Part 1 – They heard the sirens sing...Released April 11, 1983 (US)
November 1, 1983 (UK)
Recorded January 1983 at Morrisound Studios, Tampa Florida, USA
Genre Heavy metal, speed metal, power metal
Length 35:51
Label Par Records (US)
Music for Nations (UK)
Producer Danny Johnson
Side one
No. Title Writer(s) Length
1. "Sirens" Jon Oliva, Criss Oliva 3:43
2. "Holocaust" J. Oliva, C. Oliva 4:34
3. "I Believe" J. Oliva, C. Oliva 5:25
4. "Rage" J. Oliva, C. Oliva 2:42
Side two
No. Title Writer(s) Length
5. "On the Run" J. Oliva, C. Oliva, Steve Wacholz 3:33
6. "Twisted Little Sister" J. Oliva, C. Oliva, Keith Collins 3:39
7. "Living for the Night" J. Oliva, C. Oliva 3:20
8. "Scream Murder" J. Oliva 3:50
9. "Out on the Streets" J. Oliva, C. Oliva 5:15
Line-up
Jon Oliva - Shrieks of Terror (vocals)
Criss Oliva - Metalaxe (guitars, backing vocals)
Keith Collins - The Bottom End (bass, backing vocals)
Steve Wacholz - Barbaric Cannons (drums, percussion)
Production
Danny Johnson - producer
Jim Morris - engineer
Mike Fuller - mastering
Terry Oakes - UK edition artwork, illustrations
Eddy Schreyer - re-mastering
Trying to place an exact starting date for the beginnings of the band that would eventually become Savatage is a difficult prospect. The band evolved out of the chaotic milieu of the early 80's Florida metal scene, from the leftovers of various bands that had come before. Metropolis, Tower, Alien, Avatar; all of these obscure and mostly short-lived acts were predecessors to the band would go on to release such masterpieces as Gutter Ballet, Streets and Dead Winter Dead. The rosters of these bands changed even more frequently then their names, and a full overview of the origins of Savatage would fill an article by themselves. For the sake of getting to the interesting parts of the Savatage story – the music -, I will cut straight to the very essence of Savatage, the Oliva brothers, and chart their formative years that laid the basis of their first official record,
Sirens.
The Oliva family first moved to Florida in 1976, where the musically talented brothers Jon and Criss, both born in the Bronx in the early 1960's, would immerse themselves in the local metal scene. Criss at first started out on bass, although once was his technical prowess on the strings was realized, he quickly made a name for himself on lead guitar. His elder brother Jon, a completely self taught singer and multi-instrumentalist, wore a variety of hats in his various early bands, filling whatever niche was needed depending upon whomever he was playing with. Throughout the multitude of bands and the lineups thereof in which the Olivas were involved, there was another individual who swiftly became a third soon-to-be permanent member. Steve Wacholz, nicknamed “Dr. Killdrums” due to his rather aggressive style of playing, would in time round-out a three piece line-up with the Olivas that would play covers at their high school and local bars.
Numerous other band members would come and go, and even Wacholz would leave for a time, though he eventually found his way back to the band. The band would take the name Avatar, after the main character from Ralph Bakshi's 1977 animated film
Wizards. By 1981 Wacholz, after brief stints in other bands, had become a permanent fixture of Avatar's line-up. Throughout the course of that same year, the band became a four piece, joined by bass player Keith Collins. This incarnation of Avatar featured Criss on lead guitar, Keith on bass and Doc on drums, with Jon performing lead vocals, and alternating between keyboards and rhythm guitar live. In 1982, Avatar would record a three song EP,
City Beneath the Surface, on PAR records, which would later become a valuable collectors item. The EP sold well enough to leave PAR wanting more, and later that year the band went back into the studio, sifting though the considerable amount of demos of original songs Avatar had recorded over the years, before selecting 15 tracks suitable for a proper studio release. While all 15 tracks were recoded, due to the limitations of vinyl and tape at the time, only the first nine were released on the band's debut record; the remaining six tracks would be released on a mini album a year later, which will be discussed next week.
The night before
Sirens was to go to press, the label called up the members of Avatar to inform them that their name was already claimed by another band, and they had to come up with a new one by the morning. The Oliva brothers wrote out the name “Avatar” on a piece of paper to consider if there was some variation of it they could use for their new moniker. One of the Olivas (Criss, I believe) thought it would look cool to use a Norse/Germanic sig rune (ᛋ, like the kind KISS used) at the beginning of the name. Thus Avatar became “Savatar”. The new name looked a lot like “savage”, which sounded metal enough, and so “savage” and “avatar” became “Savatage.” Jon and Criss liked the new name, because the “Sava” part looked and sounded aggressive, while the “Tage” part implied something mystical and exotic (like the Taj Mahal). Pleased with their new name, the band quickly informed the record label,
Sirens went to press, and thus Savatage was born...
The first Savatage album is a far cry from the lush, progressively leaning offerings for which they would later become much better known. In 1983, the band was young and hungry, a ragtag group of 20-something young men just wanting to get out and play rock and roll as loud as they could.
