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Where the East Meets the
West:
A Trans-Siberian Holiday
by Kara Uhrlen |
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While Savatage, the core of
the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) has recently lost two of its band members,
namely guitarist Al Pitrelli and vocalist Zak Stevens, the band has moved on by
refilling the empty slots for the immediate need to tour as Trans-Siberian
Orchestra and hopes to consider permanent replacements for a Savatage tour in
the New Year once they have had time to regroup after their holiday efforts. In the meantime, we spoke to guitarist Chris Caffery about
the latest happenings on the Savatage and TSO fronts when we caught up with TSO
East in Cleveland, Ohio.
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Caffery speculates that
once Zak Stevens had his kid he was experiencing a lot of pressure from
his wife to spend time at home, and while it wasn’t anything against
Savatage specifically, his travels started to put a big strain on him.
And while Caffery says he knew that Stevens was thinking about it,
he didn’t really think that he was going to go through with it.
“I
don’t think we toured enough to where it was getting to the point where
it was worth turning his life upside down every time he had to go.
And with TSO going on and Zak really didn’t have a huge
involvement with that, Savatage was kind of waiting around.
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He had gotten locked into a very good job in
Florida. Zak has had a very good education, and he just decided that
it was in the best interest of himself and his family that he was going to step
down from Savatage. We kept the
door open for him until the very last minute, that’s why we didn’t announce
anything about it, and actually we didn’t even know until right before he was
supposed to fly up to start singing the record that he wasn’t going to be
doing the CD itself.”
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Even though Savatage’s
upcoming release “Poets and Madmen” had initial been slated to feature
both Zak Stevens and Jon Oliva, the entire album now features Jon Oliva on
all lead vocals. While some may tend to forget the softer side of Jon
Oliva’s voice, Caffery assures us that Oliva has done an amazing job as
both “the Poet” and “the Madman” on what producer Paul O’Neill
has unexpectedly weaved into yet another concept album.
“I think people underestimate the versatility of Jon Oliva’s
voice or they tend to forget the fact that I don’t think anybody sings
piano ballads and stuff like that with more emotion than Jon does. |
So, it’s not that we don’t miss Zak, but it’s definitely not
something people are going to miss on the record, is that softer side of
singing, because Jon does it brilliantly on this album.”
With
the departure of Stevens and the departure of guitarist Al Pitrelli
earlier in the year, as well as announcements about the band’s
participation on the Grinch movie soundtrack and the addition of a
second TSO tour, Caffery says that he had been giving what very little
free time he has had (which is little to none), visiting the Savatage.com
message boards, read posts, and answering questions with the most recent
information that the band has to give.
However, recent accusations and abuse have led him to take a step
away.
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“Something that was
said a month ago in this business can be completely different a month
later. Something that gets
printed in a magazine was said a couple months ago - things change.
And when I say something it is the most current information
that’s available, and when people call me a liar or say that I’m
feeding them sh!t, it kind of upset me in the fact that it continued to go
on…I just I’m taking a step away from it for a while.
Its not a punishment to everybody, I’m just tired of people
thinking that I would actually sit there and lie to them, because that is
so far from the truth...
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I can handle criticism and I can handle
anything anybody has to say bad about guitar playing and Savatage records, and
this that and the other thing. But,
when you challenge my integrity as a human being, you do that from in my face,
you do that in front of me and look me in the eye and do it, you don’t do it
punching a little name on a computer screen.”
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On the upside, Caffery
says he is keeping busy meeting hundreds of fans in person daily on the
sold-out TSO tour as the band packs in as many shows in possible before
Christmas as they support their two Christmas albums and their latest
release Beethoven's Last Night (Atlantic).
“Well basically, you
have only so many days in between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and
there’s so many cities that wanted TSO shows, so instead of people
b!tching and moaning that we were just doing what would have been this East
Coast run, we put together a second TSO and put it out.
I mean there are so many different people that sing on the TSO
records anyway and different people that play on it - with Al (Pitrelli)
joining Megadeth there was going to be a different TSO no matter what
anybody saw."
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In addition to Al Pitrelli being preoccupied as
the newest member of Megadeth, vocalist/keyboardist Jon Margolis who sang “Old
City Bar” is flooded with commercial work as a jingle singer now that the
Screen Actor’s Guild strike has ended, and vocalist Katrina Chester who sang
“Music Box” is busy with marketing efforts for her own band LUXX who
recently scored a new record deal and management under Paul Geary who handles
Godsmack.
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“We
put a little bit more onto this Coast, because there was people that saw
the show last year, and we didn’t want them to come and see it again
this year, pay money, and think that they were getting ripped off, which I
don’t think anybody feels that anyway, because we put together two
phenomenal bands. But, this way, the people that are seeing the West Coast
tour are getting to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra for the first time, and
they’re identifying with the whole thing as a show…”
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This year, the band on the Eastern
version of the tour includes TSO vocalists Daryl Pediford and John
Cerisano from the TSO albums on vocals, Chris Caffery and Alex Skolnick
(Testament, Savatage) on guitar, as well as Jeff Plate (drums), Bob Kinkel
(keyboards), Mark Wood (violin) and a few newcomers including David
Z (bass), while Savatage’s Johnny Lee Middleton (bass), Tommy Farese
from the TSO albums, and narrator Tony Gaynor have moved on to the West Coast
to lead a band featuring an assortment of new artists who have worked with
the likes of Blood, Sweat, and Tears, Rainbow, Meatloaf, and others. |
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As for replacements for Zak Stevens and Al Pitrelli in Savatage, Caffery
says that the band has yet to discuss permanent replacements.
Though there had been some discussion about John West (Artension /
Royal Hunt)
singing for Savatage and while former Savatage guitarist Alex Skolnick has
reunited with the band for the TSO East Coast tour, he stresses that no
decisions have been made. In
fact, Caffery says right now, he doesn’t even know when the Savatage
record is getting released, let alone when they will be touring it and who
is going to be in the band when they do.
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Since he has spent the
last two months putting the TSO tours together with Paul O’Neill and Bob
Kinkel in an effort to cast thirty musicians, he says that the Savatage
line-up has been the least of their worries.
Though he did have some great words to say about the band’s
upcoming release…
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“The Savatage record is special that’s
one thing that I’m very excited for people to hear.
I think that if anything, from what I’ve been writing on the board and
been writing about this record, I’ve under-hyped it. People keep saying
‘Chris is building it up, Chris is saying this, Chris is saying that’.
In all seriousness I haven’t even poked near how cool this record really is,
because I don’t want to sound over confident with it to them right now. When they hear this record, the Savatage fans are going to
lose their minds because its exactly what they’ve wanted, its exactly what
I’ve wanted, its exactly what Jon has wanted in a Savatage record for a long
time.
It’s got everything that
they’re used to. There’s every
single little element that people love about Savatage is there, the light, the
shade, the pianos, the vocals, the counterpoints, the heaviness, the guitars,
the screaming, the mellow singing, the story, the album cover is amazing, the
old logo is back – It’s a shame that Zak’s not around but you know
Savatage lived through losing Criss and I think that about the only thing that
would ever put Savatage to an end is if Jon was to ever say so, but he’s
sounding amazing on this - the Mountain King is back.”
All photos by Kara Uhrlen
and property of The Pure Rock Shop (TPRS.com)
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