Anecdotes

Bootlegs

In the interest of the band, we have renounced from listing at least a part of the bootlegs that have been made so far. Steve Wacholz understandably doesn't think it would be fair to "also promote those kind of products", moreover a near complete survey would hardly be possible: during the band's career Jon Oliva has " literally seen hundreds of cd's and video's".
Paul O'Neill almost fell off his chair, when he visited a rock café in Amsterdam years ago and heard a song " that we originally recorded for "Streets", but never used for the album and of which I thought the tape was supposed to be in Atlantic's vaults."

On the one hand, Jon is glad that " there's such a demand from the fans who want to get hold of every possible thing of us", on the other hand it would extremely harm especially a band like Savatage financially: " The Rolling Stones probably couldn't care less, if some guy shoved ten thousand dollars into his own pocket at their expense. If I were Mick Jagger, I'd say: have fun ! But to us, ten grand that we don't have, really hurts."

Not even mentioning the fact, that the committed perfectionist has already held "masterpieces" in his hands, " that cost 40 bucks a piece and sound like they were recorded through a telephone line, washed over by the sound of a toilet being flushed ."

Milksops and moneyspinners

One of the corner-stones of Savatage's work exists of their way of handling money. The guys are leading a real modest life privately and traditionally renounce from pulverizing the advance money they receive for their record productions for personal use.

" I know a lot of musicians, who have five corvettes parked in front of their houses - and whose albums sound like lukewarm milk", according to Paul O'Neill. "With Savatage, this was never the case. The guys invest their money mainly in possible first-class productions, before thinking of themselves."

In other words: Jon & co. are trying to work similar to moneyspinners the likes of Def Leppard or Queensrÿche, with their, in comparison, limited financial means.
" It's like in the movie industry: you simply cannot make "Apocalypse Now" or "Amadeus" with an empty purse" , Paul thinks back to the months spent in the studio recording "Gutter Ballet" or "Streets", when the band deliberately overtook their budgets at their own cost.

Side effect of this attitude: over the years more than a hundred readily recorded songs piled up, that were victimized by the band's extremely critical selection criteria and "of which the tapes are taking up an entire wall in Atlantic's vaults in the meantime, as I had to establish much to my surprise, when I was looking for live material for the "Ghost in the Ruins" album" , says Paul.

He has his doubts however, if in the future there will be time to eventually release some of these songs.
" We're always looking ahead and have our hands full with just our present projects. Perhaps we will take the best ten or twenty songs some day to release a compilation album of unreleased studio songs. But as a fan, I wouldn't rely on this perspective", Paul says laughing.

Fans & bands

Unique in relation to Savatage is also the fact, that there are only a few other bands, that have so many practising fans amongst musicians - probably because of the fact that the guys, because of their lack of commercial success, never were in a competitive situation towards other bands. Professional jealousy simply wasn't an issue.

From Lars and James (Metallica), who have visited thousands of Savatage gigs throughout the years, to Testament (Chuck Billy), Trouble and W.A.S.P. (Chris Holmes) onto Motörhead goes the palette of prominent die-hard fans. Amongst them also personalities that initially would never be suspected of belonging to that category.

Good old Vince Neil for example once visited a club in Tampa at the time when the interviews for this magazine were conducted.
Fifteen minutes after the former Mötley Crüe singer had disappeared, Chris Caffery showed up at the same spot and was immediately occupied by the DJ: "Hey Chris, what's your opinion of Vince Neil?". Chris' reply " Hmm, kind of an asshole, the dude". Followed by the musical director of the place: "Oh, that's too bad. Vince just came in, immediately grabbed my mike and shouted: I've got to hear a Savatage song right now, that's the coolest band in the entire world. And if you don't play any of their stuff, I'm sorry but I'll have to rebuild this place just a little bit!"
Chris: "Oh, ehmm, I think, Vince is quite okay after all...".

From RockHard Legends, Savatage

Translated by: Ellen Bakvis