Sirens is very much a product of it's time. The album is pure early 80's metal, and harkens back to an age before terms like thrash, speed, death and black metal had become common vocabulary. It's worth noting that the band's primary influences were much older then the NWOBHM sound that formed the basis of so many of Savatage's musical contemporaries. Not that early Savatage is any less metal then the likes of early WASP, Queensryche, Fates Warning, Morgana LeFay, and others; far from it. But there is something in the songwriting that clearly derives more from Black Sabbath and Deep Purple then Iron Maiden or Judas Priest. Jon and Criss most likely absorbed elements of the NWOBHM sound through osmosis, while their central muses remained, in addition to Sabbath and Purple, the likes of UFO, Queen, and the Beatles. As Jon Oliva once said, they just jumped on the heavy metal bandwagon because it was popular at the time.
Of the band's main influences, it's Black Sabbath one hears the most on
Sirens. Jon Oliva has frequently cited Ozzy-era Sabbath as being his first introduction to truly heavy music, and the shadows of Iommi, Osbourne and co. are cast long over the record, particularly in it's more doomy moments. That being said, the band is by no means a Sabbath clone, or a clone of any other band for that matter, even at this early of a stage in their careers. Some of this uniqueness comes from the unique blend of old 70's songwriting inspiration with an early 80's metal sound, but a good portion of it is due to the rather unique musical personalities of the band members themselves. Criss Oliva in particular shines as a bright light of originality, his reckless but incredibly precise solos ripping up the record from nearly the very beginning, as early as the middle of the first verse on the opening track! While his shredding is ever present on the album's faster numbers, most notably “Scream Murder,” “Rage,” and the later sections of “I Believe,” Criss proves he's more then capable of subtlety, from the haunting intro of “Sirens” to his delicate acoustic work on “Out on the Streets”. Collins' thumping bass sounds rather Butler-esque, but it has a certain aggression that is distinctly his own. Likewise, Doc's drums blast throughout the whole of the record, further helping to distance the band from their much older influences.
But the real source of uniqueness here is Jon Oliva's vocals and songwriting. His voice has a rather distinctive blend of Ozzy Osbourne, Ronnie James Dio, and Alice Cooper, yet while certainly owing something to his illustrious predecessors, Jon's voice belongs to no-one but him. From his banshee shrieks in “Sirens” to significantly gentler moments in the album's closing ballad “Out On the Streets”, Jon proves that, even at such a young age, and lacking any classical training in singing, he possesses a respectable degree of versatility, if lacking somewhat in refinement. His lack of formal training, in addition to a rather reckless lifestyle, would come back to haunt him less then a decade later, but for the moment, his screams and growls and croons wash the record over with a sense of personality that surely set them apart from their contemporaries.
Songwriting wise, Jon, who was the band's primary lyricist at this time, is certainly cut from the same cloth as Cooper, Dio and Osbourne. There is a definitely theme of fire and brimstone spirituality reminiscent of the afore mentioned singers present in many of the songs. The songs also frequently dabble in exploring the criminal lives of society's miscreants in very Alice Cooper-esque lyricism, particularly in “On the Run” and “Scream Murder”. Of course there are the obligatory 80's “sex, drugs and rock & roll” songs, and tracks like “Living for the Night,” “Out on the Streets,” and “Twister Little Sister” fill that niche (this last being the first song to appear on a Savatage record, though by no means the last, displaying Jon's somewhat amusing and somewhat disturbing fixation with S&M sexual themes). But Jon proves he was capable of embracing lyrical themes somewhat more lofty, such as the Dio-esque mythology based “Sirens” and the sci-fi flavoured “I Believe”. There's even a bit of a social consciousness present here with “Holocaust” exploring the ever present Cold War fear of mutually assured destruction.
A rather notable curiosity about this first Savatage record is that it had two distinct album covers. The original, featuring a ship and ghost in a blue circle, was chosen by the record label, and is much disliked by the band and fans. The more well known “sewer children” cover, taken from a kid's story book, appeared on reissues by Combat and Relativity somewhat later.
So what is my final verdict on Savatage's debut? Well, I can honestly say I enjoy it quite a bit. Any fan of early 80's metal from those long ago days of innocence before sub-genres divided the metal scene into their respective niches will love the quality straight-forward, no-nonsense metal the Olivas and co. were able to deliver, even at such a stage of relative inexperience. That being said, while the record does have some unique elements to it, I can't exactly say it's one of the best of it's time period. There were other bands at the time making better first records of a similar style of metal, like WASP and early Queensryche. At the very least, however, Savatage can be said to have made par for the course.
Sirens confidently stands shoulder to shoulder with first efforts by Fates Warning and Morgana LeFay, and the individual performances of the band-members, especially the Olivas, at least mark it out from most of their contemporaries. Unlike, say, Fates Warning, who in their early days was practically Iron Maiden Jr., early Savatage is very clearly it's own beast. It may have been a beast that was still very young and fresh from the womb, but even at such a young age, it already possessed a sense of individuality that would serve it well in the years to come.