In a new interview with Rocking.gr, vocalist JON OLIVA discusses his two favourite SAVATAGE albums, Handful Of Rain and Poets And Madmen:

Oliva: "I'm very fond of Dead Winter Dead, but for me personally it's Handful Of Rain, because it was right after Criss (Oliva) passed and a lot of emotion went into those songs. And I think Poets And Madmen it was very important, because Zak (Stevens) left us. We'd write half of that album for Zak to sing and before we went to the studio Zak quits and I was left to sing to the whole album. I remember spending months to do the songs, because we didn't want to re-record the in different keys. To me that was very challenging album and when I listen to it now... it just has something about it that I love. I love the song 'Surrender', I love the song 'The Rumor' and of course 'Morphine Child' which in my eyes is one of the greatest Savatage songs. Personally, for me those are the two albums after Criss that means the most."

"The ones while Criss was alive was Gutter Ballet and Streets, because we had just done the Hall Of The Mountain King with Paul (O'Neill), which was our first with him and basically we were still learning each other. I'm very fond of that album as well but not as much as I am of the other two because with Gutter Ballet we knew Paul for about one and a half years and when we went to do Gutter Ballet there was a whole different vibe. It was like we could do anything. And then after we did Gutter..., when we did Streets which was more like 'Let’s go for it! Now we can do any-any-anything.' That was, also, our first concept album, a story album and to me the songs on Streets are the best songs with Criss involved. To me, there are the strongest Savatage songs, except maybe 'Hall Of The Mountain King', 'Gutter Ballet' and 'When The Crowds Are Gone', which I think are three of the best Savatage songs ever, but on Streets you've got 'Jesus Saves', you've got 'If I Go Away', 'Believe'... I mean with Criss we were at our higher point on that album."
"And of course after Criss passed away it was obvious to me and Paul that we weren't going to replace him. You don't replace Criss Oliva; it's like THE BEATLES trying to replace John Lennon. You don't replace someone like him. You have to move forward and try different things and to me when Criss passed away we became the TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA. Even though we were still called Savatage we became the TSO in training. The albums after Criss passed away were me and Paul moving to other places, knowing that we couldn't replace Criss and that we had to try different things. So, that's why we said let's stick with the story albums. And that's the road we started going down and if you think about it that's when we changed to TSO. Right after Criss died. We just didn't have the balls at that time to change the name. We were just trying to figure out what to do, were to go. How we would replace this guy ... But we couldn't. So, we had to move into a whole different world. It took us three albums to do that, but look us now. TSO is one of the biggest bands in the world. I mean we sell 45.000 tickets a day in America. We sell out Madison Square Garden a day show and a night show. It's insane, and what people don't realize is that it's Savatage, dressed a little bit better, with an orchestra and with some other singers. It's all the same guys. It's Johnny, Chris Caffery, Al Pitrelli, Jeff Plate...it's all the same fucking guys (laughs) and they don't get it. It's aggravating. It's something I call SAVATUX. I tell you, it's the same. It's Paul and me writing the music, I record in the album and the only thing I don't do is going out on the road with them, when they are doing these tours, because if I did that I would had no time to do my JOP stuff or the stuff for myself. That's why I sacrifice that."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

On October 15th, 2011 JON OLIVA'S PAIN filmed their show in Tilburg, Holland at 013 for a future DVD released. That DVD has yet to surface, and in a recent interview with frontman Jon Oliva (SAVATAGE), BW&BK; scribe Carl Begai asked him about the fate of the "lost" footage:

"We have had somebody working on it," says Oliva. "The problem was a lot of the material we got back was corrupted. We got stuff back where all you could see was guys' knees and shoes. And then songs would drop out for 30 seconds in the middle. The people who shot it had some technical problems, but we were able to send the footage to somebody and have it salvaged. We've got about 30 minutes worth of usable footage that we're probably going to put on the next JOP record as a bonus."

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

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)

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: