Described by many as one of "... the most charismatic and humourous guys in the music business" ... we catch up with the man mountain himself Mr Jon Oliva to do some soul searching about the new album 'Global Warning' and also ask that ultimate question currently posed on every Savatage fans lips, but more of that later!  It is with great pleasure we bring you the mighty Mr Jon Oliva ...

MM - Firstly congratulations on your fine new album ‘Global Warning’.
Jon - Thank you very much. 

MM - With the passing of your friend and producer Greg Marchak shortly before you started recording the album, did you ever consider not putting out this album?
Jon - Well we obviously very devastated when Gregg passed away it was a very difficult time for us. Because he was with us from day one when we started this JOP thing he was our guide and I'd worked with him for many years before that. We didn’t really know what to do when it first happened, we were a week away from cutting tracks and we just finish the pre-production with him. So we were all ready to go then when that happened, we just kinda lumbered around for four, five or six weeks.  No one really felt like making music really, I mean we were just bummed out obviously. After about a month and a half Chris and I started talking and saying … “you know we all worked really hard on this including Gregg”. 

MM - The album once again makes the statement that this is a Jon Oliva album and not a Savatage album, was this your intention for all three JOP albums?
Jon - Well yes you wanna do that and again it’s no different to Savatage. Any of these songs could be on a Savatage record put it that way.  I wrote for Savatage and I’m writing for this album.  It’s the same writer, I’m the same guy it's just I’m a little bit older and a little bit wiser.  I’m also a little bit better at what I do now, I understand it all a lot better now than when I was 25 years old.

But I mean if Savatage was still together I would say that half or more than half I’ve done with JOP would be on Savatage albums, but the situation being what it is, this is my only outlet to do this type of music.  So knowing that Savatage wasn’t going to be functioning anymore I had to make a decision.  TSO don’t play any Savatage music, it's just TSO, so the only way to keep that music alive and to do the stuff that I still have, but that I haven’t been able to put out yet, which was written during the time I was with Savatage, was to form a band and do it on my own.

The reason I don’t call it Savatage is out of respect for the guys that were in the band for 25 years.  It wouldn't be right and I don’t need to call it Savatage.  I’m not trying to ride laurels or on the success of Savatage at all.  This is a whole totally different thing, it has songs on it that if you’re a Savatage fan I can't see you not buying it.  If I was a Savatage fan I would buy all three of these record for my collection.  To me it's all the same thing, it's just me making music which I’ve always done, so let's just call it me.  That's the new name for the band, let's just call it ME.

It’s such a pain in the ass because you want people to understand, people have such a connection and affection for that name Savatage, but that's a thorn in my side at times.  It's like guys can’t you figure it out, Savatage is the Trans Siberian Orchestra now!  That’s that band, myself included.  I’m in TSO also so it’s very easy to see that the band simply turned into TSO and has since become hugely successful in America.  We're selling millions and millions of records, selling out Madison Square gardens and places like that.  If we were still called Savatage we wouldn't have a prayer of even getting 100 people in to Madison Square Gardens. 

But I have such an affection for the Savatage music and for my brothers music that is still unreleased and the stuff me and him worked on.  I now have this as my avenue to put that music out and to keep playing Savatage music live and have fun

MM - Again you’re selected some of the music for the album from your brother Chris’s tapes, do you find it hard listening to them and picking out songs and pieces of songs without him by your side?
Jon - I find it hard listening to him talk, that's the hardest thing.  On the tapes there’s lots of conversations and that’s sometimes difficult and very emotional.  Finding this music was like finding buried treasure.  Some of the stuff I’m like ... "oh my god!!!" ... when I hear it.  I can remember doing it with him but it was so long ago that those memories just got wiped away.  Sometimes you have to get something to jolt you and you hear a little riff and it’s like … “OH I remember THAT!” … when if someone had put a million dollars in front of you the day before, I wouldn’t have been able to remember it. 

