Tim “Ripper” Owens, a former singer for the Iced Earth group, has said that Jon Schaffer “screwed up” through his involvement with the January 6th, 2021 riot in the U.S. Capitol. Owens joined Iced Earth in 2003, but was fired four years later in December 2007. He talked about his time as a member of the band in a recent Riff Crew interview.

According to Blabbermouth, when asked if he “saw it coming” that Schaffer would get involved with the capitol or something similar, Owens said “Listen, he’s known for being out there a little bit. We didn’t get along, and, obviously, I left the band. I haven’t talked to him hardly since I left. But no, I really didn’t see it coming. It’s a shame he did it. He knew he was wrong. He probably knows he’s wrong; he screwed up. Obviously he would have been better off going into the inner city and looting a building and burning it to the ground and stealing TVs. He probably would have got off and not had any trouble. Unfortunately, he did something else and he got in trouble for it. And you know what? He was wrong and he did it. Even though they opened the doors for him and said, ‘Come on in,’ you can’t go in; that’s just the way it is.”

Shortly after the January 6 riot, in April 2021, Schaffer pled guilty to his role at the capitol, and entered a cooperation agreement plea deal with the government.

After Schaffer’s involvement with the riot became public, other members of Iced Earth immediately distanced themselves from Schaffer and his actions. Singer Stu Block and bassist Luke Appleton made statements on social media that they were quitting the band. Hansi Kürsch, frontman for Blind Guardian, quit his and Schaffer’s project Demons & Wizards. Century Media, the long-standing record label for Iced Earth, stopped listing both Iced Earth and Demons & Wizards on their roster page.