Jon Oliva

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Jon Oliva at Wacken Open Air
Jon Oliva at Wacken Open Air
Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Albums
Raise the curtain
  CH 97 07/07/2013 (1 week)

John Nicholas Oliva (born July 22, 1960 in Bronx , New York ), better known as Jon Oliva, is the founder of the heavy metal band Savatage with his younger brother Criss Oliva .

biography

Jon was born in New York, the third of four children. He was interested in music from an early age. After a few moves, the family finally ended up in Florida . In 1977 he was finally suspended from high school and so he had to look for a job: He found a job as a guitarist and keyboardist in a band called Metropolis. With this he recorded a demo album, which was only sold under the covers. In 1978 the band finally broke up. It was then that the brothers Jon and Criss came up with the idea of ​​forming a band together. This was initially called Avatar and later became Savatage .

With the band's growing success, Jon became more addicted to drugs . For example, the album Gutter Ballet was recorded in a rehab clinic. In 1992 he had to resign from the post of singer for health reasons and initially had no plans to return, but wanted to turn to other musical projects. After the death of his brother Criss, he changed his plans and returned at a very difficult time for the band. On the album "Handful of Rain" he plays almost all the instruments himself.

On the three following and most recent albums he came back to the microphone more often. At the same time, Jon Oliva was increasingly dissatisfied with the musical direction of the band. Since the enormous success of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra also fell during this time , Oliva and producer Paul O'Neill are currently involved primarily with this project and his own band Jon Oliva's Pain , in which he can implement his musical ideas and the stylistically reminiscent of the early Savatage and Avatar albums as well as Oliva's older project Doctor Butcher . Among other things, he works as a producer for the current band Circle II Circle of the now former Savatage singer Zak Stevens . Most recently Jon Oliva appeared on Avantasia's album “ Angel of Babylon ” on the song “Death is just a Feeling”.

Jon Oliva is often called Mountain King in the metal scene, which is a reference to the song "Hall Of The Mountain King" as well as, probably jokingly, to his corpulence.

In April 2016, Jon Oliva suffered a stroke, from which he recovered well.

Discography

With Savatage

With Doctor Butcher

  • Doctor Butcher, 1995

With Trans-Siberian Orchestra

  • Christmas Eve and Other Stories, 1996
  • The Christmas Attic, 1998
  • Beethoven's Last Night, 2000
  • The Lost Christmas Eve, 2004
  • Night Castle, 2008

With Jon Oliva's Pain

  • Days Mahal, 2004
  • Maniacal Renderings, 2006
  • Global Warning, 2008
  • Festival, 2010

With Tobias Sammet's Avantasia

solo

  • Raise The Curtain, 2013

swell

  1. ↑ Charts CH
  2. ↑ Interview with ,, Metal Inside
  3. ↑ https://www.rockhard.de/news/newsarchiv/newsansicht/44533-savatage-jon-oliva-erholt-sich-von-schlaganfall.html

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Oliva, Jon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Oliva, John Nicholas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American musician
DATE OF BIRTH July 22, 1960
PLACE OF BIRTH Bronx , New York