I remember watching the MTV back when it was a music channel, I was staying up to the wee hours of morning and seeing the music video for Savatage’s “Hall of the Mountain King.” That song hooked me and I have been a fan ever since. Savatage has gone through ups and downs, from an album that nearly cost the band their career to the tragic loss of founding member Criss Oliva to the recent success of Trans Siberian Orchestra to Jon Oliva’s return to form with his new band Jon Oliva’s Pain that is sure to please the die hard fans and hook a some new ones along the way. I missed out on the first round of interviews that Jon Oliva did for the new album Maniacal Renderings luckily there was second chance and I took full advantage of it. Enjoy.

Jon thanks for taking the time to do this interview, we missed out the first time around. I was out of town and I really wanted to get this interview.

I was away for a while too. I actually just got back the night before last night. I’ve been out on the road with TSO. We have two different bands touring the United States right now we spilt the guys in half. The demand was so huge we just couldn’t just have one band out there. It just wasn’t possible.

(laughs) I call it organized chaos, that’s what it should be called.

That’s great at least we hooked up (laughs). And Thank You.

There’s really no real meaning behind it actually. I needed a name for the band, the original plan was to call the band Taj Mahal. There’s this blues guy in London has the name copyright and I couldn’t use the name because it’s been taken. The name of the album was going to be called Pain and the name was going to be Taj Mahal. And as you know I couldn’t use the name, so at the last minute we flipped them around and put the record out. And now we just call the band JOP, it worked out.

I think the record definitely harks back to the earlier stuff for sure. The Criss Oliva music specially makes it so, those riffs are classic Savatage. We had those tapes lying around in a box and my wife came across them. She found a bunch of cassettes in a box of old boots, shoes, clothes and jackets from past tours. Criss and I would trade writing tapes all the time, when he was alive. Those were riffs that I had completely forgotten about. He was writing the album with me in a way. So that really added to that whole vibe.

Yeah, I mean it could be either this record or the last one could very well have been a Savatage record. Any of the songs from the first record or this one could have been on a Savatage record. The reality of the situation is that Savatage isn’t a full-time working band, because of the success of Trans Siberian Orchestra and because of the fact that all of the guys that are in Savatage are also in TSO, has forced us put the band on hold. So that’s what was happening, I was waiting around to have time to write the next record and the TSO started rolling down the track, faster and faster and bigger and bigger. We went from playing theaters to 80,000 people Cleveland. So when people ask me, I’m like “how am I gonna do it?” I suppose I could grab everybody for one week and put together a shitty record, but that’s not something that I’m interested in doing. I’d rather not do that at all. So with the new JOP album and the new Criss music I dedicated it to the Savatage fans. So guys that's all I can give you right now, we are going to do something down the road, when we can do it right. We haven’t disbanded or anything like that, after the 9/11 shit we were stuck in California and we were freaking out and friends of mine got killed in the World Trade Center attack, it was like the straw that broke the camel’s back. I just wanted to get away for a little while; it was time for a break. From 1983 to 2001 Savatage was working constantly either in the studio or on the road or doing whatever. It wasn’t fun anymore, it felt wrong to me, especially Poets and Madmen; it was like I was doing it because I had to not because I wanted to. That’s the wrong reason to make music. And that in a nutshell is what happened, like I said TSO was taking off and we took a step back and gave it a little rest. And I have been riding the TSO thing ever since, though that for me isn’t enough to keep me satisfied and that’s how the JOP thing came about. In Savatage Paul (O’Neill) writes all the lyrics and I never get a chance to write lyrics so that was the whole idea behind this band. And now with the discovery of these Criss Oliva tapes, it’s like a gift for the Savatage fans. This about me having something to say and songs that I have in me that I’d like to share before the put me underground, I’m not 21 anymore I want to move on with it.

It was very intense man, my wife God bless her she doesn’t throw anything away. So we had finally moved into a place where we could open up all out shit that had been stored away for a while and when opened up the box that was this huge U-Haul and inside she found the tapes. She came into the studio where I was working out of in our house and she says “I found something that you might be interested in.” She hands me this shoe box that had been duct taped closed, it had sharpie writing on it, in my handwriting and it said “work tapes.” I opened it up and I almost had a fucking heart attack on the spot, I’m looking at these tapes that are dated July ’83, September ’84, and ’85 all until the time that he passed away. There were about 40 tapes in that shoe box; I have only gone through about 8 or 9 of them so far. Out of the tapes I have heard I got the stuff that made it onto Maniacal Renderings I think he has credit on like 5 songs? 4 or 5 songs anyway, there just little bits in between like there was a song that was on Edge of Thorns called “Skraggy’s Tomb,” you hear him playing the whole song, then he stops and calls me an “asshole.” Which brings back some memories of how we’d insult each other on these cassette tapes when we traded song ideas, he’s say something like “that’s the one song I got asshole” and he’d play on. So there was a lot of these little things, I guess you can call it noodling, I just heard riffs here and there. There was so much stuff on there that was fantastic stuff that I was wondering why we never used it? So like you said, it was almost like he planted them there. It was like he was saying me “remember these you idiot?” It was very cool and it was a very cool vibe, it mean a lot to me to have him a part of this record and probably the next 2 or 3 albums with the amount of tapes we’ve got. So it’s like he’s still a member of the band, while not here physically, he’s here in music and spirit, he’s a part of what I’m doing and that make it to me all worth while.

