given that they are a Seattle-based band, a set featuring one of their pro teams (the Seahawks) works well for them. The colour scheme matches the NFL team’s colours as well.
I often strive to never copy a set one-hundred percent of the way, so I’ll get into a few of the design choices for the card fronts. As is pretty much a standard in most cards I whip together, I use a band logo in place of a team’s logo if the original set design incorporated one. I’ve opted to use their ‘NM’ logo rather than the whole name, which is a bit more reminiscent of a sports team logo that any other logo they ever used. Besides, I’ve written the name out in full next to the instrument, abbreviated as a parallel to a player’s position on sports cards. My small need to self-promote puts my personal touch in place of the Score branding and my placing of five stripes behind my trusty Armchair Maestro logo instead of four to be representative of a music staff. Aside from that, I just tried to pick similar fonts like normal.
I don’t believe I tracked where I obtained photos for most of the other cards I designed, so besides their logo that I located on FanArt.TV, here’s the link to the deviantart.com page that I found the Warrel Dane picture. It looks to be one from the ‘90s rather than from nearer 2011, but he looks pretty cool in that one, so I grabbed it for variety.
Did I get a tad greedy by placing eight recordings in the Select Discography section? It may not be the most legible if printed off the card in the standard 2.5-by-3.5-inch size, but technically cards come in a wide-range of sizes. I also recall more than a few cards in my collection where you practically have to bust out a magnifying glass to read all the statistics. This 1987 Topps Baseball card of Cliff Johnson comes to mind, to use a card I strongly recall from my childhood collection.
Exact birth dates and birth places are somewhat hard to come by, leaning on Wikipedia possibly too heavily for many of these. For instance, on this card I had previously listed April 3rd, but the source of that date I cannot recall. I edited it after watching a documentary for what was Warrel’s final and posthumously-released solo album Shadow Work, which makes for a fond farewell to the vocalist. The listed dates in it I would have to assume came from a reliable source given it was from someone that knew him well.
I chose not to mention his death on the back of this card as I was aiming to capture the band at a moment in time towards the end of their initial tenure in 2011. The trivia I did include about Dreaming Neon Black I felt might interest a music fan that isn’t too familiar with Nevermore. However, exploring this fact deeper gets troubling, as it turns out that the missing ex-girlfriend in question (Patricia Walsh) was one of the many victims of “The Truck Stop Killer”, Robert Ben Rhoades.
Next comes Dane’s long-time band mate going back to Sanctuary, bassist Jim Sheppard.
To my surprise, I actually owned a Sanctuary trading card even before I had any idea who they were. The 1991 ProSet Musicards set had one of theirs as well as some of other relatively obscure metal acts of the era, including Crimson Glory, Fates Warning, and Lord Tracy, with the latter group featuring ex-Pantera vocalist Terry Glaze. Interesting inclusions, considering the set mostly focused on mainstream pop acts. Therefore, the cards of Warrel and Jim technically wouldn’t be their debuts on trading cards (that would be this card).
Regarding the photo I used on Jim’s card (source: https://alchetron.com/Jim-Sheppard ), I’m not certain who took it. It’s a great stance that fits the card’s dimensions excellently, and Soilwork fans should recognize that shirt from their Stabbing The Drama album cover.
Jim’s version of a select discography could technically have been identical to Warrel’s, but I did tweak it slightly in terms of the Nevermore albums I listed. While giving a re-listen of the Nevermore discography as I was making the cards, I’ve come to the conclusion that Jim’s bass was the most audible on The Politics of Ecstasy, though with a good enough ear, you shouldn’t have that much trouble hearing him on much of their material. A combination of the mix, tone, and the bass lines being unique enough from the guitar parts is what makes the difference. That explains why “The Seven Tongues of God” from that album gets a mention on the card. “Garden of Gray” has that feel of “Believer” from Ozzy Osbourne’s Diary of a Madman album, a slow-churning groove that’s hard to ignore. “The Holocaust of Thought” (I made a mistake on the card!) was a rare case of Sheppard getting a solo writing credit on a Nevermore track, with a hardy tip-of-the-cap to James Murphy for the guest guitar solo, so the inclusion of that was a necessity.
Now for the men that have decided to relaunch the band. Let’s go with the drummer first.
It’s worth noting that drummer Mark Arrington was on board for their early-year demos and some tracks from their debut album, but it was Mr. Williams that was in it for the long-haul. The longer I go between Nevermore listens, the more I under-rate Van Williams as a drummer. That being said, he was a difficult guy to track down a good photo of, especially one where he was behind the kit. There are far more usable images readily available for Van Williams the actor, but this is a set for Nevermore, not for The Green Hornet.
Van’s photo (source: https://laut.de/Nevermore/Fotogalerien/Rock-Hard-Festival-2010-4613/Nevermore-107811 by Michael Edele) was taken from the band’s Rock Hard Festival appearance from May 23, 2010 at Amphitheater Gelsenkirchen (Gelsenkirchen, Germany).
For the life of me, I can’t find what Van did prior to Nevermore. He’s had projects since and during his tenure with the band, and I’m sure he had to have a garage band or something going on. It would make his joining of Nevermore super-impressive if it was his very-first band. His Discogs profile mentions a New York-based band called Tobor Vog, but I can’t confirm anything about them.
Van is somewhat the opposite of Jim Sheppard in terms of where his playing stands out. Where the earlier albums favoured Jim’s presence more, Van really came on later into their existence. His playing was always top-notch, but I don’t think he had as strong an identity as a musician earlier on. Regarding the songs I selected to highlight his performances, it’s pretty much coincidental that both “I, Voyager” and “Final Product” were released as singles with music videos. I was spoiled for choice when jumping around their catalog, also hearing tracks like “Seed Awakening” and “A Future Uncertain” among those where it sounds as if he had an extra limb or two.
What’s a metal band without guitars? Without further delay, it’s Jeff Loomis.
Now that’s a pose that was meant for a trading card! To think of some sports equivalents, a goalie framing a spectacular glove save or a base runner beating out a tag stealing second base. Guitarists are more used to posing for good pictures compared to, say, drummers. They aren’t tucked away behind the action (though drummers are usually well-lit on a riser), so they carry the burden of looking as cool as possible. Jeff Loomis photos were the most-plentiful out of all of Nevermore’s musicians, so for Jeff I didn’t need to sift through irrelevant photos of other Loomises that are out there, such as Donald Pleasence’s Dr. Loomis character from the Halloween movies.
I’m not sure exactly where this photo came from other than the fact that I first spotted it on this blog, and it looks to have been taken on the tour for The Obsidian Conspiracy since you can see the album title on the backdrop.
This is also the second blog post of the past three where I highlight a guitarist that was considered for Megadeth membership. I’m certain that fact was used by Dave Mustaine to help sell Nevermore’s inclusion on the Gigantour despite their music speaking quite well enough for itself. Here’s a guy who I recall being asked at every opportunity whether he was going to put out a solo album, likely at some point by the Guitar World publication that I refer to on the back. Aside from Zero Order Phase, he’d later released a follow-up in Plains of Oblivion once leaving Nevermore. I had to include that on his list since he doesn’t appear to have much recording experience prior to Nevermore.
On the pre-Nevermore topic, Jeff is often mentioned as having played with Sanctuary, but I seldom see anything concrete that documents his time in the band. From what I know, it was sort of a transitional period between Sanctuary and Nevermore. According to the Metal-Rules.com interview cited on his Wikipedia page, he only played one gig with them. While I’d like to know more about this early-’90s period for this group of musicians, but I used this as an opportunity to highlight another early project of Loomis’. Experiment Fear’s 1991 demo, Choir Invisible, is up on YouTube for your listening pleasure.
Some Metalocalypse voice work was also provided by Warrel Dane, but mentioning it on one card is enough to get people exploring that tidbit. I remember enjoying the show, and would like to watch it again, but it’s quite expensive to buy physical copies of the series. I guess I can take a cue from Deathklok and start cutting expenses to afford it. On the note of Adult Swim-related content on The Cartoon Network, please allow me to express my condolences for the recent passing of actor George Lowe, best known as the voice of Space Ghost on Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
Now comes Guitarist #2. Having a second guitarist was a requirement to execute much of their material in a live setting, not to mention it was of great use in the studio as well, so I felt I had to include one last card. What was my solution for this difficult decision? A multi-guitarist card! In a move not too dissimilar from the 1980-81 Topps Basketball cards (Bird and Magic shared a rookie card in that set!), we’ve got a three-in-one with guitarists Pat O’Brien, Tim Calvert, and Steve Smyth.
With all due respect to the rest who spend some time with the band, these three were all considered official members of the band and found themselves on at least one studio album each. I felt that line was a fairly obvious one to draw, though Chris Broderick in particular did have some lengthy stays for various tours. He and Curran Murphy perform on select tracks on the live album and DVD The Year of the Voyager. To give a bit of attention to these two players in particular, check out Broderick in his stints with both Jag Panzer and Megadeth and Murphy’s work with Annihilator and Shatter Messiah to get a taste of them.
