Detritus
Mini-Issue #294.5 - November 5, 2004
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*
*** LET IT BE KNOWN ***
*
-Here's the lengthy and cool interview Sean and Neal did with
Savatage's Jon Oliva, down at ProgPower in Atlanta. Enjoy. - Tim

*
*** SPECIAL REPORT ***
*
by Sean P. Gahgan (lof@...) with Neal Woodall
(MysticX10@...)

-Interview w/ The Mountain King, Jon Oliva
September 17, 2004

This was by far the funniest, most fulfilling and enjoyable interview
I have ever had the pleasure of doing. Jon Oliva is personally one of
my favorite song writers of all time and it was an honor to speak with
him in person. Neal Woodall and I caught up with Jon and his
bodyguard, Dave Stuart, right after sound check for ProgPower USA V
and Jon was just unwinding from what appeared to be a stressful
preparation with last-minute changes for the night's event. He was in
good spirits and graciously answered all of our questions openly and
honestly. Jon had us laughing for an entire hour, I kid you not, as he
could easily be a stand-up comedian, and his animated personality has
to be seen to be experienced. We talked about everything from the next
Savatage CD, to why he doesn't tour with Trans-Siberian Orchestra, to
the long talked about but never released Romanov project, to his most
recent endeavor, Jon Oliva's Pain. So here it is. Enjoy!

DETRITUS: Let's talk about Jon Oliva's Pain...

JON OLIVA: (alluding to sound check) You just missed it... (we all
laugh) OK, what do you want know?

D: Let's talk about the songs. How old are they? Have they been around
for a while or are they all recently written?

JO: Most of them are new, most of them are within the last year...
There are a couple pieces of songs that I had from old songs that I
just never got to do anything with. There is one that my brother Criss
and I worked on for Savatage -- I think it was for the GUTTER BALLET
album and we had the verse for it but we never did anything with it --
we demoed it up a couple times but I ended up using it on this record,
a song called "Nowhere To Run." The verse for that song was from a
Savatage song we used to do called "Target," which I think was just a
working title... So I pulled a few things like that but basically it's
pretty new.

D: Did you record at Morrisound Studios or did you just master it
there?

JO: I just mixed it there. I tried to master it there but I didn't
like the way the master came out so I re-mastered it at the place I
cut the tracks at because, I don't know, Morrisound is a great place
to work and I love it there but this little studio I found in Tampa
called Audio Lab that I did the recordings at everything sounded so
big and warm. When I got to Morrisound we mixed it and it was great
and then I left and it was all (makes choking sound) "AGHG..." They
compressed the fucking shit out of it and I was like, "This ain't
gonna work," so I gave it back to them to redo and the did it again
and it was fucking worse so I said, "All right, I'll take it someplace
else" and then I just let my engineer do it and it came out really
good.

D: From start to finish, once you entered the studio, how long did it
take to record?

JO: Well, I started recording it a year ago on my own, and I was going
to do the whole record by myself. That was the plan originally, I was
going to do it all myself. I recorded six or seven songs and I did
everything...

D: You recorded all the instruments yourself, right?

JO: Yes...it was good... You know I liked it, some stuff worked but it
was missing something... It was missing feel, because when you are
playing with yourself there is no feel 'cause you have to do
everything to clicks and I hated it. Then I was doing some shows. I
got offered to do some shows in Florida and I needed some guys to play
with me and I called up the guys who used to play with Zak [Stevens,
former Savatage vocalist] 'cause they weren't playing with Zak anymore
[in Circle II Circle]. That thing didn't work out for them; it was
about four months after the stopped working with Zak. I said, "Hey, I
got these three shows to do. Would you guys mind learning a set really
quick and yada yada yada..." We played the shows and it sounded
fucking great. I was like, "WOW...this is really great, this is what
I'm missing." So I asked them, "You guys aren't working with Zak
anymore, right?" And they said, "No that's done." So I said, "Why
don't you guys come in and do some recording with me?" Initially I was
like, "Come in and play on a couple tracks," and I was going to check
it out and it was just great. So I said, "Fuck it," I scrapped
everything I did and started all over again. I had them play on every
track and it came out exactly how I envisioned it which is really
cool.

