The result was that the band came to an agreement with Music for Nations, who in the meantime owned the rights of 'Sirens' and the options of a second album. They put the songs that were left over from the 'Sirens' session on the 'The Dungeons Are Calling' 6-track album, in that way correctly honoring their agreement, before signing the Atlantic contract.
Jon:"Atlantic then teamed us up with Max Norman, a great producer,and we made 'Power of the Night'. Max provided us with a very progressive, agressive mix. With this production, everything was different. We disposed of an entire month just for the foreproduction, a whole month in Bearsville, in which we had nothing to do but to prepare ourselves for the album in a tremendous practice centre. The whole thing was an old depot. Jimi Hendrix had already been practising there, just like the Rolling Stones. It was crazy !! Two years earlier we were forced to finish everything within two hours and all of a sudden we had a whole week just to work out guitar solo's, or an entire day to potter at the vocal parts of a single song ! We spent a lot of money for 'Power of the Night'. Altogether we were working on it for three months. Our cooperation with Max was like the one with Paul O'Neill: both of them are primarely interested in the fact that the essence of the music should come across for 100 %! Creating a marvellous album is worth every effort to them.
Among other things the guys the guys took the time to create one of the most wayward keyboard- and sound-effects that have ever been heard on any rock- or heavy metal- album. The intro-sequence of 'Warriors', for example, doesn't come from the inside of a vacuum cleaner; Jon Oliva smoked out half the studio when he burnt a plastic bag, recorded the sound of the synthetic dripping down and then played it backwards..!
Max's agressive mix did not only produce the guitars and vocals in a brilliant way, but also gave the heavy metal community one of the most powerful, natural drumsounds, that ever have found their way onto an album. Steve Wacholz explains his wallsplitting drumsounds primarely with the fact that"Shortly before, my dad died. Therefore the recordings became an extremely emotional matter. During the sessions of 'In the Dream' I actually cried - and then I have been beating the drums like a madman. While doing that I have apparently made optimal use of the drums' resonance room."
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Although the album booked excellent record sales, Savatage deliberately blocked their own way to a broader audience because of their lack of compromise. While bands from the glam-era came out with songtitles like 'Hot for Love' , a typical Jon Oliva song like 'Hard for Love'(notice the slight difference...), for the writing of which a band like Motley Crue would have dragged themselves all the way to Wladiwostok on their knees, with its impudent text, didn't even make it into the radio-stations in prudish America. |
With 'Power of the Night' Savatage came to their first official tour. And the 'Monsters of the Universe'- tour had it all:...Jon:"It was like our first picnic. Simply perfect! Like being in Disneyland for the first time. And that for over six months! We were an elated traveling company. It was fuckin' great !! We didn't have a nightliner, but a small camping bus. I had to drive the thing most of the time. And I will never forget how we trashed the vehicle on the road. We were supposed to exchange the car somewhere in Texas and I can still see the bump in the road, that I jumped over at great speed. on the other side the car, uhmmm..., landed a bit roughly and the tank of our bus toilet was ripped off. I immediately stepped on the brakes, we picked up the parts that were lying around and bound the thing in front of the cooling grill using rubber ties, tapes and rope. The guy from the trading station was stupefied when we drove onto his premises to get us another car. Chemical toilet ripped off, the seats full of sigarette-holes and a lot more - the vehicle was completely trashed !"
