By Clay Marshall
A record and a tour. Those were drummer Jeff Plate‘s modest career goals once upon a time, but more than three decades after he joined SAVATAGE for their tour in support of 1994’s “Handful Of Rain”, he’s assembled a far more impressive list of accomplishments: three legendary SAVATAGE studio albums, as well as a live record capturing the final show of the “Handful” tour; multiple gold and platinum records with sister group TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA; five albums with METAL CHURCH, with whom he played from 2006 to 2017; and hundreds of shows around the world with the three bands.
Apart from a one-off performance at Germany’s Wacken Open Air festival in 2015, SAVATAGE had been on extended hiatus since the completion of their world tour in support of 2001’s “Poets And Madmen”. Since then, TSO — which launched in the wake of the success of the “Dead Winter Dead” instrumental “Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)” and quickly became one of America’s top concert draws — had consumed most of the group’s energies. The Wacken gig hinted at a possible resurrection, but for multiple reasons – namely, the 2017 death of longtime producer and lyricist Paul O’Neill; the global pandemic in 2020; and ongoing health issues of the group’s heart and soul, Jon Oliva — a proper reunion never materialized.
That changed late last year, when SAVATAGE announced their first tour in 23 years. They kicked things off this month with gigs in Brazil, Argentina and Chile before heading to Europe this summer to play a mix of festival and headline dates. They are doing so, however, without Oliva, who hopes to rejoin the band on tour as soon as his health permits. In the meantime, he’s serving as the band’s musical director while the “Dead Winter Dead”-era lineup — Plate, bassist Johnny Lee Middleton, vocalist Zak Stevens and guitarists Chris Caffery and Al Pitrelli — rehearsed for their shows at the former Morrisound Recording studio in Tampa, Florida, where Plate first met Oliva and O’Neill 31 years ago this month.
Prior to SAVATAGE‘s first comeback concert on April 19 at the Monsters Of Rock festival in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Plate spoke with BLABBERMOUTH.NET about the band’s return. The question-and-answer session follows below.
Blabbermouth: How have rehearsals been going?
Jeff: “Extremely well. This has been a new approach to SAVATAGE. Obviously, the wrinkle in this is Jon Oliva. The fact that Jon is not going to be on stage with us opened up a whole different scenario for how we should approach this. We cannot replace Jon — we can’t replace his voice; we can’t replace his playing; we can’t replace his personality, his energy, his overall persona. He’s the Mountain King. When he’s on stage, he just has this energy and this persona that cannot be replaced, so we’re not even going to try. I give a lot of credit to Jon for saying, ‘Guys, go ahead and do this. I can’t get on stage with you, but I want you to go out and play this music. This needs to happen.’ Not only is Jon going through some physical stuff and his health issues, but to let his baby go out without him? That’s a tough call, and I give him a lot of credit for giving us his blessing and letting us do this.
“Looking at the set list, there’s obviously a number of songs that we have to play — there’s title tracks, and there’s hits, so to speak. Then, it was like, ‘What do we do that’s going to serve this lineup?’ The five of us have been playing this music for a long time, but we’ve also been in TSO for a long time, and the TSO machine is something where we’ve learned just how meticulous, focused and prepared you have to be to be that good. This is something that we never really did with SAVATAGE. When we came into these rehearsals, obviously, [the question was], ‘How do we supplement Jon not being there?’ I’m not going to give any names — this will come in due time — but we’ve employed two other musicians [who are] very good keyboard players [and] very good vocalists. This opens up the opportunity for us to do just about anything. The real orchestrated stuff, we don’t have to shy away from now; the real vocal-heavy stuff, we don’t have to shy away from.”
Blabbermouth: How did you prepare for the rehearsals?
Jeff: “Going into this, we all just looked at each other like, ‘Everybody, go home and relearn the records.’ I can speak for myself — a perfect example is the song ‘Sirens’. I’ve been playing the chorus wrong for 31 years. We get into the [rehearsal] room, and Johnny looks at me and goes, ‘Is that what Doc [Wacholz, former SAVATAGE drummer] was doing?’ Then I went and listened back to it, and it’s like, ‘It’s not what Doc was doing.’ Every one of us went through this — vocally, guitars, bass, drums, and then obviously these two new guys on keyboards.