But that’s the fun though, that thing that makes the whole JOP thing so special is the fact that Chris is still a part of it.  He’s had music featured on all but the first album.  On the last two albums he’s been a part of the band in a way.  He’s written five or six songs on each of those albums, so you know it’s like having a secret weapon, he’s our spiritual secret weapon. For some reason it wasn’t meant to be for me to find these boxes of tapes until I really needed them.  When I needed them most they mysteriously appeared.

It’s so cool though, it’s such a cool story and it's true.  That the whole thing.  Those tapes have been ruffled around between me moving around, between me moving between New York and Florida probably nine or time times.  I’ve unpacked at my new house and never discovered those tapes until the last house when we were doing the last album and I was having a hard time.  We'd just moved and we were going through the boxes and boom there in the bottom of this box was a shoe box with like forty five cassette tapes in it!  I nearly shit myself … "OH MY GOD LOOK AT THIS!"  It’s so weird how things happen sometime.

MM - Well fate has a strange way of working things out for you.
Jon - Yes it does, fate is a prankster, it plays tricks with you your whole life.  It's strange how things happen. It all works out for the good.  We have some little bits from Chris and we’ve got enough stuff for maybe two or three albums there.  There's enough tapes left.  I’m only on to about half of them, so every album a grab a little hand full of about five or six of them.  That’s what I did for this album, then I see what’s on them and whatever’s on them that I can use, then that becomes his contribution.  So for the next album I’ll go back to the box and grab another handful and see what he has for us next year.

I’m riding it as long as I can obviously because it’s like working with him all over again.  A lot of the stuff I don’t remember so it’s like brand new to me because I don’t remember it. There's stuff on this album that I had no clue about, I just never remembered them.

I’ve always been a fan of classic English bands like The Beatles, Queen, The Who and I’ve always been fascinated with the way a band like Queen can do a song like ‘Death On Two Legs’ and then turn around and do a song like ‘Love Of My Life’, which to me just shows an amazing amount of versatility and talent.

I’ve always wanted to model what I do with a band, even with Savatage we played a lot of different styles of music with Savatage.  This band are a bit more versatile players than the guys in Savatage.  Not taking anything away from the guys in Savatage, they were great musicians, but they were more limited in styles in Savatage.  We had our sound where we either played Heavy Metal or ballads.  These guys, the guys I play with now, all came from a background of playing in a lot of different cover bands.  They were used to playing a lot of different styles of music from top 40 to jazz, from rock n' roll to heavy metal or pop.  They played everything, so the exciting thing about them is that I can come up with any idea and these guys can play it and it’s cool.  It's amazing watching them transform from this pop band and then turn around and play songs off the new album which are as heavy as anything I’ve ever done before.  They do it all very naturally and that makes it easier for me to write in different styles, so the versatility thing comes in and I think that’s important as it helps show a different side of you.

MM - A couple of the songs jumped out to me as being heavily influenced by others bands, in particular the Queen like ‘Look At The World’ and the Pink Floyd like ‘Firefly’.
Jon - That’s funny you mentioned ‘Look At The World’ because that was one of the songs I had that Chris and I had wrote.  We wrote that song after we saw Queen in concert in 1978.  I think it was the Jazz tour and that was our first attempt at writing a song like Queen.  I’d forgotten about the song completely until I found a demo of us playing it on one of these tapes and it was like … “Oh My God!!!” … I took it and played it for the guys and I thought they were just gonna say ... no that’s way too camp, too Broadway or whatever ... but we played it and we really liked the way it sounded.  We added the slide guitar stuff in, which I thought Mat did a really great job of by the way, and it became our little Queen tribute. 

