Dr. Abner Mality of Wormwood Chronicles webzine recently interviewed former JUDAS PRIEST and current ICED EARTH/BEYOND FEAR singer Tim "Ripper" Owens. Many aspects of Ripper's career were touched on, including the upcoming ICED EARTH album, his days with JUDAS PRIEST and some of the lyrical ideas behind the songs on the BEYOND FEAR debut disc. Here are a few excerpts from the chat:

On the inspiration for:

Wormwood Chronicles: I almost interpret [the BEYOND FEAR song "My Last Words"] as being the last thoughts of somebody on United Flight 93.

Tim Owens: It was actually written before that, strangely enough. It was written when Payne Stewart, the golfer, died. He and his crew had left a tournament in Orlando and were going cross country on a jet. Something happened and everybody on the plane died yet the plane continued to fly across America until rescuers caught up to it and brought it down.

Wormwood Chronicles: I remember that! That was one of the strangest incidents in the history of aviation!

Tim Owens: Could you imagine if somebody was alive in that plane while it was flying? Somebody flying across the United States knowing they were going to die. That was the original idea I had for that song. I took that story and changed his death to somebody being alive yet knowing they are going to die. Then a year or two later, 9/11 happened so it's very, very strange. It's funny because most people think I wrote the song about 9/11, but it was already written.

Wormwood Chronicles: You can relate it to other situations. The recent mining disaster in West Virginia is one. The miners who died had time to write out their last words before they passed away.

Tim Owens: Yeah, exactly.

Wormwood Chronicles: Your song "Dreams Come True" seems very autobiographical. It sounds like you put a lot of heart into that one. Could elaborate on some of the thoughts that went into that?

Tim Owens: It is definitely autobiographical. It was a song that started out not being that. It started off with me just singing about dreams coming true in general. My grandma died...she's in my dreams, the grass is green and everything is perfect. And then as the song goes on it really starts to dwell more on my life...which is like anybody's life, really. The key to that song is that last verse, which speaks volumes. It's exactly my life. It's looking back on my life. Playing in my backyard with my old friends. I see my parents, they're as young as me.

Wormwood Chronicles: That line about the parents, that's the one that struck me the most. I think it will strike most listeners the same way.

Tim Owens: It will, and that's the thing. When I sing that last verse, I picture my parent's backyard with a couple of big trees., all these dirt paths and not a whole lot of grass. Now I look at it and it's all grass, there's no trees...it's so different. But when I picture that verse, I see that yard the way it was when I was a kid. I picture myself back there running around, I picture myself going to the baseball field with my parents, who are healthy and younger. I think everybody can get into that last verse because they can see their own past.

Read the entire interview at www.wormwoodchronicles.com.