Where the East Meets the West: 
A Trans-Siberian Orchestra Holiday
by Kara Uhrlen

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. 

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.

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.”

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. 

“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...



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.”



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).