D: Besides vocals, what other instruments did you play that ended up
in the final recordings?

JO: Oh, I play a lot on there. I play guitar, some lead guitar, all of
the piano, most of the string stuff -- John Zahner did most of the
organ on the record but I did most of the orchestra stuff and all the
piano stuff. All of the acoustic guitar, played a lot of electric
rhythm and I did a couple solos -- the solo in "The Dark" at the end
-- the ride out solo I used an ebow... You know the ebow?

D: Oh yeah...

JO: I did an ebow solo on that and I used it again on the "Guardian Of
Forever" song. The first solo is my solo using the ebow which was
fun... I never did a solo on a record before [because] I was always to
chicken shit (all laugh), but that ebow thing was fucking cool... I
was like, "Man, this is cool..." You don't have to do anything.
(mimics ebow sound on guitar) Yeah it was cool. We did a lot of stuff
on the fly. With this record, there where no rules, you know. With
Savatage there is a chain of command, you know, how things run, you've
got five other guys who are all part of it and who all have a say in
what goes on. And that's fine and that's the way it's worked but I
never have done anything where I had total say over everything which
was really different and I enjoyed it.

D: You said that this is the first of three CDs. Can you explain this?

JO: I came up with that 'cause I was cataloguing and I have 35 to 40
songs that I haven't done anything with and I figured if I broke them
up it would be about three records. I already have half of the next
one compiled and put together and I'm gonna see what happens from
there.

D: How soon are we going to see the second record?

JO: Very soon. I'm not gonna sit around and do a record every four
years, probably after next summer. I'm actually gonna start the pre-
production for it in October/November. I'm gonna start laying tracks
down and then I have to go to tour in January/February in Europe and
then when I get back I will try and finish it up.

D: Are we gonna get a chance to see Jon Oliva's Pain here in the US?

JO: Oh yeah, sure, but probably not until they release it here. The
record company is not releasing the record here until January, but I
probably will book some shows here. Most definitely.

D: How much are we going to get to hear tonight?

JO: Seven songs.

D: Great!

JO: The show starts and I do the Pain thing first, we do seven songs
off the record. Then there is a little piano thing I do that
transposes us from my Pain thing to the Savatage and I bring [former
drummer Steve] Wacholz out and [guitarist Chris] Caffery and we are
going to do some Savatage stuff and have some fun!

D: What happened with the name thing...

JO: Originally I wanted to use 'Tage Mahal as the name for the band
and then there is some blues guy in Europe that has been using the
name for 25 years or something, and the record company guy got scared
'cause they could pull it -- you know, pull it off the shelves -- so I
just said, "Fuck it." I kept the name of the record as 'TAGE MAHAL
'cause that was the name my brother Criss came up with a long time ago
when he was going to do an instrumental record. That was the name he
came up with and it always stuck in my head so as a little thing with
him I decided to keep the name and call the record 'TAGE MAHAL. And
the Pain thing was great. Someone said to me -- how did that go...oh
yeah... -- some girl said to me, "I feel your pain" and I just went,
"Damn that's perfect." And it's funny, it's a tongue-in-cheek thing
with the guys in the band. I say, "Jon Oliva's Pain and here they are"
[referring to the band]. It's just fun. Anyway, I think names are
stupid... They're overrated.

D: What about the name Weapons Of Mass Destruction?

JO: I don't even know what that was... I don't know. (all laugh) It's
because it wasn't a Savatage concert and we didn't want to call it
Savatage because it wasn't suppose to be a Savatage concert. It was
supposed to be a few of us that were available were going get together
and just jam as sort of a salute, and we didn't want to call it
Savatage 'cause Johnny Middleton wasn't there and stuff like that
and... Well, you know, I think Wacholz and Caffery came up with that,
the Weapons Of Mass Destruction thing. I didn't even know what it was
until I saw it on a shirt yesterday. I said, "What the fuck is this?"
(laughs) "Oh...that's what you are." (all laugh)

D: Was there any chance of dragging Damond [Jiniya, Savatage co-
vocalist] along?

