Well, I suppose this is as good a time as any to make my grand return to DTF
To be perfectly honest, a lot of what Jon says in that interview has been said before, albeit not in so much detail (I actually did not know about him losing his house, his cars, and his wife while trying to keep Savatage alive). He has made it very clear over the years that he feels Savatage effectively ended when Criss died, that he considers TSO to be the evolution of post-Criss Savatage, and that with TSO being so popular, there is no reason to keep Savatage active as a separate entity (conversely, that's also why he won't actually say Savatage is dead and buried, because to him it's just a continuation of the same band anyways). I don't think Wacken was that last we will see of Savatage. I'm sure TSO will continue to bring more Savatage songs back into their setlists, and we may even see a TSO tour where there is a Savatage set in the show, with Jon and Zak singing some of the classics we all love (like what was discussed for the 2011
Beethoven's Last Night tour). But I never expected for a second that Savatage would actually go out on the road playing clubs. That was never going to happen.
Now I am a bit disappointed that it looks like there won't be a new Savatage record. I think Zak might have misread what Jon meant when he said he was writing the best music since
Gutter Ballet or
Streets. I still don't think it's completely off the table, as Jon has said he was up for maybe doing some new Savatage material. But I think the issue is, as I have pointed out here before, why even bother releasing such new songs as Savatage when they could just release them as TSO and make a lot more money? Between TSO and Jon's solo/JOP stuff, he probably sees Savatage as being kind of redundant. It's a damn shame, because I feel those late-era Savatage records had an excellent balance of metal, symphonic and Broadway elements that neither TSO nor JOP ever fully captured (although
Beethoven's Last Night came damn close). But while I may not be entirely happy with the situation, I get what he means about not wanting to be trapped in a box where he feels he needs to write music for a certain crowd and then go out on tour and sing "Sirens" every night. And, as I have also said here before, given how much of himself Jon poured into Savatage over the course of 20 or so years, I don't really feel right asking him for more. If he ever wants to do it, I will be there ready to tell him to "Shut up and take my money!", but beyond maybe some more Savatage-centric TSO tours like the Wacken show, I don't really feel like I should expect any more out of Savatage.
At any rate, I have high hopes for Jon's future work.
Letters from the Labyrinth was pretty good, but much like
Night Castle, it felt a little light compared to some of TSO's previous works. I am very eager to hear
Romanov, however, as Jon has said that is a rather dark record, and very much in the vein of
Dead Winter Dead or
The Wake of Magellan. I am also curious to hear what Jon has in store for his JOP/solo band. Last I heard, he wanted to make the heaviest album of his career, so that should be interesting to see. I know he has also talked about doing something with guest singers, and he also mentioned that he still has a bunch of 70's retro-prog-rock-esque material left over from making
Raise the Curtain, so it sounds like he still has a lot of musical ambitions to fulfill in his life. Given that he is getting up there in age, and especially in light of certain recent celebrity losses, I'm not going to begrudge Jon the opportunity to spend his twilight years however he sees fit.
Topic: The Savatage Thread (Read 102624 times)
