Feature: Riots, Riffs and Redemption – Jon Schaffer (Iced Earth)

By Seth Metoyer, Heavens Metal Magazine –

Metalheads aren’t exactly known for swallowing whatever the news dishes out. We question authority, we shred against the grain, and we don’t follow the herd unless that herd is gathering in the pit. So why do many still fall for the outrage trap the media sets for us over and over again?

Take the recent fixation on Los Angeles. Flashy headlines, burning cars, street chaos, and social media commenters rushing to condemn it all as the fall of Western civilization. But zoom out, and you start to see a pattern: the same folks shouting “riots! lawlessness!” are often the same ones who downplayed the Capitol riot back in January 2021. “It wasn’t a riot, it was a protest.” “They were patriots.” Or, in some cases, complete silence.

But let’s call it what it was: a serious and chaotic event. Regardless of whether you brand it a riot, a protest, or even a misguided revolution, the facts remain the same; people died, many were injured, and the very institutions that hold the country together were attacked. It wasn’t just a blip. It was a break in the American psyche.

Enter Jon Schaffer.

Yeah, that Jon Schaffer—founding guitarist of Iced Earth, metal icon, and one of the first people to breach the U.S. Capitol during that infamous day. Arrested. Guilty plea. Solitary confinement. Yikes.

Now he’s talking about Jesus. And he’s saying it loud.

In a recent Riffs From the Couch interview, Schaffer said, “Well, I would say that as brutal as it’s been in the big picture, it’s been the biggest gift of my life to go through this, not only for the cause, but for the fact that it is what led me to Christ.” He later added, “When I was locked up in solitary, the only book that I could get was a Bible… Jesus is the only way—that is absolutely clear to me now.”

He admits that before this conversion, he was stubborn and driven, but solitude and scripture broke him down: “It took that to break my stubborn… I was very stubborn, very, very hardheaded and very driven,” he started. “But I realized that all the things…that I feel like God was working through me and I didn’t even know it.”

You can mock it, praise it, or roll your eyes, but if you believe in redemption, then this story matters.

But this isn’t about defending Jon Schaffer or overzealous protestors in Los Angeles or in Washington. It’s about how quickly we let the media pick our villains and saints. One day it’s a metal guitarist with questionable choices. The next, it’s a protestor with a Molotov cocktail. The talking heads scream, and we either clutch our pearls or load our meme cannons.

So what do we, as people of faith and people of music, do with that?

We step back. We resist the algorithm. We turn down the volume of pre-packaged narratives and crank up the dial on truth, accountability, and yes, grace.

The message isn’t to ignore riots or excuse violence. It’s to stop letting media outrage teach us what to fear, who to hate, and who gets a second chance. If Christ is truly in the business of transformation, then every story has a shot at redemption, even when it’s messy.

Jon Schaffer found faith in a jail cell. That doesn’t erase what happened, but it does add a new verse to the song.

Let’s be the kind of people who don’t skip that verse.

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Watch the Conversation with Jon Schaffer of Iced Earth on Riffs from the Couch:

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For more metal-minded takes and essays on music, media, culture, and the soul, read and subscribe to my Substack at sethmetoyer.substack.com. It’s free!

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