Dunedin Free Press Local Artist- Jon Oliva

Jon Oliva, at 18, earned enough to live on in 1977 as a professional musician.
A year later, he founded internationally successful local metal legends, Savatage.

With Savatage, their hugely commercially successful outgrowth, the Trans Siberian Orchestra, or his own band, Jon Oliva’s Pain, he has continued to develop as an artist throughout his career, while enjoying international respect and success.

Savatage was a progressive metal band with roots in power and classic metal, signed with Atlantic Records in 1985. They toured Europe opening for Motorhead and hosted MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball.

He talked about the tour with Motorhead before a recent JOP show at Bourbon Street in New Port Richey, “Lemmy taught me how to drink Jack Daniels,” he said. “It’s all his fault. I had a great time with them, they were all wonderful guys. They felt sorry for us because Johnny (Lee Middleton) got hit in the head with a hot dog the fi rst time we played with them, so they kind of took us under their wing. We were laughing our a@@es off. Open up for Motorhead while the whole crowd’s going (German accent) Mo-Tor-Head! Mo-Tor-Head! We come out. We started. We’re all playing. My brother and I are up there and we looked and we just saw it coming, fl ying through the air. It’s going wikikikiki and we’re like, ‘Oh boy, it’s gonna hit. Pow! It hit Johnny – a big bratwurst with mustard and everything. We were laughing. He was all p@@@ed off. So they took us out after that and got us all drunk. We were good buddies ever since.

He called the Headbangers Ball experience “fun – a little sterile.” In 1977, Jon Oliva was looking fora job. He answered an ad in a local music paper and at age 18, got a paying job playing keyboards and guitar for Metropolis, a local band playing Bad Company, Kiss and Alice Cooper covers five nights a week.

Jon, on bass and vocals, and his brother Criss, on guitar, started what would become Savatage as Avatar in 1978. Drummer Steve Wacholz joined them in 1980. The three practiced in “the Pit,” a shack behind the brothers’ home, and played Tampa Bay Clubs for years. Keith Collins took over on bass in 1981. They changed their name to Savatage in 1983, incorporating the word “Savage” into their original name.

Over time, their sound evolved from a classic metal sound to a more progressive one, incorporating lots of keyboards and eventually, classically inspired orchestration and even Broadway song structures, growing from a fast, riffy speed metal beginning infl uenced by Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath band’s 1987 release Hall Of The Mountain King, produced by Paul O’Neill, now called the band’s seventh member by some, led them to greater mainstream success. Their fi rst video for the album’s title track received airplay on MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball, followed by their video for “24 Hours Ago.”

O’Neill ecame a major lyrical contributor and guided the band to use strong instrumental orchestration. 1989’s Gutter Ballet included longer songs, complex melodies and varied vocal styles. Jon Oliva’s work on the album was heavily infl uenced by his attendance at a performance of Phantom of the Opera. The 1991 Savatage album, and Deep Purple.

Their fourth album, Fight For The Night, attempted to appease their record company’s commercial sensibilities with results that the band themselves have called “Fight For The Nightmare.”

Johnny Lee Middleton replaced Keith Collins. Tours with Metallica, Kiss and the tour with Motorhead followed. The Streets, was a bonafi de Rock Opera. Oliva left the band after the Streets tour to focus on his side project, Dr. Butcher, and his Broadway Bound musical, Romanov. He chose former Wicked Witch singer Zak Stevens to replace him as Savatage vocalist, and continued to co-write songs for them with his brother, Criss and Paul O’Neill. Their next album, Edge Of Thorns, also enjoyed commercial success.

Criss Oliva was tragically killed by a drunk driver on his way back from the Livestock Music Festival in 1993. Jon continued the band in his memory. The last song on 1994’s Handful of Rain “Alone You Breathe,” is a tribute to Criss Oliva. Chris Caffery would play all of his guitar parts in Savatage just as Criss Oliva would have played them from then on, as an ongoing tribute to his longtime bandmate.

After the loss of Criss Oliva, Atlantic records wanted a well-known guitarist to join Savatage in addition to Caffery. Al Pitrelli, known for work with Alice Cooper and Asia, joined the band. He left Savatage in 2000, accepting an offer to join Megadeath.

A song on 1995’s Dead Winter Dead, the band’s second rock opera, grew to become the side project that would fi nally pay Savatage members what they had earned with their long, hard hours in Heavy Metal. “Christmas Eve/ Sarajevo 12-24” topped radio charts and led to the formation of The Trans Siberian Orchestra, an outgrowth of Savatage led by Paul O’Neill, Jon Oliva and Bob Kinkel and at times including Al Pitrelli, Jeff Pilate, Johnny Lee Middleton, Chris Caffery and Zak Stevens, along with a revolving lineup of Broadway musicians and vocalists. TSO continues to evolve the concept style originally defi ned by Savatage.

Their 1994 album, Christmas Eve And Other Stories went gold. It was followed by The Christmas Attic in 1998 and Beethoven’s Last Night in 2000. In 1999, they fi lmed a television special, “The Ghosts of Christmas Eve” broadcast nationally. The band left Atlantic records and signed with Nuclear Blast in 2000. Two recent TSO’ shows at The Lakeland Civic Center sold out far in advance. “I worked for

“I worked for 15 years with Savatage spending four months on a song and beating my brains in, sleeping on fl oors, and, you know.. And then I sit down with him and write fi ve minutes worth of Christmas Music and it gets #1 in the country and I was like, what? It’s a kick in the a@@. It is like (looks up) ‘thanks a lot!’”Jon Oliva said of TSO’s success. “That thing’s a runaway freight train that may one day run over me,”

With his new band, Jon Oliva’s Pain, he is able to play a wide range of the music that has built his career. He talked about the band. “They’re all strickses that …they’re all homeless people…No, they’re great guys. They’re all local and they’re all, like, when Savatage was getting around, they were always at the shows and they’re just these guys I’ve known over 15 to 20 years, so when the opportunity came to put them together, I was like, Oh hey, this is great. They all live here so, they’re good buddies, and what I like about them is they all play very versatile. What I like about it is, when I would watch them play, they play anything from jazz to rock and heavy metal to Prince. They can play anything and that’s what I like about the Jon Oliva stuff. I do a lot of different things. I don’t just do like, the Savatage, heavier stuff. I do – I mean, I do that too, but with these guys I can do any kind of song I want to really and they just get down to it.

They’re pretty good, man. They’re a lot of fun at parties.”

After their fi rst album, Taj Mahal, JOP signed with AFM records in 2006, releasing Maniacal Renderings last September. Jon has said that the band is basically Savatage re-incarnated and so, can co-exist with the demands of TSO. “The new one’s gonna be called Global Warning. Not global warming as in warm but warning as in a warning and it’ll be out in January. And then we do a European/South American tour starting next summer. Other than that, it’s studio work and Trans Siberian Orchestra work for me.”

In a shocking tragedy, JOP Sound Engineer and Producer Greg “Super G” Marchak was killed by a massive stroke after the pre-production of the new album. The Bourbon Street show, already scheduled, became a dedication to him. The band showed a memorial DVD of him at the show and a huge picture of him, holding his cat, was displayed at the venue for friends to sign in tribute.

“I miss him so much,” Oliva said of the loss of his longtime friend. “I was really tight with him and so, you know, it brought back a lot of bad memories for me with my brother, you know, and