I helped Zak get the band together for his tour, so I knew them already. They went on tour with Zak, but they didn’t like Zak management, they felt they were treated like shit. I’m just being honest, when they got off of the tour and they called me up. They just could not get along with the people that Zak had working for him at the time. And Zak wasn’t going to change his set up, so they got off the tour, it just wasn’t going to work out. In the end it worked out for everybody, Zak has a band that works for him and when it came time to begin the first JOP album I asked these guys is they wanted to be a part of it and they said “fuck yeah” and here we are today. Everybody is happy, now it might be a little confusing for the fans it worked out.

Oh, without a doubt “Timeless Flight” reason? Well, because it has the most music of Criss’ on there. It has the largest quantity of Criss Oliva on there and I spent the most time working on that particular song. I think I spent a good month working on the music for that song alone. It’s my favorite; I love the vocal, the vibe, the middle section, which is the Criss part all stuff that he had on a tape that he played on acoustic guitar. I transposed it from acoustic guitar to piano, and then Matt had the heavy ride out part at the end. Matt was happy, he said “I can’t believe I got a chance to write a song with your brother.” Matt’s favorite guitar player is Criss so to him this was an honor, it was a cool thing.

I will be doing some live shows in January and February; I think we’re going up to Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland on one weekend. I’m going to do this a little bit different; I’m going to do like three nights, one night in each city then come back home. I want to get started on the next JOP album, because I’m going to be so busy with the next upcoming TSO record. I’m going to see how that goes, if I do okay and I’m getting asses in the building I may do more, my thing with JOP is definitely Europe. I love playing in my home country, but it just doesn’t make good sense to go out and play in front of 25 people, you know? That’s not going to do us any good, but if we can get on a decent package or maybe doing a tour of smaller clubs and doing one night electric and one night acoustic that might work. I am doing something in the United States right now we’re aiming for the spring time, March, April and May of 2007.

What kind of music do you listen to and who is some one that you look up to musically?

For me it has always been The Beatles and Queen, they have always been my mainstays; there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t listen to a couple of songs by either of these two bands. They for me are it, new stuff I don’t listen to much. I just don’t want to rip anyone off, the more you hear to new stuff the more you might try to sound like that. You just can’t help but be influenced by the music you listen to. I don’t want chase anybody, I’m very happy with who I am and my abilities. I have to admit when we are out on tour in Europe I watch all the other bands, I think that there are some out there that are really great and there’s stuff out there that’s not so good. In the end it’s about music and music is about making people happy. I don’t try to get too much into that shit, you know this is good this isn’t, music is music and I just do what I do.

(pauses) One word? Insane! (laughs) Because everything is just so fucking crazy man. It’s an insane world right now with the all the shit going on. It gets a little creepy man, they don’t really digs us that much anymore, as far as Americans. In a way it’s fine because I’m still insane and life has always been a little hectic, fast looming and a lot of shit going on. I’m always saying “shit this is driving me crazy” so I have to go with insanity.

Life inspires me. Things that we see day in and day out, you can be watching a storm roll in and watch the tress freaking out and that could inspire you, you can watch a good looking girl walk by and that can inspire you, or you can see a dog taking a shit on the side walk and that too could inspire you to write something. It’s what’s around me and what’s going on, you know. I have written many songs about my wife she’s been a big inspiration. A lot of what I see on TV or current events seen through my eyes.

(laughs) Oh the guitar question! (laughs) Truth be told, in the beginning I was pretty fucking good man and then my brother started playing bass and we gave him a guitar for his birthday. He must have been like ten years old or something like that, within a week he blew me and my older brother away and we wound up giving him all our guitars! We were like “look you take these and we’ll do something else!” (laughs)

(laughs) Right he smoked us both! I play great rhythm guitar, Criss and I learned to play about the same time. I play guitar on almost the entire album. We learned together, because of that we play rhythm guitar almost identically. As far as lead solos go I don’t know how the fuck he did that! (laughing) I can’t…they call me “cement fingers” when it comes time to play any kind of a lead on a song, I can’t do it. Rhythm wise we were similar that too might have added to the whole Savatage Sound, because I didn’t play much guitar on the first JOP record. On this one I played on the entire thing.

Cement finger, huh?!

Yeah! You know how they call Eric Clapton Slow Hand? I’m No Hands! (laughs)

(pauses) Oh it’s tragic it’s scary. I think it has gone back underground again. Metal and hard rock seem like every ten years it fades out and goes underground, then surfaces again. Then in about 3 to 4 years it slowly fades again. Then it becomes underground again. I don’t know, it’s just very weird you know. If someone would have told me 3 years ago that Trans Siberian Orchestra, which is basically Savatage with other singers would be selling out the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland 4 shows in a row at 22,000 people per show I would have told you you’re out of your fucking mind. And there you go and the thing is just fucking insane. I don’t know what the state of it is, you know? It’s very confusing to me, metal hard rock, whatever label people put on bands, I never liked those classification myself. I like to think that I play heavy music or rock music with an edge to it. The bar scene isn’t what it used to be due to the drinking age being raised, then the DUII laws, people are afraid to go out party, because they don’t want to go to fucking jail. Most of the kids that used to come to shows were 18 years old 20 years old, so they cut the audience in half when the drinking ages changed. It’s hard. People just don’t go out here, in Europe it’s a big deal to go out to a show and go see bands. In America you can turn on your TV see them on TV on programs or on your DVD’s in surround sound. The only shows that do well in America are the festival type shows, like an Ozzfest and shit like that. I don’t see very many doing much business, expect TSO, which is still shocking to me.

Well, like I just said I came back from touring with TSO. We played Cleveland and we played “Cleveland Rocks” and Ian Hunter come onstage with us to do that song. That’s up there, it was brilliant. We have Jon Anderson doing “Round About” with us we have Greg Lake for the New York and Long Island show doing “Welcome Back My Friends.” There have been a lot of guests on this tour, which weren’t planned in advance. The guests have contacted us and wanted to be involved because they are fans of TSO. It’s been really fun I spent a lot of time with Ian Hunter last week and it was great talking to him. I think this thing all started when we did something with Joan Jett at the Madison Square Garden show, we did “Little Drummer Boy” then we kicked into “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” and word got around about that and management companies started contacting us wanting to know if we wanted their clients to come out. Me and Paul we are classic rock fans, so we said of course! They have someone from Styx coming out, the singer from Queensryche coming out doing “Silent Lucidity” for the show in Seattle, a bunch of cool stuff, things are good.

Well, like I said I want to do something, it’s very difficult to get everyone on stage. We can’t even together for the next Savatage record! We have TSO which has been a runaway success and everyone plays on stage on tour on that except me and Zak so we could do a Savatage record. Everyone else is busy, we’re gonna do something everyone has agreed to do it, but when we have enough time to invest to it so we can give it the justice it deserves. I want to make a great piece of work rather than just slapping something that’s half assed together.

That was one thing that we talked about. We have also talked about the possibility of a series of live shows. A couple… a west coast east coast thing in America, a show in Germany, a show in Greece, so those are all things that are all being discussed. Paul and I both agree if we’re going to do it we need to do it right. If it’s going to be the last thing that the band is going to do, we don’t want to do a “Fight for the Rock” we don’t want to have the people wit all this time and give them crap. It’s hard to schedule something like that, but we’ll get to that we have everyone on board, it’s a matter of planning it out. We’ll be wrapping up with the next TSO album in about March or April of 2007 and then we can look starting the Savatage thing started. We’ll focus solely on that since we won’t have to do another TSO album for a couple of years, there will be more time where we can put together the Savatage thing together.

I have thought that Paul O’Neill is to Savatage what Bill Ham was to ZZ Top, what do you think about that and is it accurate?

Kind of there are some, Paul was with Savatage as what I am with TSO. He was the main writer and producer and stuff like that, he was in the studio with us everyday, that’s what I do with TSO and that’s what he did with Savatage. It’s the same vibe type of thing, as far as I know; he was like the silent member. That’s kind of what Paul was with Savatage from Hall of the Mountain King on he became person that we desperately needed. Before he came along it was just me and Criss. He pushed our creativity to a new level by encouraging us to do songs like “Gutter Ballet” and stuff like “When the Crowds are Gone” and stuff like that, where we on our own would have never attempted to do anything like that. We would have never done a song that was more or less a piano ballad. We had such a bad experience with the Fight for the Rock thing, so when he came in he wanted to experiment we weren’t ready at that time were like “no, no, no, no we need to get back to basics, then we can experiment on the next record.” Even on the Hall of the Mountain King album he came up with the idea of doing the orchestra bit on that the title song that was like our first endeavor into that arena. We did record a couple of piano songs, but we left them off the album Fight for the Rock had too much of that shit. The whole reason wasn’t because of Fight for the Rock stuff just wasn’t that good. That album was done under duress we were broke and everyone was miserable, we spent only about one month on the actual recording it was a fart. Everyone farts and that was ours! So when it was time to record Gutter Ballet Paul encouraged us to expand our writing and try some different things. He was and is very important.

How did you meet Paul O’Neill I know he was very involved with a lot of bands before or around he hooked up with Savatage. He was involved with Jake E. Lee’s Badlands and a number of Atlantic Records bands.

I met Paul through Jason Flom of Atlantic, he knew that we were getting ready to break up after Fight for the Rock. It was more or less over for us. Actually we were doing what we thought was our last show as Savatage at a club here in Tampa. Jason Flom flew Paul O’Neill down here to see us. I remember finishing the show going home that night and say to myself “okay that’s it, it’s fucking over.” Just then the phone rings, it was 4 in the morning it was my brother and he had Paul O’Neill on the other line, it was like we were broke, we’re breaking up, we’re done. He said “I’ll give you guys $50,000.00 I want you and your brother write a Savatage album and not worry about money.” Well that is what it was, he gave us a lot of money. At that point if someone was gonna give us a check we would have stood on our heads and whistled “zippy-dee-doo-da” out of our assholes, you know what I mean? He took care of us, Savatage would have been over after Fight for the Rock it wasn’t for Paul. There would have been no Hall of the Mountain King or a Gutter Ballet, he took that chance on us when everyone said we were finished. We had ruined our career with that damn Fight for the Rock. He saw something beyond that and more in us. Paul saved our asses.

I for one couldn’t imagine not hearing those albums. What a great story.

He was definitely a teacher as far as not being afraid of doing new things, and also not be classified as a heavy metal band, we hated that. We didn’t consider ourselves a metal band but we were thrown into that whole category. Heavy metal bands to me were stuff like Metallica, Slayer stuff like that. That was metal. To me Savatage was like a hard rock band like Queen or something like that that incorporated piano, played ballads, played acoustic stuff and different stuff like that. We did play heavy metal songs, some of our songs were very heavy, but we did much more than that you know? We didn’t do the leather and spikes and stuff like that. When we came out it was just us, ugly fucking Florida guys! (laughs)

One of the albums and bands that you were involved with that I absolutely love was the Doctor Butcher band and album. I remember I had a hard time finding a copy of that back in the day. I eventually wore out the cassette and it was until recently that Black Lotus reissued it with bonus cuts, but the label went belly up. A shame because I feel that’s an album that needs to be heard.

That was fun album. It didn’t get promoted, it was more or less a joke. Chris Cafferty and I just wanted to get together and party for like 8 months. We threw it together, it was something to do, I never considered it like a band you know? There were no plans to do a tour, we did a couple of shows, but it was more or less just to have fun. I think people really like it because we had fun making it, they get the vibe. It was a great time doing it was fucking hysterical. And the record did get re-issued by another label, which I can’t recall at the moment so the album is out there once again. Ah fuck I can’t remember Chris would know. And it will also include the bonus tracks that were included on the Black Lotus version.

Looking back on the vast back catalog that includes; Savatage, Trans Siberian Orchestra, Doctor Butcher and now Jon Oliva’s Pain, what is a record that you’d call Jon Oliva’s crowning moment?

To be honest with you, career wise I would have to say Trans Siberian Orchestra that enabled me to take care of my family which means a lot to me. They put up with a bunch of shit; from me being gone a lot then going through tough times being broke and shit. The new album that I just finished for me, I think it’s the best singing that I have ever done, period. Vocally I would say the new album, because vocally I went to places that I have been to in a long time and the songs really mean something to me. With Savatage it was the Streets album, that to me that was Savatage’s finest moment. So I guess I can’t name just one I have to have three. Yeah, I’ll take three TSO, Streets and the new album; it’s really cool Criss being a part of it.

Well, we filmed some stuff just last week. I actually gonna go down this week and look at some of the footage. I think what we have decided to do a full performance of the album basically and maybe add some weird and artsy stuff in the background as the band plays the entire album. We filmed an entire show last week, because we also want to include some live performance footage and then we’ll be doing a studio shoot. Where we’ll be lip synching to the songs and use some green screen as the backdrop where we can change the background and add shit that goes along with the song.

Yeah, I would come out in Europe for festival time like June or July of 2007. And have no fear it will also be issued in North America.

He died. John Edgar Allen, he was Ozzy’s midget from the tour, he sued to call him Ronnie. He was also in some movies I think he was also in the movie Legend and he was also in a couple more. He was a sweet guy too; I had a lot of fun chasing him around the fucking caves on the set of “Hall of the Mountain King!” Sweet guy GOD bless him.

Well, enjoy the album, have a happy holiday season, be safe and we’ll see you on the road.

That went well. I will check out the review and I remember Portland great place. Hope to see you too. Thank you.