SAVATAGE
"WAKE OF MAGELLAN"
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A lot of bands have come and gone over the years. Those with staying power are bands who are generally pioneers of their genres, those who stuck to their guns, played music they believed in and refused to bend to the trends. Savatage is a great example. Originally begun in 1981 as Avatar, over the years they've undergone a name change, personnel changes, the tragic loss of guitarist Criss Oliva and have now released their fourteenth album, "The Wake Of Magellan." This album is an exquisite musical and vocal work of art and the intricate storyline is the stuff legends are made of. Vocalist/keyboardist Jon Oliva expresses a positive outlook for his six-piece progressive hard rock outfit; he's positive that the United States is finally starting to deviate from the trendy and look toward bigger, better and brighter horizons. |
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By David LaDuke
DAVID LA DUKE: I understand that "The Wake Of Magellan" was released in Europe months before it was released here. I was wondering why it took so long for it to be released here in America? JON OLIVA: Basically, on the last record, "Dead Winter Dead," we released everything worldwide all at once. We had so many demands from the foreign countries to play that by the time we got done fulfilling all those commitments, it was already time to go back in again and do a new album. The reason we changed it with "Magellan" was---we just held it back a couple months in America so we could get a lot of the European stuff out of the way and it would still allow us a couple months to put some shows together here in the 'States. The touring demands have just increased so much now that we just have to work out our time better. Plus, we gave America a few bonus tracks, so they should be happy. DAVID: Those are the acoustic tracks. JON: Yeah. DAVID: "The Wake Of Magellan" is no doubt a rock opera and if I've got my facts right, most or all of the stories and lyrics were written by producer Paul O'Neill. I was wondering, what is the process as far as the band taking lyrics and setting them up to the music arrangements? Is this something that the group does as a whole or is it individually done? JON: Well, we put music together while we're on the road all the time. Whenever the guys in the band are together, we're always putting stuff down. When it's time to get ready to work on an album, I get together with Paul and we discuss concept ideas if that's the way we're going. I play him some of the stuff that I've already accumulated, then I'll run off and start working with the guys on music. We'll just start compiling musical pieces while he's working on a storyboard and storyline. Then it's just like trading tapes---I'll let him hear where we're at, he'll show me where he's at and it's just by that process that we keep working it in. As time goes on, he'll get more involved with the music and we'll get more involved in the lyrics and the story as far as the ideas and stuff like that. We basically work on it together but separately. But we're working on the story and lyrics and stuff all the way up until mixdown, so we're always changing stuff at the last second; we're the worst for that. (laughs) DAVID: I know that Zak (Stevens) covers the bulk of the lead vocals, but I was wondering, which tracks do you take credit for as far as vocals go on this release? JON: I sing "Paragons Of Innocence" and "Another Way," I sing the choruses in "Complaint In The System," I sing the low lead vocal in "Blackjack Guillotine" and the low lead vocal in "Wake Of Magellan." The low chorus vocal. We call it a double lead when it's a two-part harmony and I'm doing the low part and Zak's doing the high part. I sing all over the record, but those songs are my main things. DAVID: What has been the reaction of both European and South American fans to the record and how have they accepted the band as far as the tour goes? JON: It's been an unbelievable reaction! I mean---we had all sold-out shows in South America. The record is very big there and it's selling really well. Europe---it's unbelievable over there. Italy, Greece, Holland---we're really doing good. We're just onto something over there. The response has been phenomenal. DAVID: You mentioned earlier when we talked that you'd done some acoustic gigs in South America. JON: Yeah, we did an unplugged show for South American television. It was in a small 800-seat place, but it was great. It was definitely different. Savatage Unplugged---we did some remakes of our older stuff, but with different arrangements. It was really interesting. I'm sure there will be bootlegs around from that. That was a lot of fun. DAVID: How do you feel the (North) American audience will embrace the band on its live outings? Do you feel that the lack of support of metal here in America will affect the draw? In other words, the overall attendance? JON: Well, so far ticket sales have been good and our record sales have been strong. We're doing well in several of the major markets in the country. So I don't know---maybe America is ready to jump on the Savatage bandwagon. We'll have to see. So far the response has been pretty strong. Quite surprising since we didn't really think what we were doing was what's going on in America right now. America is kind of hard to figure out, what's going on here. It's interesting. We're either going to do great or it's gonna suck! (laughs) There's no middle of the road. DAVID: I think you'll do well; the production on "The Wake Of Magellan" is just awesome. I was wondering how many hours actually went into recording, producing and mixing? JON: The guys in the band, Paul and myself worked on it for nine months. That's counting the writing and working the storyline up. When you're doing a concept record, it's a longer process. Everything has to work together, everything has to work as part of a story---it's definitely a lot harder and it takes time. Plus, we're very particular in the studio. We're a very studio-minded band. We are studio buffs. We spend the extra time and the extra money to make sure the record comes out with great production. We want it to sound great. It's tough; it's a long road. We spent