JO: No. See that's the thing, if I start doing that then it becomes
Savatage and that's not what we set out to do. The whole thing is
Glenn's [Harveston, ProgPower organizer] a good friend of ours and he
wanted us to do something and we were going to have Zak but there was
an accident that happened which is very sad but...you know. But I told
him in order to get Savatage to do something you have to go through
the whole rigamarole... It's a lot more money, you've got to fly
people for rehearsals from New York and all. So I said, "Why don't we
do this?" I wanted to do the Pain thing anyway so I said, "Why don't
we just get Caffery, or maybe Wacholz and Caffery to just come out on
stage and join up and we'll just play a few things?" Then we worked
out the whole show and after we found out about Zak we had to change
some things, which is why I'm a little on edge about a certain thing
right now but it will be all right.

D: Are we gonna see any surprise guests?

JO: I don't know if that's gonna happen... No, I don't think that's
gonna happen.

D: Are we gonna hear any Doctor Butcher tonight?

JO: No, not tonight.

D: Aughh, come on... No "[The] Altar?"

JO: Dude...you're killing me.... Dude, that shit is fuckin' mean! (all
laugh) I'm gonna have to answer to the Lord on that one. He's gonna be
pissed off at me for that one... But it was all in good fun...I think?
I was pretty pissed off when we did that Butcher record. I had some
serious shit going on so if you listen to the lyrics on that record
I'm not happy about anything.

D: Yeah, that's some brutal stuff.

JO: Yeah I was like, "FUCK YOU!" It's good stuff though. We are going
to do some more stuff on that, record a couple more Butcher songs and
put them on a re-release of the first record.

D: Cool, glad to here that. How about the big question: When are we
going to hear a new Savatage CD?

JO: Savatage will be for 2006/2007, the 25th anniversary and we are
working on that. We are working on the compiling, we've got people
working on compiling the footage... We've got tons, fuckin' shitloads
of footage.

D: For a DVD?

JO: Yeah, it's gonna be a DVD package. It's gonna have all the videos
we did, live stuff with Criss, live stuff from DEAD WINTER DEAD tour,
the WAKE OF MAGELLAN tour, the POETS [AND MADMEN] tour, and then we
are going to do a big show -- we are probably going to do it in Greece
-- where all the guys who have ever played in the band will come out
and play.

D: You are gonna make us fly all the way to Greece to see this?

JO: Oh it's killer over there!

D: Just give us some advance notice...

JO: I'll give you a year's notice so you can save on some money. (all
laugh) That's where I wanna do it 'cause I wanna do it at that venue
where fuckin' Yanni did his fuckin' thing. (laughs)

D: The Acropolis?

JO: Yeah. I wanna be out there, "Fuck Yanni." (mimics Yanni) Suck my
dick... [Note: Everyone was in tears as Jon's facial expressions were
hilarious. - Sean]

D: So this all won't happen until 2000...

JO: Two thousand seven is the official 25th anniversary of the band
being Savatage so, that was something we've got planned. You know the
Trans-Siberian Orchestra thing is just so fucking time-consuming with
everybody, I mean... We never expected it. That thing got so big...

D: It took a life on of its own.

JO: It just took a life of its own but it's something that requires a
lot of attention and you know, what are you gonna do? It put Savatage
in a bad... It was actually bad for Savatage, but good for all of the
guys in Savatage... But then I'm like, "Hey, I've had Savatage around
for 25 fuckin' years." That's a long time -- most bands are only
around for three, four, maybe five years. So it annoys me sometimes
because I'd like to just be Savatage but then again it's like, it's
life, I got to make sure all these guys are taken care of... The TSO
thing is paying everybody's bills. Savatage was a labor of love. We
didn't make a lot of money with Savatage; we spent far more money than
we made. We used a lot of TSO money to fund Savatage tours and
Savatage over-budget stuff. Paul O'Neill has no fucking idea what
"budget" stands for. (all laugh)

D: That's obvious by the awesome production job on the Savatage and
TSO stuff...

