In 1981/1982 a large part of what would later be on the "Sirens"-LP already came into existance.Jon:"At that time we recorded numerous demotapes; Keith was the owner of a rather reasonable moretrack-recorder, that was built-up in 'the Pit'. I'll never forget it: We played an outdoor-concert for a radiostation at the parking-lot of a supermarket, and 6.000 people came to see us play, at free entrance. On this memorable day we met Dan Johnson of Par Records for the first time, and after the gig he offered to make a record with us. He'd pay for everything. We laughed him in the face. A few days later he actually gave us a call, we made a deal and went into the Morissound - studio".
| ...where in august 1982
the guys started recording the songs for the previously
appearing "City Beneath the Surface"- single
within a twelve-hour-shift, before they went into session
for their first album. In the meantime, being sold for fantasy prices: The City Beneath The Surface - 7" in yellow vynil ( edition limited to 100 copies ) . |
 |
Here the enormous talent and potential of the band already showed itself. The complete productional costs of all the songs that would eventually appear on "Sirens" and "The Dungeons are Calling" amounted to a ridiculous $2.500! The songs were recorded and mixed within only three days.Jim Morris, a sworn fan of the band eversince these times :"It all happened within three blocks of ten or twelve hours each. Jon and Criss have impressed me from the first moment".
Jon:"We tried out each song once, recorded the whole thing in the first take, and that was it. Then Criss came up to play over his leads and I raved my vocal parts through all the tracks".For the mix, the guys disposed of "four hours at most. It was crazy!!"When Jon listened to the whole thing later on he'd"liked to have changed this or that, but I continually was told there was no time left. An incredible joke, when I think about the way we are working nowadays, We really didn't know what we were doing. The pressure was enormous ! We didn't have a single free second to experiment with anything.".
One experiment however had to be taken on forcibly at short notice............. Jon:"The cover of "Sirens" was already on it's way to the printing-office, when I got a call from Dan Johnson, who told me that a certain band had already taken the name of Avatar before we did and had put the name under legal protection. And of course we didn't feel like being sued by these clowns !"
And so Jon and Criss and their wives sat themselves down at the kitchen table in the evening, and played some 'heavy-metal-scrabble'. "Fuck, we loved that name. So we tried to save at least part of it. First we came up with 'Savatar'. Yeah, that was it!! But one way or another that sounded like a Japanese monster from a second-rate Godzilla movie. Here comes Savatar, destroying Tokyo ! 'Sabotage' wasn't it , I knew there was a band by that name somewhere in Europe. Somehow we ended up with a mixture of Sabotage, Savage and Avatar, that had a good ring to it, didn't mean anything and allowed a large number of meanings. So I called Dan back, and he said 'Okay' ".
With the "Sirens"- album in the package, the band gained more recognition, which had it's effect in larger shows. Jon:"One of these gigs was performing as the supporting act of Zebra over here in Florida and there in the audience were a few people from Atlantic Records, who originally came to see Zebra, a band contracted by Atlantic at that time. They saw us, noticed that the audience responded well to us, so after the show they showed up in our dressing-room and made us an offer".