“Muscle memory doesn’t let go for a while. For instance, certain drum fills, certain accents, certain things that either were or weren’t there. I’ve got stuff written out — I’m playing along, I’m reading along with my notes and everything, and I’m still playing it wrong. My body is referring back to what I did 20-some years ago, even though I’m reading it differently. This is all coming together, and it really, really makes a difference once the stuff is note-for-note relearned. We’re all doing it together and building this thing back up, and there is a noticeable difference in this music, and it’s really pretty cool.”
Blabbermouth: How does that differ from how SAVATAGE previously approached rehearsals?
Jeff: “When I first joined SAVATAGE in ’94, Johnny and Jon, they’d just lost Criss [Oliva, Jon‘s brother and SAVATAGE‘s original guitarist]. It was painful for them in a lot of respects. For me, I was so excited. I knew everything note-for-note, but there wasn’t that much time spent meticulously on everything, so some things were learned and played kind of just the way they were for years. [Now,] we’ve stripped it down, re-listened to everything and relearned it. We’re deconstructing every song, relearning everything from scratch. There [are] so many vocals and so much layering in these records, especially from ‘Gutter Ballet’ on. But the whole approach has been, ‘Everybody, strip down what you’ve been doing and relearn the album — every note, every hit, et cetera, et cetera. Let’s go out and recreate this music as it was recorded,’ and then as certain little things develop over time, fine. But everything is just being approached a lot differently than it has been before, and it will be noticeable. It’s going to sound fantastic.”
Blabbermouth: Revisiting SAVATAGE after all these years, did you hear anything in a different light or experience any sort of newfound appreciation for the band’s music?
Jeff: “Sure. Prior to when I joined the band in 1994, I think I saw the ‘[Hall Of The] Mountain King’ video and maybe ‘Jesus Saves’ on ‘Headbangers Ball’. But I didn’t know much at all about SAVATAGE. Ironically, it’s almost 31 years to the day that I’m here [in Florida] rehearsing for this new venture that we’re on, but I remember coming down and meeting Jon and Paul, and then Johnny and [‘Handful Of Rain’-era guitarist Alex] Skolnick, and obviously reconnecting with Zak. At that time, Paul told me, ‘We have no idea what the set is going to be. Just go home and learn everything. Get yourself acquainted with SAVATAGE.’ And I was surprised then at just how diverse the music was, because all I really knew at the time was kind of the harder-edged part of the band. But listening to ‘Gutter Ballet’ and ‘Streets’, it’s like, ‘Wow — there’s some really, really great music here.’ And all over again now, going back into this venture here and doing things the way we’re doing, there is a lot of fantastic music here that sometimes I think over the years, you kind of take for granted. Now that we’re revisiting all of this with a different mindset, it’s become apparent just how good a lot of this music is.
“This music really is something different. There’s something unique about the way the Oliva brothers wrote, the way Paul produced, the lyrics that Paul wrote, and there really isn’t anything else that sounds like it. I’ve talked to a couple other journalists during these interviews and [asked them], ‘Tell me a band that sounds like SAVATAGE.’ You really can’t. There’s been so many different versions of the group and so many different scenarios that the group was in when they were recording, but the underlying thing is Oliva/O’Neill — whether it was Jon and his brother when Criss was still here, or whether it was just Jon and Paul. Sure, ‘The Wake Of Magellan’ sounds a lot different than ‘Hall Of The Mountain King’, but you can certainly hear the similarities in there once you really start breaking this music down and then studying a little bit more. I wouldn’t be here, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation, if the music wasn’t that good. People still want to hear it.”
Blabbermouth: Turning back the clock, you and Zak were originally bandmates in the Boston-based WICKED WITCH. How’d you take the news when he told you he was leaving to join SAVATAGE?
Jeff: “There’s such a funny story that leads up to all of this. Zak was living in California, going to VIT — the Vocal Institute of Technology [now Musicians Institute]. Matt Leff, the guitarist and songwriter for WICKED WITCH, was going to [sister school] GIT. Those two met out there in California. Zak, I believe, also had gone to school for hotel management and was working at a hotel out there where SAVATAGE stayed. He meets SAVATAGE in, like, ’88-’89, and they talk and hit it up and probably exchange numbers. Then we flew Zak to Boston to join WICKED WITCH, because Matt kept telling me, ‘I got the singer. This guy is great. We’ve got to get him out here,’ so we did. Ironically, Zak lands at Logan Airport, we pick him up and it’s like, ‘Let’s take this guy out to have a couple beers,’ so we go to this club called The Channel, and SAVATAGE is playing. I walk in the door, and Zak is like, ‘I know these guys!’ It was the first and only time I ever saw them play.
“WICKED WITCH, we got our setlist together. We got our songs together. We went out and played our asses off. We played, I think, 150 shows in our first year of existence. We hit the street, and we were working hard — a lot of rehearsal, a lot of gigs — but without proper management and without somebody really leading us in a certain direction, we were kind of in a place that we needed somebody else to help us get out of [the starting block]. Then also all of a sudden, grunge came along. Everything was just kind of changing. We hit this rut, and then Jon steps out of SAVATAGE and these guys reach out to Zak. Honestly, I think we kind of ran our course, so Zak made the move. And you know what? I was happy he did. I love Zak as a singer. He’s also a drummer, so he and I had a pretty cool rhythmic connection. I was sad to see Zak go because I knew we couldn’t replace him, but I was also in the position where it was like, ‘Well, I’m glad one of us is getting a shot.’ When Zak went and joined the band, this was obviously a turning point for me in my life, and that’s when I decided to leave Boston and head back to New York to rethink my life. I was never planning on quitting drums. I was like, ‘I just have to rethink what I’m doing.'”
Blabbermouth: You said that 1990 was the only time you attended a SAVATAGE show, which presumably means that you never had the chance to see them with Zak.
Jeff: “I moved back home, I think, in the spring of 1993. And they played in upstate New York [that year]. It was probably about two hours away from me. I was working construction. I had to be up at, like, 6:30 in the morning or whatever. It was one of those things — ‘Should I go see him, or shouldn’t I?’ I wish I would’ve, because I would’ve been able to at least meet Criss [Oliva, SAVATAGE‘s late guitarist]. That was kind of a missed opportunity — one of those things that if I could do over again, I certainly would’ve made the road trip.”
Blabbermouth: In an unexpected twist, you reunited with Zak the following year in SAVATAGE.
Jeff: “When Criss died, Matt Leff and I were still in touch. We gave it some time, and Matt called me up and said, ‘Hey, why don’t you reach out to Zak and see what he’s going to do? He’s got his foot in the door now; maybe we can fire up WICKED WITCH again and actually make something work this time.’ So, I called Zak just as a friend and said, ‘Hey, how are you doing? Are you okay?’ He’s like, ‘SAVATAGE is going to continue, and they want you to be the drummer.’ I’m standing in my living room in Horseheads, New York going, ‘What?’ He says, ‘Yep — they’ve listened to the [WICKED WITCH] demo tape; they’ve seen your picture. [I gave them] my word. These guys want you to join the band.’ I was like, ‘Holy shit — I wasn’t expecting this!’ Next thing you know, I’m in my truck driving to Florida. 31 years ago, I walked into Morrisound and met Paul and Jon. It was unbelievable just how that even came about. I spent 10 years in Boston trying to be a rock star, and now I’m back home building houses and wondering what I’m going to do, and holy crap — now it’s here; now it’s happening.
“Joining the band at that time, I was so excited. I had the gig I was looking for. I was reuniting with Zak, who was a friend and one of my favorite vocalists. [I thought,] ‘This is great. This is what I’ve been busting my butt for all these years,’ but I came into this group that was such an emotional wreck from losing Criss. I’m excited, but I felt so bad for these guys at the same time. Johnny couldn’t even do the ‘Handful Of Rain’ record, let alone want to leave home and go on tour. Thank God he did, and we stuck this out. That was just an awesome experience altogether. Within months, my dream of doing a tour and recording a record became a reality, because I did this tour of America. Next thing I know, I’m in Japan recording this live record. I felt like I’d won the lottery.”
Blabbermouth: Just as Zak did before you, you successfully stepped into the shoes of a founding member of the band. Did Zak give you any tips or pointers, friend to friend or musician to musician?