JO: Yeah but money to him is like this (flicks an ash from his
cigarette), it's like an ash, it's nothing to him... But Savatage, we
have kept it together for so long and we have gotten it to the point
now that when we want to do a record, we'll do it. It's not about the
money. If it was about the money we'd be doing a record every year.
But it has never been about the money with Savatage...'cause we never
made any. (laughs) We spent far more than we made but we had so much
fun and it's such a part of us. There will be more Savatage stuff, I
just don't think it's... That's when I decided to do this Pain thing,
because I found myself sitting around at home... I don't play with
TSO, I just write and work in the studio.

D: Why is that?

JO: I refuse to play that shit... I love it but I will not play it
live.

D: Why?

JO: I tried it a couple times and I fucking hated it... I can't get
into it, and I'm the kind of guy that if I can't get into it -- it
would be like fucking an ugly chick and trying to convince her that
she's beautiful. (all laugh) OK, you know what I mean... When I play
it's got to be loud, it's got to be kicking ass, and with this thing
you and I could be holding a conversation without raising our voices
with the band playing 20 feet away from us. I was just standing there
going, "What the fuck? I can hear my foot tapping on the floor..." But
hey, that's how it has to be because it's a controlled situation. And
you have an audience of people up to 70 fuckin' years old... (pauses
for a moment as the room is quiet) Sorry with the "F" words all the
time. (all laugh) But you've got people from 10 years old to 70 years
old -- it's like a circus crowd in a way -- so you can't have this
(makes an evil face and wailing scream)... You know, I can't fake it
man, if I'm not feeling it, I'm not doing it. If I have to fake it I'd
rather pay somebody to do it. I'd rather sit home and write music...
I'd rather write more stuff than waste six to eight weeks doing
something I'm just not into and just pass it off to people that I'm
into it. I can't do it. I can't fake it.

D: When are we going to hear a new TSO album?

JO: This year, for Christmas. It comes out in October. (mimicking
Nigel Tufnel) "It's the third one of the Christmas trilogy, written in
D minor, the saddest of al the keys." (all laugh) No, it's a good
record, it has some real good stuff on it and it's called...I can't
remember what it's called (laughs) but it's good stuff. [The title is
THE LOST CHRISTMAS EVE. - Sean]

D: Chris had mentioned that TSO is going to tour with the [2000 album]
BEETHOVEN's LAST NIGHT production next spring.

JO: Yes, that is possible. That one I will do.

D: Why?

JO: 'Cause all I have to do is go out and sing two songs. I don't have
to play.

D: So you would go on tour with TSO and play Mephistopheles?

JO: That I could do. I could walk out there and sing two songs and
then go back to my little trailer and hang.

D: They couldn't have picked a better role for you to play.

JO: Dude... I'm the perfect devil. (all laugh) It's fuckin' great. So
that one I will do. That's cool, plus I don't read music so...

D: You know if you came out as Mephistopheles that you would get the
biggest pop of the night. The crowd would just go bonkers.

JO: We'll see... I hope so.

D: When TSO first came around I went and saw them in Chicago and I
didn't know that you weren't with them. Everyone is sitting down being
real quiet and I stand up and I say, "Where is Jon Oliva?" and
everyone is looking at me like, "What the hell is this guy doing?"
(all laugh)

JO: YOU WERE THE GUY! I heard about that...

D: Seriously?

JO: Yeah, Chris Caffery told me about that some long hair jumped up
and screamed "Where's Jon Oliva?" (all laughing hysterically) Oh
man... That's just great.

D: I wanted to ask you about this project you and Paul O'Neill have
been working on or worked on, Romanov?

JO: Yeah we are going to turn that into a TSO project. It was supposed
to be a Broadway project and we sold the rights to the William Morris
Agency and Pace Theatrical. They bought the rights to it and they had
six years to put it out and they never did. They went through
producers and they rewrote it. They were doing this, doing that, doing
this, doing that, and we were like, "What the fuck?" So when the
contract ran out we just took it back. The thing was is that they kept
giving us money each year -- if they wanted to keep it they had to
give us money every year or we would get the rights back. So every
year we would be like, "What's going on?" and they would be like, "Oh
we're talking to this guy and we're doing this and doing that," and we
would get a check and another year would go by. Finally Paul said,
"Fuck this," and we took it back and now we are going to make it be a
TSO CD and possibly like a BEETHOVEN's LAST NIGHT thing were we will
do it on stage... (turning very serious) That Romanov stuff is good! I
still think that's the best thing we've done, that Paul and I have
done outside of Savatage.