a quarter of a million dollars to make the last record, which is a lot of money in today's rock 'n' roll field, where a lot of guys are doing records for twenty, thirty, forty thousand dollars. But what happens then is you hear it and it ends up sounding like a record that was made with twenty thousand dollars. We use a lot of real orchestra instruments, real orchestra players, we use countless hours of backup vocals and stuff like that. I mean---we put a lot into it. DAVID: In future releases, do you see the group continuing to focus on rock operas, or do you see Savatage taking other directions? JON: We'll probably stick with what we're doing. I mean, it's given us our own little space out there right now, which is cool. It's our own little identity in a very crowded music world. No one's really doing what we're doing right now. I think we do it well, so I think we're probably going to stick with it, but you never know. We could always turn around and surprise you by doing an acoustic album (laughs). It's like, who knows? We don't really like to plan on it; we like to take it day-by-day. We'll have to see. If it ain't broke, don't fix it! DAVID: It's hard to believe that Savatage has been going for eighteen years now. "The Wake Of Magellan" marks its fourteenth release. It definitely makes me aware of how fast time goes by. I've been an avid fan, listener and supporter of the band since the older days with releases such as "The Dungeons Are Calling" and the classic "Sirens." At the time the band was lumped into the thrash movement. But Savatage managed to hold its own and plant a new standard of approach as far as heaviness and progressive metal goes. In my opinion, Savatage really took the world by the balls with the epic, "Hall Of The Mountain King." JON: That record was definitely a turning point for us. That was our first dabble with crossing over from our early sound into what was going to become our sound for the future. It was tough, but we had done three real, real heavy records. Although "Mountain King" is a heavy record, it still incorporates things that we had never used before. That was kind of like the beginning of that movement and it just went further on as each record came out. We were very comfortable with the direction we were going in, so we just kind of rolled with it. "Gutter" came from that, then "Streets" came from that---and so on until it's evolved into what it is today, which is complete bedlam! "Mountain King" was a very big record for us; it definitely put us on the worldwide map strongly. DAVID: I personally think that "The Wake Of Magellan" definitely has the same impact as a classic release. Has Savatage released a record that you feel doesn't hold up to the rest? If so, which release would that be and why? JON: That would definitely be "Fight For The Nightmare" (laughing) and the reason is because it was never a Savatage record. DAVID: Was it "Fight For The Nightmare" or "Fight For The Rock?" JON: "Fight For The Rock." We call it "Fight For The Nightmare." We were involved with some really shady management back then. These guys were managing John Waite, The New Edition and Bobby Brown and you know---we were a bunch of kids who'd had three records out that did moderate, but didn't do very well as far as sales go. We got hooked up with these managers who were just complete criminals. I can't mention their names, but it was just a nightmare! I'd written a bunch of songs to submit to these guys because they were very involved with publishing and stuff like that, to see if I could get some other artists to cover some of my material. The next thing I knew, they had persuaded us to record those as the new Savatage record. They were trying to make us into more of a pop-rock band, which we never were. We were a hard rock band from day one! DAVID: Yeah, definitely! So those tracks actually weren't written with Savatage in mind? JON: No. There were only a couple of them that were actual Savatage songs, like "Hide," "Edge Of Midnight" and "Out On The Streets," which was a remake of the song that was originally on "Sirens." It was just a shorter version. All the rest of the songs on that record were written for other people and we were just talked into doing it. The lure of easy money---when you've got people like Bobby Brown and John Waite walking by you in the office every day with thousands of dollars falling out of their pockets, and you don't have enough money to buy a Coke! You're like, "Maybe I should listen to these guys. They're managers, we're twenty-one, twenty-two years old." You know---we didn't know what we were doing. So it was a mistake and we learned from it. I mean---people make mistakes. Bands make mistakes. Bands put out bad records sometimes, under the circumstances. DAVID: Yeah, but the bottom line is that you're still around and there are so many bands that have come and gone. JON: (Laugh) We were stupid enough to stay with it! But it was a good thing that we did, because now things are looking up! This band's gone through a lot of tragedy and just all kinds of things that would have made the normal band break up by now. But we haven't, which I'm proud of. We've stuck it out. And in the process, we've always remained true to ourselves. You know, when everyone started wearing wool caps with goatees and fucking plaid shirts---we never jumped to that and when everyone was wearing Spandex with hair spray, we never did that. We were just us. We dressed a little more flashy in the mid- eighties, but we were never like a glam metal band like a Warrant or---we were never a 'pretty boy' band. DAVID: You never jumped on anybody's bandwagon. JON: Right. We dressed for the times when the times were the times, but we never really portrayed any kind of 'image.' We were just musicians. So now it's like---we're just degenerates instead. (laughs) DAVID: I tell you what, Jon. I appreciate the time and the interview and if there's any last comment you'd like to add, feel free to. JON: I just love Kentucky and you guys gotta come to Cincinnati to see the show! DAVID: I definitely may check that out! JON: All right buddy, you take care! Copyright 1998, BallBuster, The Official Int'l Underground Hard Music Report |
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