Now We're Off !!

RockHard's last interview with Criss Oliva.

Are you already practising hard for the European tour? Oh yeah, definitely. How many hours a day ? Well, maybe three... That's not much. It's enough. For you, maybe. For me, it's more than enough. We're doing it mainly because of Zak. Have you already tested out your new frontman live? No (smiles). You'll be the first to see him perform live...

...when you will tour Europe in may/june together with Overkill.Will it be a double-feature show, or will you play as headliner?
In Germany we will take turns. But in Holland we will headline a few times.

It is obvious, that your guitar solo's on the new album are even more spectacular than they have been untill now. Have you, by playing in this extreme manner, tried to fill up the gap that Jon's personality left behind ?
In a way I have. This time, I wanted to sound sharper. In your face...I also think it is the best I have accomplished so far.

How do you manage to get such a unique sound from your guitar. Unique in such a way that it can be distinguished from thousands of others anytime? Any tricks with your equipment, that noone else has thought of yet ?
Nope. No tricks. I'm always working hard on my sound and am constantly trying to improve it. I have Laney-amps, Jackson-guitars, a small rack. And that's not even specially adjusted. That's all.

Brian May is said to have dropped his guitar down the basement stairs in the beginning of his career. The neck was bended, and suddenly the man found his sound. Has a thing like that ever happened to you ?
No, there's no mystery. And if any, then it's hidden between hands, heart and soul. It simply must be the way I play.

Have you at least had a decent feature in magazines like Guitar World or Guitar Player ?
No. But I will soon have an interview with a French guitar magazine. If that counts for anything...

So the experts have overlooked you up untill now...
Maybe they'll be on the right track now, haha.

The total sound of "Edge of Thorns' has the signature of your producer Paul O'Neill, like on the previous albums...
Yes, again Jon and I have written all our material together with him. It's also a fact, that Jon is still strongly involved. Jon and I have co-produced the album, for example he has spent a lot of time with Zak, worked out the vocal parts with him.

Will Jon also have a part in the upcoming albums?
In any case.

But how will it be, when in the future Zak will write his own melody-lines, without being influenced by Jon?
We'll see about that. Zak is not completely out of the picture. He has, for example, contributed some of his ideas on 'Scraggy's Tomb', one of our new songs. It must be clear however, that on top of that Paul and Jon have written all the vocal tracks and lyrics.

Just like on 'Streets' and 'Gutter Ballet' you have remarkable piano-passages in the program.
We still have to give Jon credit for that. He played all the piano-parts for 'Edge of Thorns'.

And how will you arrange that live ?
I've found a very young guy, an excellent pianist, in our neighbourhood, who also happens to play keyboards. It's even more important to me to have him accompany us as second guitarist, because I want to have a heavy guitar sound, like we had on the last tour with Chris Caffery.

For your fans, you are without any doubt on the same level as bands like Maiden, Metallica, Priest, aside from the nasty theme of record sales. Even Queensryche have managed to make their compositions accessible to a larger audience within five or six years.Why hasn't it worked for you ? You do have a legendary number of hymn-tracks...
There are certainly no musical reasons for that.We were the victims of bad circumstances. The cooperation between band, management, label , media and so on just often didn't seem to work. In spite of all that, we did have our good times.

But have you never felt burnt out because of the fact that your music has never drawn the recognition that it deserves ?
Sure, it often was depressing. But it's hard to sit down and just quit when your skull is almost bursting with ideas you yet have to work out. It has cost us a lot of hardship to keep Savatage going throughout the years. But even now, while Jon is pursuing his own project, I've never felt the urge to quit. And I was right: the reactions to 'Edge of Thorns' have exceeded everything we were used to up untill now. To give you an example: we are getting support from the big radio stations for the first time ever .

Your lyrics, that often were objectionable in the past , no longer seem to be an obstacle anymore ?
The times of the ridiculous 'Parental Advisory' stickers are behind us. We no longer had a problem with that on 'Streets'. Before that however, it was bad, because most stations have immediately thrown our records into the thrashcan in the past. We simply didn't stand a chance.

But as far as I know you have launched a Top-Ten-singlehit with 'Jesus Saves'.
Yeah, but it really gets interesting when you're able to place a song there for several weeks or even months. 'Jesus Saves' dropped out too soon to be able to make a noticeable difference on the point of record sales. It's a hard buisiness and you need a whole damn lot of luck .

Do you know Dream Theater from New York ?
I sure do.

These guys have sold almost half a million records in the USA in the last few months. Don't you have the feeling that times are changing a little bit, that even your chances are getting better now, while you are appealing to a similar audience ?
I think so too. Interesting enough this is exactly the band we'd like to tour the USA with after the European gigs. At this time we're still negotiating. To me it'd be the greatest thing to get this tour together. It would be the ultimate killer tour, while I think this band is absolutely fantastic. I like them very much. And I also believe that their and our music would go together wonderfully. Naturally it's also in the back of my mind that Dream Theater have sold over 400.000 records over here. And our music should also be appealing to the DT/Queensryche audience because one thing stands: we can only build upon those people who have a broad musical taste and are occupied with Queensryche, Metallica or Helmet in a crossover sense.

How did people in the USA respond to you when you were on tour in the USA up until now ?
It's been quite allright. We usually play medium size clubs, and most times these places are sold out when we play.

Other Powermetal-acts have made it in Japan in the past. It has taken you a little bit longer...
Yeah, we were there for the first time with 'Streets' and have done a few shows. We already have had an offer to rip off at least 15 headlinergigs with the 'Edge of Thorns' tour over there. Our albums are doing great , while our complete back catalog has recently become available over there.

Have you finally started to work on the live album or will we have to wait for that a few more years?
It may take a while, 'cause we'll have to buy back the rights for 'Sirens' and 'Dungeons' first. Otherwise, we're not allowed to use the songs from those albums. It's also a fact that we're planning to bring out a few songs, that have been unreleased so far, for example songs from the 'Mountain King' and 'Gutter Ballet' sessions. We've piled up enough 24-track-material, but it's a question of timing when this album will come out. First we'll have to make sure that 'Edge of Thorns' gets a good takeoff and that Zak will be able to establish himself as the Savatage singer. Of course he's no Jon Oliva, live he's more in the direction of Dio, but he's really got it, even where our old songs are concerned.

So you won't restrict yourself to play mainly 'Edge of Thorns' material live ?
No way man. We'll play a lot of old stuff. And 'cause we're not into doing the same thing over and over again, we have dug up a few songs from the old albums that have not been on the set for a long time. For example 'The Unholy' or 'Warriors' instead of 'She's in Love' and 'Rage and War'. This will take a bit of the pressure off of Zak's shoulders, so he won't be compared to Jon with each song. "Warriors' for example is a song people have never heard Jon sing . The final set list isn't there yet, but we have a helluva lot of stuff in store. It'll be different, but it will be us, man!

I have always asked myself, why you're not playing three-and-a-half hour shows like Bruce Springsteen. Surely you belong to the few bands on this planet that would be able to pull that off without having to bore people with one single senseless song. One killer next to the other. Or don't you have the power for such a marathon ?When you think back of your 'rehearsal-room times'...
Haha, no, we do have the power all right, but with music like ours you're likely to ruin your singer. That would kill any frontman. Besides Springsteen can afford such a thing. He plays only two or three shows a week. Bands like us however have to pull it off almost every day. And no singer would be able to do that in the long run.

Well, let's see how things are going to work out with Zak...
It'll definitely be cool. We'll be climbing up the walls, while we're really looking forward to finally go at it in Europe!

Knowing the power with which Criss usually performs on stage, he definitely has not promised us too much !