D: Really?

JO: I think it's better than the first Christmas record [CHRISTMAS EVE
AND OTHER STORIES] -- and I think the first Christmas record is REAL
good -- but that fuckin' Romanov is good.

D: Why? Why do you say that?

JO: It's just very very cool, it's got a great vibe to it, the story
is great and the music is very military -- very rock -- it's like
military rock, very edgy and emotional. It's very dynamic and it's got
some great dark stuff, I mean you guys would really like it. It's my
favorite stuff I have done with O'Neill.

D: I know you probably can't answer this but what's your favorite
Savatage song? Any one in particular that really stands out?

JO: Probably my favorite one is "When The Crowds Are Gone" or
"Believe." I like "Believe" a lot.

D: Are we going to hear that one tonight?

JO: Yeah. "Somewhere In Time" and "Believe," actually, I'm going to do
them both like they are on the record. Actually when we found out that
Zak couldn't do this thing we had to scramble and change the set
around. We were going to be doing a bunch of stuff off of EDGE OF
THORNS 'cause Zak was going to sing and we were like, "Fuck..." And
Steve hasn't played for a long time and I didn't want to give him shit
like "Agony And Ecstasy" -- I didn't want to kill he guy. (all laugh)
So I'm like, "Steve, what ones do you think you can do?" and we talked
it over and we picked out some good stuff. We are doing a couple songs
that we have never done on stage before. Well, one at least, "Hyde"
we've never done live before.

D: "Hyde?" Awesome...

JO: That is a great song.

D: Yes it is...

JO: It's the only song on FIGHT FOR THE ROCK that makes it worthwhile
to buy it. We are doing "Thorazine Shuffle" which we haven't done
since Criss was alive.

D: Cool, very cool...

JO: FUN! I'M GONNA HAVE SOME FUN TONIGHT!

D: "Legions?"

JO: No...no "Legions." A lot of stuff off of STREETS. Chris Caffery is
going to sing a song which should be amusing. That should be fun, you
know, seeing a little elf running around.

DAVE STUART: I wanted to hear "Warriors."

JO: (singing the chorus as loud as he can) "Warriors...WARR-I-ORS."
(all laugh)

D: That will be cool to hear Chris sing some Savatage stuff. Have you
heard Chris' CD [FACES/GOD DAMN WAR]?

JO: Yeah, it's pretty good. I like it. I like a lot of it. I would
have mixed it a little different but that's just me. I'm really picky
about stuff but I think the songs are really good...for a guitar
player. If you are a guitar player it is an essential record to get
because he really does some great stuff.

D: What do you think of his vocals?

JO: I think he did real good. For a guy who has never sung lead vocals
before, I think he did real good.

D: He said it was a great learning experience...

JO: Yeah I'm sure it fuckin' was. (laughs) You bet your ass it was --
that's a tough job it is! That shit's hard to do...heh, sometimes.
Were you at sound check?

D: No.

JO: Sound check supposedly sounded good. (to Dave) How did "Tonight He
Grins Again" sound?

DS: Very good.

JO: The screams were there, right?

DS: They were there.

JO: Told you.

DS: People will be blown away.

JO: Told you, told ya Bitch! (all laugh) Never doubt the Mountain
King.

D: You have so many musical things going on with Savatage, Pain, TSO.
What do you listen to when you just want to kick back and relax?