To be honest with you, I was strongly leaning towards the Steve Smyth-era since that’s the lineup when I saw them live as well as the one that put out one of their strongest albums (though it’s close between This Godless Endeavour and Dead Heart in a Dead World). It felt like a peak for Nevermore to me, though I couldn’t tell you in great detail what truly was their peak in terms of a balance of factors. Commercially, I’m not sure if any significant peak occurred as they were always well-known to metal fans but never broke bigger. At the same time, I felt the contribution of all three of these guitarists were roughly equivalent, so thus the creative method of sharing the spotlight.
Pat O’Brien was another one of those fairly hard image searches, in direct competition in the results with an old-time actor as well as a sportscaster of the same name. Despite guitarist Pat faring significantly better than drummer Van Williams for quality images, I still had to cheat somewhat. The image I am using comes from a Cannibal Corpse promo photo from the Gallery of Suicide era. I figure this shows him roughly the same age as he was while in Nevermore.
Tim Calvert was the hardest of the guitarists to find an appropriate photo. I knew for sure that I didn’t want to simply throw an image of him on the card from his Forbidden days, and he had next to nothing from his Nevermore stint (which was not a terribly long one). He’s recognizable enough in the photo I included, but I couldn’t tell you exactly what year this was taken in. I assume it was prior to his becoming a pilot, as I’m uncertain whether or not this hairstyle was workplace appropriate.
I also stuck to the head-shot theme with Steve Smyth for consistency. He actually did have quality live photos available, but not many great ones from his stint in Nevermore. The close-up I used was cropped from a much-larger photo of what looked to be him posing with a fan or another musician. Not ideal, but it does appear to be of the proper era rather than one closer to present day.
As far as the design on this fifth card goes, I don’t know what to tell you. I probably committed dozens of the cardinal sins of graphic design, but I attempted to squeeze the information of three cards onto one. It took some imagination as the 2011 Score set was solely cards in portrait orientation. I aimed to keep roughly the same sort of information on this card as I did the others, but kept the discography strictly Nevermore.
Some bands end up fading away over the years, but it’s great to hear if one of the group’s former members went on to greater notoriety. Not only did Ceremony feature Pat O’Brien, they also featured future Morbid Angel vocalist and bassist Steve Tucker. Pat got on two different Nevermore recordings (the aforementioned The Politics of Ecstasy and the In Memory EP) and can be seen in the music video for “What Tomorrow Knows” from their self-titled album despite not being part of that album’s recording. On the live front, check out a neat performance of “Eden Lies Obscured” in Hamburg Germany in 1996 that was filmed with a five-camera crew for cable TV.
Fans of Tim Calvert may notice that I didn’t mention his passing in 2018 from ALS on there, but I used the same logic as Dane’s card and wanted to keep all info circa 2011. There are a touching series of tribute videos up on YouTube about Tim posted by a friend of his, including what was apparently the last song he composed and one showing how much fun he had as ‘Master of the Middle Finger’. Despite enjoying the Dreaming Neon Black album in addition to his playing with Forbidden, I realized that I’d never seen live footage of the Calvert Nevermore lineup. If you are like me in that regard, here’s a clip of them in San Antonio, Texas from May 1999 to remedy that.
I put Testament as Steve Smyth’s last band prior to Nevermore, but was tempted to go with Testament side-project Dragonlord. Unlike with Testament, Smyth actually recorded a studio album with Dragonlord. The early to mid-2000s was a very intriguing yet very frustrating time to be a Testament fan who was just getting into the band. I was itching for new material, yet none was being released. The group had a rather interesting assortment of musicians pass through their ranks that would never produce an album with the band. The list includes Jon Allen (Sadus), ‘Metal Mike’ Chlasciak (Halford, PainmuseuM), and Nick Barker (Dimmu Borgir, Cradle of Filth). Thankfully, Smyth did make significant contributions to the lone Nevermore album he played on, earning writing credits on three songs in addition to taking his fair share of solos.
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Well, that’s the last of my Nevermore cards. To honour the legacy of the band, as Jeff and Van have set out to do in their reunion/reincarnation of Nevermore, I hope I achieved (to a much lesser extent) with this little card set. I hope all goes right with the band’s rebirth, but I have so many questions and concerns. Will the new lineup have an official member on guitar, or will Loomis be handling all the studio playing? For that matter, will he handle the bass playing in studio, or will the new guy be doing it? Can they find a singer that matches what Warrel Dane brought to the table, or are they going to go in a different direction and get someone unique? Will new material live up to any from their excellent past, or be considered a misstep by the metal community? Only time will tell.
On Instagram, check out both hardcore_legends_trading_cards and Grammy winner Michael Leonhart (michaelleonhart) as accounts that I’ve seen paying tribute to both trading cards and music. Like always, I’ll share more if I can find any before I make my next card-themed post.
Armchair Maestro 