Jon Schaffer Tackles the Global Banking Conspiracy

By Carl C. Sundberg
July 2010


Jon Schaffer is best known as the mastermind behind the power metal titans Iced Earth. And while Iced Earth is by no means coming to an end (in fact they just signed a new deal with Century Media), Schaffer is taking some time to focus on his new project - Sons of Liberty - a shocking departure from the fantasy-based themes and sounds of the Tampa, Florida-based Iced Earth.

Sons of Liberty take its name from the small secret band of American patriots who fought for the independence of the North American from the British during the formation of the United States in the late 1700s. And much like that original group, Schaffer sees this new project as a vessel for peaceful revolution against what he describes as a “pattern of global banking corruption that is undermining the independence of not only the nation, but the planet”.

The debut album, “Brush-Fires of the Mind”, is chock-full of eye-opening songs that attempt to explain exactly where this corruption stemmed from and how it’s destroying mankind and what can be done about it. And while the topics of this album are a distinct departure from what you’d expect from the songwriter of Iced Earth, it’s still firmly routed sonically in the powerful thunder that Iced Earth is known for. With plenty of super heavy riffs, double bass drumming and shredding solos, Sons of Liberty finds Jon Schaffer more deadly serious than he’s ever been.

Q: Where did Sons of Liberty come from?

A: I was in desperate need of a vacation. That was the beginning of it. I had just taken a few weeks off in my entire adult life, just going twenty years nonstop. At the last Iced Earth European tour I was ready to crash. I was like, “I need a break bad”. So we went to Central America for a month. I was away from all the distractions and the rat race and everything and I really started to feel different. I was relaxed for probably the only time in my adult life and it was cool. But one of the few times I turned on the television I saw this report on the news, the Mayak Report they called it, you know Constitutionalists and Ron Paul supporters, Libertarians, and ex-military, gun-owners, Christians, Conservatives, they were listed as potential terrorists. And this was from federal government to local law enforcement. I was like, “What is going?” So I get back home and I see that [Janet] Napolitano apologizes, stands up with the head of the American legion because the vets were bent out of shape about it and rightfully so. She gives a bunch of lip service. And I’m thinking this is just rhetoric, this was still policy, if it was sent out to law enforcement, then that’s federal policy. So I started digging more and more. I found out that it was actually drafted under President Bush but it was leaked under Obama’s administration and that started making me think. Things started feeling uneasy. Seeing a lot of policies that Bush had that were detrimental to the American people, were being carried on by Obama even though he campaigned against it, and I’m thinking this is just starting to smell bad. Every time we get suckered into a president, it’s just rhetoric. The agenda just moves forward. Then a good friend of mine sent me a link about fractional reserve banking and that really blew my mind. That led me to learn about the Federal Reserve and the fact that it’s a private banking cartel that basically has the right to counterfeit our money and they are accountable to no one. It was then that I had goose bumps all over my body. I was just thinking back to Thomas Jefferson’s warning about that kind of stuff and I studied this, but I just didn’t know that the federal reserve was not a legitimate part of government. It’s a private banking cartel. It’s not part of Treasury. It’s a treasonous act. It’s actually a communist instituion, it’s the fifth plank of the communist manifesto, to have a central bank. Now I’m seeing motive for so many things that are wrong. This empire building and everything that’s going on. It led me to do more and more research and I realized we’ve all been lied to. Big time. About a lot of the things that are going on in the world and what America’s role has been. It just feels like it’s time for, man…I don’t know. Something awakened inside of me and this stuff came out and I knew that I had to do it, for better or worse, I had to sing it. It was my message. I want people to start researching this because our country is in serious danger. And it has been for a long time, but it’s accelerating to where we’re looking at a full economic collapse here, and it is being done by design. If you read the writings of the people involved, whom I’ll call the “conspirators” you’ll see that this has been planned for a very long time. It’s a way to implement one banking system and one world government. It’s the dreams of these guys’ grandfathers. It’s a thing that passed down. The global elite passes it down to subsequent generations and they’ve carried it on and now there is an awakening happening around the world and that’s one of the reasons the program is being accelerated at the rate that it is.

Q: Sons of Liberty is a nod to our forefathers, and they weren’t involved in this, right, I mean when did this global elite take shape?

A: Well it’s exactly what the Sons of Liberty were fighting against. Exactly what our founders were against. They were all about stopping the bankers and the global elite and the manipulators. That was the real cause of the American Revolution. We were faced with it right from the start, from George Washington’s administration, I mean right off the bat, we had a central bank. The First Bank of the United States. Thomas Jefferson was furious about it. He came back from Europe and sees that they’ve established the Treasury Department and the First Bank of the United States and he was just furious. He was like, “we just fought a revolution, you’re making us British. So him and Alexander Hamilton were butting heads constantly. Very heated in the White House, well it wasn’t the White House then, but where Washington was headquartered. They were going at it. That’s actually how the Republican Party started. So anyway, they have an inflationary collapse and the Second Bank of the United States comes in, same situation, but this time when Andrew Jackson, our seventh president, came into office, he spent his second term vowing to destroy and tear down the central bank. And he did it. On his farewell address he said if the American people allow this institution or another one like it to take root again, it will be the end of our country. It’s the war our nation has been engaged in since the very beginning.

Q: What do you think can stop this takeover?

A: Awareness is the first step. If people don’t really understand what we’re up against then we’ve got no shot whatsoever. You can’t keep looking to government officials who work for the bankers to give us solutions. These people lie to us all the time. At the local level we need to educate people about the real financial system, fractional reserve banking, how fraudulent it is and then hold those people’s feet to the fire on the local and state level. Honestly going violent is the worst thing that could possibly happen. What our founders faced – this is a thousand times worse. The enemy’s in the gate. And they’re running the show. The technology, it’s way worse. Really it has to be Ghandhi-like. But the first step is awareness. If we become self sufficient and stop buying crap from these multi-national corporations and we get out of debt and we try to act collectively, we could collapse the federal government and stop their robber baron ways pretty quickly.

Q: Now most of the songs on your new album are related to all this, what are some of the more powerful songs on this album?

A: I guess I’d have to say “Jekyll Island”. It’s sort of giving a brief little history of the federal reserve and how we were hijacked. Hopefully it’ll make people read the book, “The Creature from Jekyll Island” because that book is crucial. It should make any citizen of the world angry to know how we’ve been manipulated by a small group of people. It’s a historical fact. There’s so much evidence, it’s everywhere. You start digging through old newspaper articles, whatever. This is real. So I’d say that’s one of the most important songs. “We The People” is a pretty powerful statement. “Don’t Tread on Me.”

Q: On your website you have a whole slew of links to help spread this truth to the people, yeah?

A: That’s the whole point is to…I mean I know I’m going to reach a small number of people and even smaller still are actually going to stand up and resist and get involved. But I had to do this. I put everything on hold for this. Paying projects. I spent a shitload of money and released it for free because I believe in this that much. And the links and the booklists are there so that anybody who’s been following what I’ve done through the years they know I’m a genuine guy and I’m not the monster that some people claim that I am. So I think there’s a lot of people who have done the research and they’re starting to wake up. In fact I know they have because I’ve heard from them. The documenataries are crucial. I recommend that anybody who watches that stuff just take notes. If you hear something that’s completely crazy take notes and look it up. Then maybe you’ll see it’s not so crazy after all.


Originally published on 101d.com