JO: Beatles, Queen, stuff like that. The Beatles are my favorite band
of all time obviously. If it wasn't for them I wouldn't be doing what
I do. [Black] Sabbath was the heavy influence and the Beatles were my
melodic influence. And you know I think my sound kind of developed
from a mix of both of those and then the more I heard of Queen I
started getting interested in the vocals, especially later after Criss
passed away. When Criss was alive I loved Queen but if you notice in
the earlier Savatage records there is not a lot of backup singing
going on, you know, (laughs) 'cause I was too fuckin' lazy to do it...
But none of the songs really called for it. And then when Criss passed
away I was like, "I'm never gonna replace Criss, so I got to come up
with something else...what else can I do? What can I come up with and
bring into the Savatage sound that's gonna be different?" And I was
like, "Well it's not gonna be guitar 'cause Criss isn't here so I'm
gonna have a little different guitar sound so I got to do something."
And I started listening to Queen records again and one morning it just
went DING. I was like, "Wait a minute, let's work on singing stuff..."
And that's when we started working on that song "Chance."

D: Best song on HANDFUL OF RAIN...

JO: Well yeah, and that was the first experiment song of the new
direction that this Savatage stuff was going to take. It was kind of
what we did with the GUTTER BALLET album, that was the test album for
STREETS, you know. I mean there was that little thing "Temptation
Revelation" and that started to get the Rock Opera vibe going, that
was the testing ground for STREETS. And then "Chance" was the testing
ground for a lot of stuff that came later on, like stuff off of DEAD
WINTER DEAD, "One Child." WAKE OF MAGELLAN has a ton of the singing
stuff like that. On POETS AND MADMEN I did it a little bit but not as
much, two or three, I can't really remember what's on that record...
(laughs)

D: "Morphine Child."

JO: Yes "Morphine Child," and we did some on "Commissar."

D: That song at the end, too...

JO: Oh yeah, I love that song ["Back To A Reason"]. We actually re-
recorded that. That song is on the new Christmas record [as "Back To A
Reason (Part II)"] but not with the big Savatage stuff, just the
ballad part. We turned it into a Christmas thing and it came out
really great.

D: Speaking of POETS AND MADMEN, I just wanted to tell you that
Savatage is the one band that has never disappointed me. When POETS
AND MADMEN came out I enjoyed that CD so much that I said to myself if
that was all they played in concert, I would be satisfied. That's how
much I enjoyed that record.

JO: A lot of people didn't like that record.

D: I have know idea why. I thought it was phenomenal.

JO: You know that album was done under duress. Zak and [former
guitarist] Al Pitrelli both left the band a week and a half before we
went in to do the record. So a lot of those songs were songs written
for Zak to sing and...

D: Did you have to rewrite them?

JO: I had to change keys and then some of them I couldn't change keys
because of the way they were played so some of the songs I struggled
with and it was difficult... But you know, I am still fond of that
record.

D: I love Al Pitrelli as a guitarist...

JO: He's great.

D: ...but I was happy to see Chris get the spotlight on that record.

JO: Yeah, Chris got the spotlight on that one. Chris Caffery has come
a long way since I met him when he was 17 years old. (laughs) He was
this little innocent guy that I just ruined. (all laugh) (jokingly)
The guy never drank, never did anything and within a week I turned him
into an alcoholic and a womanizer. I remember waking up some morning
in some town and I open my hotel room door to go down to the lobby and
there is Chris Caffery laying in the elevator, fuckin' passed out with
the elevator doors opening an closing over and over on him. (all
laugh) We had to pick him up and carry him out. It was so fuckin'
funny. I remember we were in Nashville and it was his birthday and it
was the first time he really ever got shitfaced -- might have been the
night before we found him in the elevator -- and we were in this truck
stop, a total redneck type of place. And Caffery did something -- I
don't know what -- he knocked something over and he made some
sarcastic remark to the waitress or something like that. One of the
guys from the band -- I think it was Wacholz -- said, "Dude chill
out," and he stood up, and there are all these redneck truck drivers
and he says (in a drunken slur) "You bunch of country fucks, what are
you looking at? I'll kick all your fuckin' asses!" [We had tears in
our eyes laughing as Jon was so animated telling this story. - Sean]
Me and Johnny Middleton were looking at each other like, "Oh shit."
Chris gets up and stumbles to the bathroom 'cause he got mustard or
something on his shirt and this big truck driver dude that was like
6'8" with grease all over comes over to our table, leans over and says
(in a southern drawl), "Fellas, you all better take blondy outside or
we're gonna take him out for you." So we're like, "All right, Chris,
we're out of here." We dragged him out there and he was all cursing,
"What do I have to leave for? You're all backwards country fucks!" I
was dying man... So you know, he's a professional now. He has been at
it for a long time. When he was a rookie, you know the rookies always
get it the worst.