It’s really cool that you figured that one out because it’s an obvious Queen type of song and I like to pay homage to them.  I thought ‘Firefly’ was very John Lennon/Pink Floyd kind of thing.  It was like if John Lennon was in Pink Floyd, that was a song they would have done.  I hear a little bit of Deep Purple in some of the songs and Sabbath were also another big band for me.  It seems that for some reason they were always UK bands.  My top 5 bands are all from England.  Those were my teachers, The Beatles, Black Sabbath, The Who, Uriah Heap and Deep Purple, I liked them a lot.  They were all UK bands.  I think I should have been born in London!  

MM - Now that you have three JOP albums under your belt will your live sets concentrate more on these three albums than the Savatage material?
Jon – It’s about 50/50, I know people want to hear the Savatage songs and I love playing them.  I’ve chosen some different ones to take out on tour this year.  I’ve taken ‘Believe’ out as I’ve been doing it the last few tours and I’ve decided to switch it to ‘When The Crowds Are Gone’, because I haven’t done that one for a long time.  I try to keep it about 50/50 and I like to mix it up a little.  I figure one more album with JOP and then we’ll go a little bit heavier on the JOP stuff. 

I don’t think we’re playing anything off the first album on this tour, it’s just going to be material off the second album and this new album.  The first album was kind of like a pre-seasonal because we didn’t really know each other that well back then.  We just went into the studio and within 4 weeks we slapped it together.  We’re not too crazy on that one, but the second one we liked a lot and this one is our best one by far, so I think we’re going to play maybe 5 or 6 songs off the new album and 2 or 3 off the last one.   

MM - Talking of live shows, what are your plans to take this new album out on the road?  (Will we see you visiting the UK?)
Jon – We start our world tour next week and we’re doing 3 weeks in Europe before we come home, then we’re heading to South America.  After that we’re touring North America and then we’re coming back to Europe in late October/November and that’s when you’ll see us.  We are doing UK dates on that run and we’re actually putting that together now.  I don’t know where exactly we’ll be playing but I do know that we’re definitely going to be coming over to the UK. 

We finish the North American tour when we've played the Prog Power Festival in Atlanta.  I think that’s the first week in October, then we’re heading over to you guys.  We’ve got a heavy touring schedule coming up but thankfully it starts off slow.  I prefer to start slow on any tour, I guess that must be my old age.  I like to dip my toe in the water a bit before they push me into the pool! (laughs).  The tour starts off pretty mellow but by the time it gets to October/November time it’s going to be pretty much solid.

Most of the time you’re bouncing around on one of those double decker buses and believe me, if you think it’s easy to sleep on one of them you’ve got another thing coming.  It’s like trying to sleep when someone’s standing next to you constantly shaking you all the time.  You don’t really sleep well and it gets to you.  The only that is good is that after the sound check, which sucks, and after the dinner after sound check, which again usually sucks, the actual 15 minutes before you go on stage and the 30 minutes after the show when you talk to the people and sign stuff for them, that and the actual 2 ½ - 3 hours where you’re actually meeting the fans and playing the shows is the only thing that makes it all worth while. 

Every other bit sucks, trying to find somewhere to do your laundry sucks … I could just go on and on!  I could fill your whole magazine up with a list of how much it sucks being out on the road! (laughs).  You’re away from your family and you’re sick all the time because when one person gets a cold that’s it, the whole bus is sick for the 2 weeks.  The bathroom smells like piss all the time, the beers always warm … I could just go on and on.  I think you got the point though? MM – Yes (laughs). 

MM - The band consists of a lot of very talented individuals, do you find writing new material easier as time progresses and you all become more aware and confident of what each other can bring to the table?
Jon – Absolutely, that’s actually a great analogy.  It’s a lot easier now because I know them now and we’ve been together for 4 years now.  I’d know them personally for many years but musically we’ve worked together for 4 years and I have no fear with these guys.  Even with Savatage I’d write something and I’d think … “nah” … and I’d just put it on the shelf because I knew it just wasn’t going to translate.  I’d known the guys from Savatage for so long and I knew how they would write and translate a song and I could imagine what the songs would sound like with the guys playing them.  So a lot of songs I elbowed and I kept aside for myself to do. 