Jeff: “When I first came down to Florida and met everybody, I couldn’t believe how upbeat and friendly and accepting Jon and Paul were. It was like, ‘Hey, man! Come on into the studio! Come check out what we’re doing!’ It was such a difficult time for all those guys, but they had a really good head about them, and they were moving forward — but along with that, I knew that these guys were all just going through hell at the time. My approach was, ‘Keep your mouth shut. Do what you do. Do it well, and you’re going to be fine.’ It wasn’t so much Zak talking to me about how to approach this. It was evident how I needed to approach this, and if I came in there like some mouthy, arrogant jackass, who knows? The tour may not have ever happened, because they were all just like on the verge of saying, ‘We can’t do this.’ My job was to go in there and drum. Coming in after Steve [Wacholz, SAVATAGE‘s original drummer], sure, I had some shoes to fill, but I knew I could do it. I just had to do what I do, do it well and be an adult — be quiet, be respectful of the situation and kind of stay out of the way.”
Blabbermouth: As you noted, when the ‘Handful’ tour began, the band was still on shaky ground.
Jeff: “We started the tour in Fort Lauderdale. Between Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, our bus broke down, or maybe the air conditioning went out. I can’t remember the exact order, but all of a sudden, we were having bus trouble right out of the gate. Compound that with how difficult this is for Johnny and Jon and Zak. Then, I think our third show was Tampa — a homecoming without Criss Oliva. Here I am — I’m excited and so happy I got this gig, and people are so upset. There were tears everywhere — ‘What are we doing? Why are we doing this?’
“We got on the bus in Tampa, and our next show is in Atlanta. Somewhere between Tampa and Atlanta, I’m sitting in the back lounge with Johnny drinking a beer. He looks right at me and says, ‘I don’t know if I can do this. This is just too hard.’ By this point, Johnny and I had connected pretty well – we were pretty tight — and I was like, ‘Dude, I don’t know what to tell you. I can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now.’ No sooner did we have this conversation, the transmission goes [out] — the bus just starts grinding and making all this noise. And Johnny sat there, lifted his head and looked at me and goes, ‘Well, Jeff — I guess we need a new bus.’ And from there on, it all just kind of clicked. It was funny, because Johnny had one foot out the door, and now the damn bus broke down. He could’ve easily stepped out the door and said, ‘I’m going home. See you later’ — but no. ‘Looks like we need to get a new bus, Jeff.’ It’s like, ‘Oh, thank God.'”
Blabbermouth: This year is the 30th anniversary of “Dead Winter Dead”, the album that changed everything for SAVATAGE. What memories stand out after three decades?
Jeff: “Going into ‘Dead Winter Dead’, obviously, I’m the new guy. This is not my band. I don’t make decisions when it comes to certain things. The question was, ‘What is going to be the lineup?’ Jon and Paul had ideas — they already had ‘Dead Winter Dead’ written. I think [‘Handful Of Rain’-era guitarist] Alex [Skolnick] had some ideas too, and they didn’t quite jibe with Jon and Paul — there’s no animosity, but just musically — so Alex decided, ‘You know, I’m not going to continue with this. Thank you for the opportunity.’ He goes his own way. Then Chris Caffery re-enters, and then they brought in Al, so that was our lineup. But the story with ‘Dead Winter Dead’ is, obviously, ‘Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)’. That song wasn’t necessarily the centerpiece of ‘Dead Winter Dead’, but that song became the centerpiece of our future.
“We’re in the studio, and I’m just doing what I’m told. ‘What would you like me to play?,’ et cetera, et cetera. Jon and Paul had drum parts basically mapped out and kind of wanted me to stick to the script. I learned right then that Paul‘s approach to the band was that the lyrics and the story and the rhythm and the melody are really the most important things. He wanted drumming, and he wanted some aggression here and there, but he really wanted everything to just be solid, whereas I may have wanted to throw in a fill or something. It was like, ‘No, just keep it simple. This is stepping on this or stepping on that.’ I’m learning as I go, but I was also the new guy standing at the back of the room watching and listening and giving my opinion when asked.
“‘Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)’ was obviously a big conversation between Jon and Paul. That song led to the TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA, but then ironically, that album led the way to SAVATAGE kind of reclaiming Europe, especially Germany. All of a sudden, we’re in Europe touring this record in early ’96, and everything is sold-out. It was unbelievable. It was an interesting experience.”
Blabbermouth: If, as you noted previously, the “Handful Of Rain” tour was bittersweet for the band, the “Dead Winter Dead” tour was another story.
Jeff: “When we all got together in the studio to record ‘Dead Winter Dead’, it was kind of an interesting point in all of our lives, let alone the life of the band. I’d met Chris privately, but we hadn’t really hung out together or anything. Connecting with him was great, and he and I hit it off so well. Then Al came in, and it was like, ‘Damn, this guy is really good.’ Rehearsing [together], it was like, ‘Wow, this sounds great. This is really cool.’
“When we got to Europe, the first show we did — and Al and I literally were just talking about this last night — was in Bochum, Germany. It was January or February. It was cold as hell. We get to this club and it’s sold-out, jam-packed. You could not fit another person into this place, and there’s a line of people waiting outside. We got onstage, and I think we opened with ‘Nothing Going On’, and then I think came ‘Jesus Saves’. That room was singing back to the band so loud. I remember Al turned around to me like, ‘Holy shit. This is awesome.’ I had never experienced anything like that before. Al, he was a veteran, but he was equally surprised at the audience, just how into it they were. From then on, that tour was just a blast. We knew we had something really cool happening. Every show on that tour was sold-out. But that first night really set the tone, and it’s what solidified that lineup. We were together for the next four or five years.
“There is a thing when this group of guys gets together and plays. Over the years, the lineups have changed, but Johnny and Jon have been the mainstays since I’ve been in the band. As a rhythm section, Johnny and I clicked together in whatever scenario, whether it’s SAVATAGE or even TSO. It just makes sense and sounds right every time we play. For me personally, when I joined SAVATAGE, it’s like, ‘Wow, I found a home. My playing style fits this really well,’ and that’s why I’ve been here for 31 years. Here again, all these years later, getting back into the room and playing together — even though we’re relearning and reconstructing a lot of these songs, there is a thing there, and it’s always been the case with this ‘Dead Winter Dead’ lineup: myself, Johnny, Caffery and Al. Obviously, Jon was part of it too. Once we started touring in Europe with that ‘Dead Winter Dead’ band, it was like, ‘Wow — there’s something here with this group.’ That has not gone away. I think the fact that we’ve stayed connected in TSO has kept us together, kept us sharp. We’re probably better musicians now than we’ve ever been, and now we’re applying that to this new SAVATAGE.”
Blabbermouth: Obviously, “Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)” was a major turning point for SAVATAGE in America, but “Dead Winter Dead” did wonders for the band’s European following as well.
Jeff: “When we came with this new lineup and this new record, the fan base there just loved it. The band, we were obviously younger, and we were obviously more raw, but when we got on stage and played, that lineup just kicked ass. It was awesome. The European audience, when they go to see a show, they want to see [it], but they’re also listening [closely], where I think maybe in America, there’s more of a party atmosphere around live events. Over in Europe, people take it a little bit more seriously. They’re listening; they’re focusing on the players. For me, I’ve just always felt like people are there less to get drunk and have fun. They’re there to enjoy the band, but they’re very critical too, so they can keep you on your toes, whether you like it or not. [The concept behind] ‘Dead Winter Dead’ had a lot to do with all of this, because that album was about something going on in Europe, so they all knew as well as anybody what the album was about and what it meant. Revisiting that record now and relearning stuff for these shows coming up, there’s some great music there.”
Blabbermouth: Why do you think SAVATAGE‘s music transcends language barriers and resonates so strongly in international markets like Germany, Greece and Brazil?
Jeff: “I think there’s a real sincerity to the music. From ‘[The] Dungeons [Are Calling]’ up to ‘Poets And Madmen’, it’s just great music. It may not be everybody’s cup of tea, and that’s fine, but when you sit down and listen to these albums — really, any of them — they’re all unique and original, and they don’t sound contrived. Even the four-piece lineup — there were plenty of four-piece rock bands out there, but none of them sounded like SAVATAGE. And I’ll tell you one thing why this band has connected — Criss Oliva, one of the most unique rock/metal guitarists ever. There was something very real about his playing. Then Jon Oliva, his music writing — you can say it’s simple, but there’s a very complex emotion to it, and that really carries into his vocals. There is not a more sincere-sounding singer, and there’s a sense of desperation and emotion in Jon‘s voice that you cannot deny when you listen to it. ‘When The Crowds Are Gone’, ‘Believe’ — I mean, Jesus, when you listen to ‘Believe’ and listen to Jon sing, how can you not be taken in by that? That’s a guy just signing his heart out. His heart is bleeding, and it sounds like that in the vocal. It doesn’t sound fake, and I think that’s why this music has endured, and why people just won’t give up on it.”