D: Of all the early Savatage albums, which one were you most satisfied
with when all was said and one?

JO: POWER OF THE NIGHT.

D: Why?

JO: Well the first two records were done in two days and we had never
been in the studio before and the engineer we worked with had never
done heavy metal before. So it was kind of like...

D: A learning experience all around?

JO: Yeah and it was rushed... We did all the stuff on SIRENS and THE
DUNGEONS ARE CALLING in one take -- we just went in and played the
song live. We went in, set up, and played live and Criss went back in
and put another guitar track on and I put a little keyboard,
synthesizer shit but that was it man, we were done. We did the whole
recording, mix and mastered in 21 hours. Both records, SIRENS and
DUNGEONS, 'cause we recorded them at the same time. So POWER OF THE
NIGHT was the first time we had a budget. We only spent $2,400 on the
first two and then we got signed to Atlantic and they gave us a
$150,000 budget and Max Norman. So we worked on that for four months.
We were up at Bearsville, Todd Rundgren's studio, and it was like
going to tech school for four months. We had the material and he was
the engineer and producer, he didn't have a lackey with him twisting
knobs, he placed every microphone tuned every drum. He did the whole
fuckin' thing...

D: How was it working with Max Norman?

JO: He was amazing... I liked it a lot, I just couldn't afford him...
Ozzy [Osbourne] pays him like a hundred grand. He cost us $50,000.

D: There goes a third of your budget...

JO: Exactly, a third of the budget gone but we figured we needed the
name and needed to learn what was going on. I sat in the studio next
to him every second and just watched everything this guy did and it
got to the point of walking around with one of those little
dictaphones... And when that record was done we were like, "Wow...man
that sounds fucking cool." It had body and I liked the singing. I
never liked the singing on the first two records 'cause I only had one
take to do it and I never even had sung in the studio before... I
didn't even know what to do, the guy kept saying, "You can't move your
head that much 'cause if you move your head too much your voice gets
louder," and I'm like. "I can't do that, can't I just hold the mic and
sing?" It was a learning experiment. But yeah, POWER OF THE NIGHT had
the most impact on what was gonna happen from there... And then FIGHT
FOR THE ROCK was the afterbirth of...

D: What went wrong with that? Did the record company want you guys to
be something you weren't?

JO: I think what went wrong with that was they wanted me to write
songs for John Waite, and I was writing songs for John Waite and
someone else that needed songs. So I wrote a bunch of songs and gave
them to my managers at the time, our nickname for them at the time was
Smith & Wesson, 'cause it was Smith and the other guys name was with a
"W"... I can't even remember the other guy's name but he was a
criminal anyway, but we used to call them Smith & Wesson Management.
So I get this phone call and the guy goes, "We had this big meeting
with the heads of Atlantic and they decided that they want you to
change your style a little bit." They were praising my song writing
and saying that, "Because you write such great melodic songs we want
you to go down this road. It's a little bit different but it will
bring you great success." When we signed to Atlantic, we signed a 10-
year deal for them to develop us. We were still kids when we did FIGHT
FOR THE NIGHTMARE. (all laugh) I was only 23 or 24, I didn't know what
the fuck I was doing. But you have all these guys with suits and ties
on with platinum records on the walls driving around in Mercedes-
Benzes, and you're eating peanut butter sandwiches and they say, "Do
this and it will be the best career move for you." My brother and I
were like, "What about the fans that we built over the last three
years doing the Savatage sound?" They were like "Oh, you can do four
or five songs in that style and that will make your old fans happy but
we need like six songs that we can release single after single for
radio, and we want you to be a heavier version of Journey." I was
sitting there thinking to myself, "I don't know if I want to do this.
What about the material?" and they said, "Well you wrote these songs
for John Waite. Let's do some of these." Then I started to get fuckin'
scared.

D: Which songs on FIGHT FOR THE ROCK were ones that you wrote for John
Waite?