With these guys it’s different though as they can play anything.  I just opened up that drawer full of ideas and these weird things that I’d always wanted to try but would never bring to the Savatage table, because I just knew it would have either got vetoed, or it wouldn’t have translated right.  So it’s made it easier writing wise because now I can write anything now.  It’s exciting because I can just go away and write anything now.  That doesn’t take away anything from the guys from Savatage at all because without a doubt they are one of the best heavy metal bands ever, but we were limited to what we could do.  It was a majority vote in Savatage so everybody had a say in everything.  If we got one guy who wanted to play a certain section a different way, then although it wasn’t the way I’d heard the song to go, we’d play it that way anyway, because that’s what he wanted. 

With these guys I demo the songs up and I write them up and bring them in if I need help on one section, I’ll say I need a part for here or a part for there, let’s see what you guys got.  Sometimes they’ll bring something that works and sometimes they’ll not.  So far it’s been very, very helpful and they’ve help to finish songs that probably wouldn’t have otherwise been finished if they hadn’t brought their ideas into it.  Again it’s because they’re a bit more versatile players and their whole careers they’ve been playing in clubs in different cover bands, they’ve been playing everything from Prince to Black Sabbath, so that just goes to make it that bit easier when you’ve got guys around you who are confident in any kind of style.  That’s made it so much easier. 

MM - The album touches on some of the great problems of today’s world from War and Terrorism to Life Issues, how important do you think it is to touch on these issues many can relate to when you’re writing?
Jon – It’s a weird thing because I never really saw myself as anyone who’d be doing that sort of preaching.  I just write what’s affecting me or what I’m thinking about.  I don’t know, those were the topics that just started to come out.  I remembered seeing the thing about global warming on tv and watching it and I liked the title a lot and I said I’ll change it to warning, then that opened a door and I thought I’d touch on the topics that are there in front of me every day. 

I watch a lot of news and I read a lot of newspapers so that’s kind of in front of me each day.  The story ‘Adding The Cost’ for instance came from a newspaper article where right on top of the page they were saying that there’s like 175 thousand homeless children under the age of 10 years old wandering the streets in certain cities in America.  Then on the same page it said that last year we spent 120 billion dollars on the war in Iraq.  You’re sitting there as an American citizen and wondering why they couldn’t fork over a couple of million dollars for the kids? Help them out and give them a biscuit or something?  You look at this war thing and we’re all paying for it, it’s all us the tax payers paying for it, that’s where that song came from, ‘Adding The Cost’ and ‘Look At The World’ is the same type of thing. 

I remember watching the news and I remember the guy who started the item said … “just look at this world we live in” … and he starts talking about the unemployment rate and how the whole of America is addicted to prescription drugs.  America’s like the biggest drug dealer in the world.  We got the whole country strung out on drugs, that’s how I came up with the line … “they’ve got us living on dope and gasoline” … basically that’s all you spend your money on here in America, gasoline and your prescription drugs to keep you from killing each other.  That’s where a lot of those ideas came from, from things I saw around me. 

‘Firefly’ is about 2 soldiers and I have 2 young nephews fighting the war in Iraq and they came home for leave and they were talking to me about how it looks like Fireflies or lightening-bugs when you’re being shot at across the fields, you just see the little flashes of light from the end of the guns.  Here in America we have a little bug that come out when it’s very warm and they’re called Fireflies.  Their tales light up and when we were kids in schools we’d try to capture them in jam-jars and they’d light up and stuff so that’s where that idea came from. 

A lot of that stuff from this album just came as an awareness of Greg passing away and ‘O To G’ song is a song I wrote for Greg and that goes into ‘Walk Upon The Water’, which is a song about a dream and whether you realise you’re dead or alive.  Whether you can realise when you’re just having a really bad dream from when you’re passing away, that was inspired from Greg and how quickly that all happened.  I’d had a dream one night and I thought I was dead, I wasn’t really dead but I was having a dream and that’s where that song was born from. 