Blabbermouth: Zak left SAVATAGE at the end of “The Wake Of Magellan” cycle. Between WICKED WITCH and SAVATAGE, you’d been bandmates for nearly a decade at that point. How difficult was it for you to process his departure?
Jeff: “I’ll be honest — I wasn’t very happy about it. But I understood it. We’re adults. Zak had a family; Zak had bills to pay. Doing this rock n’ roll thing is very deceiving. Sometimes it’s hard to make ends meet doing this. At the time of ‘The Wake Of Magellan’, we were into our second TSO record. At that point, it was very obvious to all of us — regardless of how good ‘The Wake Of Magellan’ did in Europe, TSO was where Paul‘s focus was. He saw this opportunity to do something really significant, and I cannot blame him one bit for that. I think there was this sense of caution with all of us about what our future was, because we saw this thing in Europe finally take hold and do really well, but we also saw this thing in America happening, and it was even though it was this seasonal holiday thing, it was starting to happen in a really big way. Zak really wasn’t part of the TSO thing so much [initially]. Paul had his way of doing things and wanted to go about things with certain voices and certain characters. But yeah, Zak‘s the guy that brought me into SAVATAGE. I knew him the longest out of anybody, and he was a friend, and all of a sudden, it was like, ‘Damn, that sucks.'”
Blabbermouth: That wasn’t the last we heard from SAVATAGE, though.
Jeff: “‘Poets And Madmen’ is a great record. I think it’s underrated, but we were at a point where the environment around the O’Neill/Oliva camp had changed — the energy was aiming more towards TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA. Also at that point, we had started touring with TSO, and there was only so much room for what was going on. But ‘Poets And Madmen’, great record. Jon‘s vocals on that record are fantastic. The lineup changed, and it was really good, but it did not have the same juice that the ‘Dead Winter Dead’ lineup had. At the same time, TSO was really starting to get its feet under itself, and rightly so, Paul and Jon decided to put their energy into that.”
Blabbermouth: You recently posted that you began preparing for the upcoming SAVATAGE shows by playing along to one record a day. Did you particularly enjoy rediscovering any material from either before or during your time with the band as you reacquainted yourself with their catalog?
Jeff: “‘The Wake Of Magellan’. When I began playing along with that record and revisiting these songs, [I thought,] ‘There are some great songs on this record.’ ‘The Hourglass’, honestly, is probably one of my better drum performances on any SAVATAGE record. It may not be the flashiest, but as far as the feel, the fills… of course, Paul and Jon set me up with the ideas, but at this point, I had a little bit of a pedigree, so to speak, so they kind of let me be me a little bit more in the studio. ‘The Hourglass’ is just one of those songs – it flows; it’s big; it’s powerful; it’s epic; and not to pat myself on the back, but I really, really dig my performance on that. Obviously over all these years, you step away from [it and] there’s a lot of things going on in our lives, and all of a sudden, I put this record on and I was like, ‘Wow, I really forgot how good this was, and I’ve really kind of been dismissive of my performance on this record.’
“[In rehearsal,] we’ve torn down all of these songs and built them back up from scratch. [I’ve been] listening to the old stuff with Doc [Wacholz, SAVATAGE‘s original drummer] playing and relearning some of his fills the right way, the beats the right way, knowing where to add a little something. Then even [with] myself, [listening to] how I kind of got away from what I was doing on the record in some places, it’s been a really cool learning experience. The songs are going to be better for it.”
Blabbermouth: You’re in TSO East with Zak and Chris, and you see Al and Johnny every year when both TSO touring troupes rehearse. How did it feel to get back in a room together as SAVATAGE and play something besides Christmas music?
Jeff: “When we came down here in February to audition keyboard players, just getting in the room and playing together, it’s kind of that indescribable thing that just happens with a certain group of people. Myself, Johnny, Chris and Al, once we started playing together, it was like, ‘There it is’ – and this is even before we started really cleaning things up and relearning and refocusing the music. It was great.
“SAVATAGE coming back has always been talked about. We hear it every year from fans. We hear it every year from each other. I’ve kind of taken the position a long time ago like, ‘When it happens, it happens.’ Jon and Paul, for whatever reason, never said this band is over. They had the wisdom of saying, ‘This thing is not over, and it may never be over,’ so we’ve all kind of been sitting in the weeds waiting, and now it’s happening. I’ll be honest — I was surprised that this came about 1745932989, and I’m equally surprised at how strong and positive the reaction has been. For the longest time, I was like, ‘I’m not going to think about this until it happens.’ Now it’s happening, and it feels great. It really does. I think going forward, this is going to be something special. First thing’s first – we’ve got rehearsal to get through, and then this first leg of shows. I think everything’s going to work out well.”
Blabbermouth: SAVATAGE has toured without Jon before, but you haven’t. Will it be strange not seeing him on stage left?
Jeff: “Yes, it will be — but musically, Jon is there. The keyboard positions here are very aware of what we’re up against. I think we know we’re going to go out there and perform well. We’re going to be prepared. We’re going to be well-rehearsed. Musically, these guys on keyboards would not be here if they could not play Jon‘s parts well. Even though Jon has his own unique feel which only Jon can do, if you can get pretty damn close to it, then that’s really good. The more these guys work on these songs, the more the feel is settling in, the more the sound is settling in. And like I said, Jon is there — he’s at every rehearsal. If he hears something funny with a keyboard part, a keyboard sound or even the feel, he’s right there on the microphone, calling it out. We work through it and correct it.
“It creates this interesting question about the original lineup — Jon‘s not there, and obviously, Criss [Oliva, Jon‘s late brother and SAVATAGE‘s original guitarist] has been gone for a long time. Is it SAVATAGE? Is it this? is it that? I’m literally one of the new guys, and I’ve been here 31 years. Pitrelli has been here for 30 years. I think we’ve earned our position here and the respect of each other, but also with Jon. The fans know Jon is not going to be there, but Jon has given us his blessing. He’s at all of the rehearsals; he’s helping conduct a lot of the vocals; he’s going through the music with us; he’s setting up the set list. He’s hands-on involved with this, and I give him a lot of credit for stepping back, knowing that he can’t do this, but knowing that his guys are going to go out and do this really well. He’s got all the faith in the world in us, and that means a lot. He trusts us to go out there and do this, and that speaks for itself.”
Blabbermouth: Zak sang a few songs during the dual SAVATAGE/TSO performance at Wacken in 2015, but the upcoming tour marks his official return as the band’s frontman. Considering your shared histories, you must be excited to have him back.
Jeff: “Absolutely. I’ve obviously known him longer than everybody [else]. Zak is like the same guy that I met back in 1990. He’s got an amazing energy, and his voice sounds fantastic. This is probably the best I’ve ever heard him – and that goes for all of us, I’ll be honest. We’re all hyper-focused. But having Zak back up there in front of me, doing this as we’re going to be doing this, it’s really exciting. We’ve been through [a lot].”
Blabbermouth: And now, you get to write another chapter in the play.
Jeff: “We’re presented with an interesting opportunity — we’re this legacy band that hasn’t played properly in 23 years, so it’s like we’re brand new all over again. Since the last time that we toured, there are kids who are now 20 years old that are going to be getting turned on to us for the first time because their parents have been listening to this music, and their parents were listening to it. It’s just amazing how this thing gets passed off from generation to generation. It all goes back to the music — great music, great lyrics, great stories. I think there’s a real honesty and sincerity and originality to all of this. I find that when I play the stuff, I feel emotion. I feel this great energy that comes off of it, and I also know that this is not cookie-cutter by any means — it’s something that stands on its own. I think this is really going to bode well for us going ahead. There is so much music out there and it’s so hard to compete, but we’ve got something that everybody else doesn’t have, and that’s this music. Thanks to the Oliva brothers and Paul and everybody involved over the years for keeping this thing alive, and to the fans. If the fans never showed up, we wouldn’t be here talking about this. I think out of respect for everybody that’s created this music, going back from day one in the mid-’80s, just being able to carry on the legacy for everybody is important to all of us.
“It’s really cool for all of us to be able to get back out there and do this. We hope everything falls into place, and we can take this a step further year to year, but in the meantime, our focus is on this first leg of shows, and that first show in Brazil is the most important one. Once we get on stage, we’ve got to be spot-on. This is a different age [from] when we ended touring in 2002. Cell phones and everybody having their own video camera in their hand was not a reality; now, it is. Every note that we play on stage is going to be viral within seconds, and it’s going to be critiqued. We’re going to do everything possible to make sure that we’re right-on and give the doubters no reason to doubt us anymore.”
Photo credit: Josh Ruzansky
Source: blabbermouth.net
