The 13th Warriors
Over the last four decades, Fates Warning have faced many challenges, but their 13th album, Long Day Good Night, could be one of their biggest so far. Vocalist Ray Alder details the creation of the band’s latest record and comes clean about those departure rumours.
Words: Dave Ling Images: Stephanie Cabral
In a different light: Fates Warning.
“We went on tour, thrashed about like idiots and had the time of our lives, but few people really got it.”
In the summer of 2019, having returned to their respective homes following a tour with fellow US progressive metallers Queensrÿche, Fates Warning began mapping out plans for a 13th studio album. Over the coming months, guitarist Jim Matheos and vocalist Ray Alder collaborated on its material, although gradually the band began to sense a gigantic problem: Covid-19 was heading their way.
Alder had moved to Spain some years previously. On the day that Prog speaks to him he bemoans the fact that his adopted homeland is going into quarantine for a second time. Earlier this year, with mixer Joe Barresi (Tool/Coheed And Cambria) booked for a very specific window of time and the band having been set a cast iron completion date, the pandemic’s original wave meant Alder was forced to take an extreme course of action.