That's why for me, a brand new album from Florida's SAVATAGE is like a breath of fresh air right now. Their fourth release for the Atlantic label, and boldly titled "Gutter Ballet" it sees the band retaining a penchant for fusing the grandiose with good old, warts n' all rock n' roll. Just like "Hall of the Mountain King", it's excellent 1987 predecessor, while not being hugely original as such, "Gutter Ballet" does at least possess a sound of its own. Basically you always know a SAVATAGE LP when you hear one and for my money the band come about as close to producing definitive power metal as anyone you care to name.

"I think the uniqueness in our sound stems from a couple of things," looms the voice of formidable frontman Jon Oliva when I call him up one evening. "I don't think that I sound like anyone else, and that's important for a band. The other main thing would have to be Criss Oliva's guitar playing. The sound is just really easy to identify. Some of the bands today, I can't tell 'em apart, whereas with our songs, we try and make every one different to a certain extent, there's no rehashing or anything."

While I readily agree with those sentiments, I'm more interested to hear why "GUTTER BALLET" took so long to come out. Three years is a long time between albums and though SAVATAGE did embark on touring excursions, they haven't exactly been over exposing themselves. As it turns out the reasons for this are numerous. "We started preproduction in January of 89," informs the affable Jon. "Then we started rolling tape in February. We took a couple of breaks in the process, three months was the longest. Studio problems also held us up then our producer Paul O'Neil had a previous commitment. That held us up for another six weeks. It was a little frustrating at first, but in the long run really paid off because during those breaks we wrote a couple of other songs which we ended up putting on the album."

Not only that, the band have also decided to boost their number to five, with the addition of second guitarist Christopher Caffery. He joins a lineup that has remained fairly stable throughout the groups last few years, playing alongside the two Oliva's and rhythm section of Steve "Doc" Wacholz (drums), and Johnny Lee Middleton (bass). Chris was originally hired to assist the bands sound during their "Mountain King" tour. Now, with their material getting increasingly complex he's been recruited full time.
Jon is clearly happy with their acquisition. "Chris really helped revitalize us," he says. "He wasn't in the band when we were recording though, we were still talking about it. He'd played with us when we toured with DIO, playing off stage doing some keyboards and rhythm guitar. We'd been wanting to add a fifth member since the music's got more intricate and it was getting real hard to pull it off live. We want our live shows to have a lot of impact so Chris was like the perfect choice. The band is better now then it's ever been, onstage and off. Chris's job is primarily as a rhythm guitarist but he does some intro stuff on keyboards, so he's really a jack of all trades."

Actually, with Jon mentioning off stage activities there I'm also curious to hear more on all those stories that were circulating about his supposed drink and drug problems. How true was all of that and did it ever threaten the future of SAVATAGE?

"Yeah, I sort of screwed up." sighs the singer. "I got involved with some bad drugs, alcohol and stuff. It happened about the time of "FIGHT FOR THE ROCK" ( the bands 1986 second album for Atlantic), it was such a devastating point in time for us. My escape was to turn to drugs and alcohol, which was a mistake. It took me a while to get off it too, almost a year and a half. That also contributed to the delay of this album and some canceled tour dates. I was walking garbage and it was the lowest point I've ever been at. Thank God I got my shit together and straightened out."

Luckily this all seems to be a part of the past for Oliva now, and on the strength of "GUTTER BALLET" I'd say he's singing better then ever. It's interesting to hear Jon mention "FIGHT FOR THE ROCK" because the album is widely regarded as being their poorest offering by far. Was it something SAVATAGE acknowledged? 

The singers tone of voice says it all. "Everyone has a bummer period in time." chuckles Jon. "That was just pressure from bad management. We had absolutely no say in what happened on that record. The guys that were managing us were out to lunch and wanted to cash inn on some quick bucks. We were young, stupid and we listened to them when we shouldn't have. We were lucky enough to stay together as a band , 'cause we almost broke up over that, we were very close to the end."

It really is a shame that the "FIGHT FOR..." album let them down so much, mainly because all their other albums have been largely impressive. From their earliest incarnation as AVATAR back in '83 when Jon and co. released the now much sought after "CITY BENEATH THE SURFACE" EP the band have rarely missed the mark. In fact, their first full length album, "SIRENS", and follow up EP "DUNGEONS ARE CALLING", both of which appeared on Music For Nations over here, are still regarded by many as classics. "POWER OF THE NIGHT" continued the trend and proved a successful debut for the bands then new label Atlantic in '85."

But what of this latest album, a disc that's already become one of my favorites of 1990?

"GUTTER BALLET" is a very heavy, versatile record, with a lot of very different mood swings," claims the justifiably proud vocalist. "Lyrically, it deals with a lot of reality based topics that mean something. I think overall we've ventured into some areas of hard rock or heavy metal that really haven't been touched on before. "OF RAGE AND WAR" is a little poke at political things, about some guy down in Iran, or somewhere, who could start a nuclear war with the push of a button. The title track is like a story of the streets, done in a kind of fantasy type way. Then there's a little instrumental piece, "TEMPTATION REVELATION", which is real intense. "WHEN THE CROWD'S ARE GONE" is to me the heaviest song lyrically that I have ever done. Paul O'Neil came up with some of the lyrics for that (Apparently it's usual for O'Neill to do some writing. He did some on "MOUNTAIN KING"). Then Chris does this acoustic piece "SILK AND STEEL". That sets you up for side two which pretty much kicks ass all the way through. "SHE'S IN LOVE" is very tongue in cheek sexual stuff. "HOUNDS" is taken from a story I was working on about a mad scientist doing animal experiments which backfire. Kinda evil but very SAVATAGE. "THE UNHOLY" is another fantasy based number about the first gang of rouge evil spirits, way back, that were creating terror in the universe"

Sound like a vivid imagination you've got there? "I have a sick mind," chortles Jon down the line. "At least my Mom says I have! I like to write short stories, I'm infatuated with horror, I don't worship the devil or anything like that, but I do worship horror, Ha! Ha!"

The singer composes himself and continues. "The last three songs are about this character who we've called Timmy. He's a kid who's basically not playing with a full deck of cards, Ha! Ha!"

I've noticed that keyboards and piano play a more integral part of this album than ever before? "Yeah, I was getting bored just singing all the time," claims Jon starting to laugh again. "I like to play and I think there's definitely a place for that stuff in our music. Again, I think it adds a uniqueness to it. It's sorta like QUEEN on acid, Ha! Ha!"

Now the question that begs to be asked is, when will we get to see SAVATAGE in Europe because a visit is more then over due. The closest these five got to a tour last year was their appearance at the DYNAMO Festival in Holland, right?

"Yeah, that was a lot of fun," says Jon. "The people there were great, 30,000 fans out of there fuckin' minds. This year the tour is gonna go on indefinitely and we're gonna go everywhere. We've toured with MEGADETH before now but it was the DIO stuff that got us to just about every state in the US. We're going to be supporting KING DIAMOND, beginning in Germany and then we're doing a few headliners in Holland, Belgium and I'm sure we'll hit London. We're gonna be bouncing back and forth between Europe and the States." 

Jon went on to tell me that their headlining shows should stretch to a couple of hours or so and will feature classic material from all the albums so far. "You'll definitely get your moneys worth, we'll be covering lots of stuff," added the singer before he put the phone down. Well, who can argue with that,eh?