BackstageAxxess.com recently caught up with JON OLIVA (SAVATAGE, JON OLIVA'S PAIN) to discuss his new solo album, Raise The Curtain. An excerpt from the interview is available below:

Q: You play almost everything yourself on the new record, all the vocals and almost all the instruments. What was the reason for that decision and did it make things easier or more difficult for you?

Jon: "Well, it was easier because the only person I had to argue with was myself. (Laughter) I had my friend Danny play the organ and a lot of the keyboards and stuff and Chris Kinder played drums on a few songs. But other than those two guys, yeah, I pretty much did everything. It wasn’t that it was easier. It was just that the style of the music just suited my playing better than the guys that I was playing with. Mainly the guitar players and the bass players because most of the guys I play with are in the heavy style and as you listen to the record a lot of the stuff on this record is very versatile. There’s not a lot, I mean there’s only a few songs that you would really say are heavy metal songs. It’s a very versatile album and I just I didn’t want to sit there and spend the time trying to teach guys who are accustomed to playing heavy metal and shredding how to like say look now you only have to play six notes not thirty seven. I just decided it would be easier to do it and more fun with myself because again, I wanted to get away from the band thing after Matt died. I didn’t really want to have a lot of people around. I just had Danny around me and Chris Kinder and that was really it except the engineers we worked with, our little buddy Wayne and other than that. Yeah, it was very good therapy for me."

Q: How do you prepare vocally and musically to go in all these different directions?

Jon: "I drink a lot! (Laughter) Usually after I’m hammered. I think about it like this. If you go to see a movie, even if it’s a violent movie, you don’t want to see nothing but violence for an hour and forty minutes you know. You’ve got to break things up. Music is an emotion as much as it’s an art form. It’s an emotion too. I like to bring you up and bring you down. The way I did the album was I imagined it sitting in a movie theater and the lights go down and that opening song 'Raise the Curtain' comes on and the curtain starts to rise up and that song finishes. And then imagine every band member comes out, like four or five Jon Olivas, and you kick into the concert which starts with the second song, 'Soul Chaser' which is the first vocal song. And then I take you through to the end and then when the lights start to dim down that ballad comes on and that’s the end of the show."

Click here for the complete interview.

Oliva recently announced the initial details for his upcoming Storytellers Tour:

"Show dates will fall between November 28th - December 16th. We will start booking the first leg in Florida, up the east coast and over to Chicago area, back down into Texas and then back to Florida. If all goes well we will move further west after the new year.

Thanks again for all the amazing support for the new CD and your enthusiasm for the Storytellers Tour. Working on new material for next JOP cd as well. Cheers!

Fans and promoters can click on this link for all the details. All interested promoters should contact Rich Rubin of Maximum Bands directly for booking and all pertinent information."

More than thirty years after the start of his career with Savatage, and successive projects/bands like TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA and Jon Oliva's Pain, now legendary songwriter and performer Jon Oliva released his first ever solo album, titled Raise The Curtain. The album was released simply under the banner OLIVA and you can expect a mixture of Jon Oliva’s early influences and the material he wrote and recorded throughout his whole artistic career.

Raise The Curtain tracklisting:

'Raise The Curtain'

'Soul Chaser'

'Ten Years'

'Father Time'

'I Know'

'Big Brother'

'Armageddon'

'Soldier'

'Stalker'

'The Witch'

'Can’t Get Away'

'The Truth' (bonus track)

BW&BK;'s new interview with Oliva about his solo album, Raise The Curtain can be found at this location.

Check out the first taste of the album, written by Jon Oliva and his late brother/Savatage guitarist Criss Oliva, via the 'Father Time' lyric video below: