Savatage

from : Aardschok, Holland feb. '89
author : Metal Mike
translated by : Ellen Bakvis

It has been a while since we last heard from Savatage. After the release of the "Hall Of The Mountain King" LP things became extremely quiet around the Floridians. In 1988 the silence was broken only three times; in may when they canceled their headline gig at the Dynamo Open Air festival, in october when Atlantic decided not to release the live LP that was recorded in Cleveland and in december when singer Jon Oliva and drummer Steve Wacholz got a phone call from yours truly for the following interview :

Steve : " We were just about ready to come to Europe in may, but unfortunately we had to cancel."

Jon : " O, was that when I got ill ?"

Steve : " It was not like we were forgetting about Europe. In 1989 Europe will be number 1 for us, and I would like to make use of this opportunity to apologize to all our fans for not touring. But in 1989 we will certainly make up for that. Our new album is super ! Incredibly good !"

MM : Where have I heard that before ?

Steve : " But it's true ! It will be a lot more heavy than " The Hall Of The Mountain King". From the four of us, Criss (Oliva, guitarist and Jon's brother - MM ) developed himself the most. I almost flipped when I heard the stuff he came up with, right Jon ?"

Jon : " When Criss and I started working on the songs, we decided to write them based on the guitar, so everything is much more guitar oriented than the last couple of albums. It's his LP for the most part. There's an incredible lot of guitar work in the songs. Almost every song has got two guitar solo's. Criss will definitely be in the foreground. It's still super heavy and in that respect more or less goes back to our first albums."

Steve : " Tell him about the songs, Jon..."

Jon : " We've got "The Unholy", about the first street gang, consisting of evil spirits, long before Christ was born. Then, "The Hounds Of Zaroff", a story about the insane scientist, Zaroff, who experimented on dogs, but that got a little out of hand and those dogs became killers, a very heavy song. Then we have "Target", about atom weapons; we are all targets. "Metalhead", a song that describes what true metalheads are. "Mentally Yours" and "Thorazine Shuffle", about one of those experiences that I had last year. Thorazine is a drug that they give you in a mental institution to calm you down.
The album title will probably be "Mentally Yours", but could also be "Schizoid". "

MM : Jon, for a moment there you mentioned the problems that you have had last year.

Jon : " Indeed I did have some problems with drugs and alcohol, but they belong to the past now."

MM : So from now on, we will see a totally different Jon on stage...

Jon : " It will take a little getting used to for me, to be standing on stage sober, if you know what weird things I used to be capable of. At the time, I didn't know my limits. I drank until there was nothing left to drink and the same thing can be said about other things. I was my own worst enemy. Now, there's a 'new and improved' Jon, who no longer smokes and drinks and rides his bike every day."

MM : 'The Hall Of The Mountain King' has been your most succesfull LP so far, and because of that interest in your early albums 'Sirens' and 'The Dungeons Are Calling' has increased. Combat released both LP's on one CD last year in the USA.

Steve : " 1989 is the last year Combat has the rights of those two LP's, and that's why they are releasing the two LP's in a new cover as a double album, in the trend of ' Savatage - The Early Years', and we will put on four extra live songs. The whole thing is supposed to be released in the summer of 1989."

MM : Are those live recordings from that gig in Cleveland, that you wanted to release as a live-album, but that was never released ?

Steve : " Exactly, but we will be remixing those songs and we will use four older songs. That way those songs on that double album will have a studio and a live version. Indeed those recordings were supposed to be used for a live LP, but the record company wanted to release a studio album first. The subsequent album will probably be a live one ."

MM : You'll be in the studio starting januari 16th. I thought you would already be starting the recordings in october ?

Steve : " Originally we were planned for october, but Paul O'Neill, our producer, was still in the studio with Badlands, and was quite a bit behind schedule, so we were too ! Paul was here about two weeks ago to do some pre-production with us. We've got a lot of songs ready. There will be no less than 12 songs on the LP, while there will also be a bonus track on the CD. In januari, we will probably get into the Quadrial studio (a.o. Anthrax) in Miami to record the album until the end of februari, in productional cooperation with Paul O'Neill. There is however a slight chance that we will be recording the album in New York. The album is supposed to be released in april. It must be, because shortly after that our European tour will start. There's a chance that we will appear at one of the Dutch festivals in may."

MM : Will you be recording another video too ?

Jon : " Yes, we're thinking of some sort of cartoon, black and white, enacted in the thirties, something completely different in any case...Nowadays, all those video's look very much alike. A band is playing on stage with a lot of light effects and every now and then a chick with big tits running in front of the camera. We don't wanna do something like that."

MM : So we can be expecting something like 'Who framed Jon Oliva" ?

Jon : " No, it'll be more like " J.O. the Extra-Terrestrial "...!