A lot of it is real personal stuff, I’m just singing about what’s affecting my life and I guess I’m not comfortable at aiming for a particular market.  I don’t care about a market or whether it sells a hundred or a million records, for me, for my brother and for the Savatage fans that want to here this stuff, it’s not about preaching for peace, although I am in a way, I’m just trying to make people aware of it I guess. 

MM - When can we expect something new from your Tran-Siberian Orchestra in the near future?
Jon – Yes maybe by 2030! (laughs).  We’re finishing our new album and I think it’s going to be all done by July.  We’re finishing it up now and they’re actually working diligently at it.  I was in the studio last week finishing off the vocals for it.  Paul is a perfectionist and he’s got the patience of stone because I would have shot myself 3 times already.  We’ve been working on the album for over 2 years.  Actually Paul and I have been working on it for 3 years because that’s when we started writing it.  Now it’s getting to the point where there’s stuff that’s finished and it’s a really great album.  It’s got some really fantastic pieces on it and I definitely think it’s the best album we’ve done with TSO by far.  I’m really excited about that, I just wish we’d hurry up so I can get paid! (laughs). 

MM - Am I right in thinking you started out on bass and then progressed on to keyboards and vocals?  Do you still keep your hand in on the bass and are there any other instruments you can play?
Jon – Actually I started on drums.  I play a lot of drums and actually I play a lot of the drums on the Savatage records but people just aren’t aware of it.  I did play bass a lot and I have a couple of bass guitars.  I play guitar a lot more now than when I was in Savatage, obviously with Chris being gone I’ve played a lot of the guitars on this album too.  I’ve played on every song n fact.  I play all the acoustic guitars, I play all the clean guitars, all that stuff is me.  I enjoy it and I have a good time doing it but I keep my hand in on everything. 

MM – Wow that’s amazing to have someone who’s so multi-talented and can also sing and write the songs as well!  You’re usually blessed with one or the other.
Jon – I was totally blessed with that and I thank God every night believe me. 

MM - Can you remember the first live show went to, who was it and what affect did this have (if any) on the career path you have taken.
Jon – Black Sabbath was my first concert ever and that was all I needed.  I've on the road to debauchery ever since that show and I’ll never forget it.  It was at the San Diego sports arena when I was 13 years old and they had just released Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and it was quite an event. 

I followed them around after that.  I followed them the next night to Los Angeles and saw them and scouted tickets.  Then I saw them again later that Summer at the California Jam.  Sabbath were my first concert ever and they started the whole pathetic ride that I’m now on.  It was great though, I loved every second of it and I wouldn’t change it for the world. 

MM - Throughout your career you have had some fantastic highs and some real low points, however you always seem to come through with a genuine warmth and smile.  What keeps you going against all odds?
Jon – Drugs! (laughs).  No, seriously I don’t know.  I’m a real people person and I don’t try to put forward anything that I’m not.  I am who I am and I am as God made me, you either like me or you don’t, that’s always been my attitude.  I was brought up to treat people the way you want to be treated and I remember that these people who are fans and are out there buying your music are putting food on your table.  If it wasn’t for them coming out to see you do what you’re doing and buying your records you wouldn’t be doing what you’re doing right now.  The last thing you want to be doing is treating them like shit because they’re paying for you to do what you’re doing, but so many of these rock guys treat their fans like total shit and it really annoys me when I see that. 

I saw that a couple of times in the younger days of my career and I said, you know what, I’ll never do that to anybody.  I tell you what it was, it was Kiss, I met Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley once backstage in North Carolina and this was early on in our career and they were doing a show there and they were total assholes to us for no fucking reason whatsoever.  Yngwie Malmsteen was another one, we went to meet him and he turned around and had us thrown out of his dressing room!  I was like fuck you, who the hell do you think you are?  I wanted to say to Gene Simmons, dude, you’re not the fucking Beatles man, believe me, you’re not even in the same book. 

It’s something that stuck with me and something that really got under my skin and I thought I’d never treat anybody like that.  When people have bought my records if I can’t take 5 minutes to talk to them and sign their stuff, whether it’s their shoe or an album, then I’m a piece of shit man and I’m taking advantage of the gift that I’ve been given.  It’s not right and it really pisses me off when I talk to people and they say that they’ve met this guy or that guy and that he was a total asshole.  I say don’t go buying his records then, that will teach him a fucking lesson!  (laughs). 

I just try to be nice to everybody and I’ve just got a good sense of humour.  You have to have a good sense of humour in this business, if you don’t have a sense of humour in this business, if you don’t then the guys that don’t have a good sense of humour are either not in the business any more or they’ve killed themselves so … I figure it’s best not to be too serious about everything because all the serious people end up dead!  I’ll laugh along with anybody.   

MM – You’re probably sick of people asking this next question and I apologise but it has to be asked …
Jon – Oh let me guess what’s coming next, when are Savatage going to do another show?  Is that what it is?

MM – Yes!  I’m so sorry but I’d be lynched if I didn’t ask it!
Jon - No that’s OK.  I can answer it for you without you even asking it.  There are no plans at all to do anything under the name Savatage at this time, mainly because of the TSO’s schedule.  We have talked about it, we do want to do something one day, that’s why you won’t see any of us using the name because the name is being held there in the closet until we have a break in the action.  That could be next year or that could be 3 years from now. 

We’ve released a statement after the last meeting we had about it basically saying that there isn’t going to be any shows, it’s going to be an album project.  It’s going to be a compilation of songs throughout the bands career with alternate mixes and alternate guitar solo’s and then there’s a few songs that we have held aside that we’re going to re-record and maybe do a bit of work on the old ‘Sirens’ and ‘The Dungeons Are Calling’ tapes and I may re-sing some things and we may add some instruments to them, but that’s going to be done at a time that we deem it possible to do it where we can give it 4 or 5 months to do it, as that’s how long we’ve decided it’s going to take.  It’s not something we can do in a month.  It may even take half a year to a year of time dedicated to do it the right way. 

If we’re going to do it then we want to do it the right way.  We don’t want to just slap something out there just to shut everybody up because that would be wrong.  That would be cheating.  We’ve got a lot of stuff but we just don’t have enough time to do it.  This TSO thing is like a freight train running down the tracks at high speed right now.  To do anything to stop that right now would be professional suicide.  There’s not enough Savatage fans out there in the world to stop something that’s providing a living for everybody to take a year off to do something that’s gonna loose money, that would be just insane. 

Some of the diehard fans just don’t get it.  It’s like anybody, if you were offered to do the same job you’re doing now some place else for 10 times the amount of money, what are you going to do?  Are you going to stay where you’re at and struggle or are you going to take the exact same job at another location for 10 times the pay that you’re getting paid now?  Anybody that tells me they’re going to stay where they are and only get paid $10 an hour and not go to the place that’s paying them $100 an hour is a liar!  Anybody is going to go and do whatever it takes to take care of themselves and their families, that’s what you’re here for. 

If you’re a husband and you have a wife and you’re doing one job that could be paying you $10 an hour and you could be doing the same job elsewhere and get paid £100 an hour what are you going to do?  You’re going to go and make the $100 an hour so you can provide for your family, it’s a no brainer and if anyone tries to argue that point with me, well you’re just being stubborn and unrealistic. 

That’s the whole thing with the Savatage thing, we had to change the name of the band because we were starving, we were folding, we were going under.  As soon as we changed the name after ‘Poets And Madmen’ to TSO look at what’s happened.  It’s the same guys, it’s basically the same music, it’s just a little bit more versatile and cross-over, but it’s basically all the same people and the same writers under a different name. It baffles my mind why people still bring up the whole Savatage thing.  It’s like Savatage are doing fine, they’re just called something else now.