Chimaira has reunited twice since breaking up in 2014 – once in 2017 and twice on May 12 and 13 of this year at The Agora in Cleveland, OH to celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Impossibility Of Reason. Chimaira vocalist Mark Hunter stated shortly after the announcement of the reunion shows that there will not be any new material coming, though guitarist Rob Arnold says the situation is a little more nuanced.
In an interview with The Ex-Man With Doc Coyle, Arnold said new material isn't entirely out of the question. Arnold then went on to explain that putting out new material is a lot more complicated than just crapping out some songs, and that the band is very aware that everyone wants new Chimaira.
"I won't say that new Chimaira material, while we're not talking about it, is completely off the table. But there's a very good chance we may never have it, but there may be. We all know in Chimaira that people want more music but like you guys I'm sure, we're not a band that's going to throw something together just because. There's going to be so much planning and stewing to make that happen.
"We've actually tried – maybe you heard – we were kind of geared up after that last show as you know, things were great. As you know, God Forbid is probably fired up right now, but then the pandemic hit and it just wiped everything out. It just stopped completely. Now for these shows it's re-getting everything going again."
Arnold previously touched on the failed new material in a 2020 interview, saying things were only in their infancy and that nothing actually got demoed.
"We had the next 'Chimaira Christmas' show, which was gonna be Christmas of 2020… [It] had been booked, but it hadn't been announced yet. We weren't gonna announce it until probably mid-summer… We had already even started talking about setlists and stuff like that.
"And then along with that came the talks of ‘hey, why don't we start writing some music and just start putting some riffs together and sending them back and forth?' and that didn't really get out of any infancy stage. There aren't any songs or anything yet that are in the archives or anything like that.
"That never really lifted off. Because right at that same moment is when COVID hit. And obviously everybody had to make huge adjustments right then. And just everything was put on hold. A few weeks later the show was cancelled…"
