Second part of Jon Oliva's interview at Rock Overdose. You can read the first part at the following link: http://rockoverdose.gr/news_details.php?id=13622
Rockoverdose.gr: Let’s talk about some Savatage if you don’t mind.
Oliva: We can talk about anything you want buddy, but the answer to your following question is no.
Rockoverdose.gr: Hahaha, no I am not going to ask about a reunion.
Oliva: Damn I thought I got you there for a moment (laughs).
Rockoverdose.gr: You said that if someone wants to see Savatage he can go and see TSO because, all the Savatage members are there or JOP because you are the singer of Savatage.
Oliva: I feel that I should play the Savatage stuff because I wrote most of them. TSO have a lot of Savatage members but they were not writers. They wrote some stuff on the later albums but I don’t really play that. We don’t play songs from “Dead Winter Dead”, or “The Wake Of Magellan” or “Poets And Madmen”. If they want to do that, it’s good because they have been around at that time. What I think is that if people want to hear songs from that era, TSO is what they have to see. For people that prefer older stuff, JOP is their thing. People should be happy because they have both. But of course they are not. It’s very simple. People just got to get over it. It’s the same guys. It’s like playing the same guitar for 20 years and then one day you just decide it to paint it red. So it’s no longer your white guitar it’s now your red guitar. Savatage was the white guitar and we painted it red and now it’s TSO. It’s the same guitar. Same people, same songwriters, all the same musicians plus a lot of extra guys.
Rockoverdose.gr: Let’s do a trip back to the past. What do you remember from the first days of Savatage?
Oliva: I think the most amazing thing was when we got the box with the “Sirens” albums. That was pretty exciting. Up at that time I was just buying albums. To have one with your name on, for a bunch of young guys was pretty cool. I was the oldest one and I was 21-22 when the “Sirens” came out. And then things got really bad. Everyone took advantage of us and almost ruined the band. “Power Of The Night” was a good album but right after we recorded it, we realized that something was wrong. “Why don’t we have any money?” We started to finding out but at the time of “Fight For The Rock”, we were broke. They have stolen all our money and they didn’t care if I had a child, bills to pay etc. But my revenge on them is that TSO became so huge. I see some of these guys on the streets sometimes. But I just smile. I don’t need to say anything to them.
Rockoverdose.gr: I guess that was the period that you started having problems with drug abuse and alcohol.
Oliva: Shit yeah. If I told you that I just stole 3 million dollars from you, you’d probably started drinking too. Yes we had problems with drugs and alcohol because we realized that after working for 5 years we were broke. It’s the next thing you do. You get high to forget it. And before you know it, you get high every day and then you get high every two hours. And then you go down. You go down really faster than it took you to go up.
Rockoverdose.gr: Did this shape you as a person?
Oliva: I think it definitely contributed in some songs. I only wish I could go through all these without getting ripped off. But what you gonna do? Shit happens.
Rockoverdose.gr: Let’s talk about influences. What were yours when you were young?
Oliva: When I started it was Beatles. As soon as I turned 11 or 12, a friend of mine brought the first Black Sabbath album. I listened to that and actually I had nightmares that night. I remember it now as it happened yesterday. I had some really freaking nightmares after listening to Ozzy screaming “Oh no, please God help me”. But I thought I could invest some more time in this band. And that gave me my heavy stuff. But it was always The Beatles. I never stopped loving them. But also Queen was a big influence. They are in my top 3 bands. My top 3 is The Beatles, Black Sabbath and Queen followed closely by Deep Purple and then there some handful bands like Led Zeppelin. But these are the bands that I listen to at daily basis. They are still my influences actually.
Rockoverdose.gr: Do you think that sometime in the future you will be able to something with any of these people?
Oliva: Some of these guys did things for me with TSO. I got to co-operate with Steven Tyler, Roger Daltrey, Joe Walsh, Ian Hunter, Geoff Tate and many more. I’d love to do something with a guy like Tony Iommi but I don’t think that’s gonna happen. But they still remain very influential, even to this day.
Rockoverdose.gr: Do you listen to anything new?
Oliva: Yes but not a lot because it all sounds the same. I play hard rock so I don’t really like to listen to it. I go more into classic hard rock. All the new stuff that spawned sound the same. I very rarely listen to something new that sticks out and has its own sound. That’s what I miss more from the first days. When I was like 18 – 19, if you heard a Black Sabbath song, you knew instantly that it was a Black Sabbath song. You were listening to Zeppelin and you knew Robert Plant was singing. Same as Queen. All these bands had an identity. All I see now is a bunch of names that don’t make any sense whatsoever and jump in the steps that somebody else did before. They don’t try something new.
Rockoverdose.gr: Almost two years ago you recorded the concert in Tilburg, Netherlands for a DVD release. What’s going on with this?
Oliva: All the video and audio material has problems. And it will take a large amount of money to fix it. It’s kinda sitting there, we have it, we own it but I have to put a lot of money to fix it, and I don’t really have the time to do it right now. It’s not like we will sit for a couple of weeks and arrange everything. There are parts missing from each song.
Rockoverdose.gr: To close this interview, would you like to say anything to your Greek fans?
Oliva: First of all thank you very much, I love Greece. Get your country together so I can come back down there. I am afraid to come there now. But I’d like to come back to Greece soon; maybe in 2014 we will have some plans.
Rockoverdose.gr: Thank you very much Jon. I really enjoyed it.
Oliva: Thank you Apostolos and I hope you will enjoy the show.
For Rockoverdose.gr
Apostolos Pantazoglou
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