JO: "Crying For Love" was one...agh... "Lady In Disguise." I'm trying
to remember the names of the fucking songs... The only songs that
weren't on the demo that I sent were "Hyde" and "[The] Edge Of
Midnight," those were Savatage songs. And "Out On The Streets" was one
that they wanted him to do a remake of, and then they said the version
that was on SIRENS wasn't recorded good enough 'cause they thought
that song was a hit. I actually prefer the version on FIGHT FOR THE
ROCK than the one on SIRENS because I sang it way better because I
knew how to sing by then.

D: Have you written any other songs for any other people that we don't
know about?

JO: I have ghost written on a few things but I am not able to say who
it's for. You just get paid a ridiculous amount of money and you don't
say anything, but I'll never do that again... I did it once or twice
because the money was too much to turn down. It was like, "Here."
(mimes taking money and signing his name) "I'll be Fred," and you get
credit for coming up with a name. It's like coming up with a porn star
name. My porn name would be, 'cause they use the road you grew up and
your middle name...

D: I thought it was your first pet as your first name and the road you
grew up on as your last name?

JO: Really? I didn't know that... I thought it was your middle name
and the road you grew up on, so I would be Nicolas Longhill. So my
ghost name is Nick Long. So if you ever see a record with the name
Nicolas Long that's me. It's true. Paul O'Neill has ghost written on a
few things. I know he ghost wrote on some Joan Jett stuff back in the
day, lyrics and stuff... Sorry Paul, cat's out of the bag. (laughs)

D: How long have you known Paul O'Neill?

JO: Since 1986, that's a long ass fucking time...

D: When did the TSO get started?

JO: That started right after we did DEAD WINTER DEAD. What happened
with that was the song "12/24" ["Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)" -
Sean] started getting airplay in Tampa by this guy Mason Dixon who's
like this oldies guy. He just started playing it, some guy brought it
in to him and said, "You have to hear this Savatage song..." We were
from Tampa so he played it and then all of a sudden it stated getting
more airplay. Then I started hearing it more, I was driving around and
I'd be on a station that would never fuckin' play Savatage and all of
a sudden I hear (hums the beginning). Dave and Chris Caffery were at
my house one Sunday for the NFL playoffs and we are sitting there on
the couch, drinking beer and they are showing the pre-game footage of
the team's season and all of a sudden we are hearing this music and
I'm like, "What the fuck is that?" and we just looked at each other
and went "AGH!!!" I'm like, "No fuckin' way!" Then we knew we had
something, we were on to something. Atlantic Records approached us
'cause they obviously saw what happened and they said, "Look, it's a
great song and concept," so Paul and I were talking about what we
could do. And he's like, "We would have to take that song and build
everything around it," and I'm like, "What do you mean?" Then we
started thinking and I'm like, "We could heavy up a bunch of Christmas
songs." We started raping the Christmas catalogue and trying to turn
them into rock songs. We were trying to turn them into more
contemporary versions of the songs and it started getting interesting
and we were stumbling on them and then it was inspiring us to come up
with other stuff. I wrote a lot of songs on that first Christmas
album, "Ornament." (sings "This Christmas Day") "Tell me Christmas are
we wise..." And the whole "angel came down" stuff. [The song "An Angel
Came Down." - Sean] That's all my stuff, but I got inspired from
working on the other stuff and then we finished that first Christmas
record and turned it in and we were like, DING.

DL That first one is absolute Magic!

JO: I really love that first one. I could listen to that...

D: Who came up with the part with the bartender taking the cash and
giving it to the little girl and sending her to JFK [Airport]?

JO: That was all Paul's story... He is a great storyteller. That's the
thing about it. He is really great at that stuff. I can write great
evil stuff. (all laugh) I couldn't write about a little kid in the
street running around. But he does it so well, he really does. He
amazes me.

D: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us today. We look
forward to the performance tonight!

Relevant links:

Jon Oliva
http://www.jonoliva.net/

Savatage
http://www.savatage.com/

Trans-Siberian Orchestra
http://www.trans-siberian.com/

*
*** OUT ***
*

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