Savatage frontman Jon Oliva confirmed in a recent interview with That Metal Interview Podcast that he and his bandmates, guitarists Al Pitrelli and Chris Caffery, have spent the last several years writing new material for their first album since 2001's Poets And Madmen, despite the fact that the band has been mostly inactive for nearly two decades, save for a one-off performance at Wacken Open Air back in 2015. Oliva's comments follow up on last November's reports that they were working on new material for a possible new Savatage album.

Jon says: "Ever since [Savatage's 2001 album] Poets And Madmen, I have been writing Savatage material. Me and [guitarists] Al Pitrelli and Chris Caffery, over the last couple of years, have been putting material together and writing stuff together. This is the thing: there is no official thing that we're going to do a Savatage album; there's nothing official. Because you know what? As soon as I say, 'Yeah, we're gonna do a new Savatage album,' something will happen to fuck it up. And then I look like a liar. So all I'm gonna say is there are many surprises in the future. We don't know what's going to happen. We're not sure. But we're writers; we write. And we have - dude, just me alone, I have enough songs for three Savatage albums, okay? And so, yeah, we write because we like working together. And because of the pandemic and stuff, a lot of the stuff that we've been just fiddling around with each other, we've done it over the phone and over the Internet: 'Here, I've got this. What do you think?' 'Oh, I love it.' And I'll send Al something over the phone. He'll send me something. Caffery will send me something or I'll send him something. Because you don't know. The world today is different, and I don't want to say to people, 'Hey, we're gonna do a new Savatage album,' and have something come along to fuck it all up. No one knew that this COVID-19 shit was gonna happen. And who knows? Yeah, there's the vaccine now, but they're already saying, 'Oh, there's different strands of it now,' and, 'Who knows?', and this and that and blah blah blah blah."

Oliva reiterated that he and his bandmates "would all love" to record a new album under the Savatage name, but added that there are currently no plans to do that. He explained: "There's no deal with a record company to do it. There's no plan - actual plan - saying we're gonna start recording Savatage. There's no plan like that. All we're doing, as being musicians and songwriters, is we're compiling new material. So if we do get, 'Hey, why don't you guys do this? We've got a company that wants to give you guys [a deal], we're gonna be prepared. A lot of the fans, which it makes me upset, because Savatage fans, I love them so much, because they have never, ever turned their backs on Savatage - ever. And I just don't want to lead them down a road of false shit. If something happens where we say, 'Okay, we're ready to do this. Let's do it, guys,' I will be the first person to make a professional press release to tell everybody. But I just don't want to, because it's not solidified in stone right now. Do we wanna do it? You bet your fucking ass we wanna do it. But do we have the material for it? You bet your fucking ass we have enough material for another 10-year run. But all I can say is if we do a Savatage thing, it's gonna fuck you people up - it's gonna be fucking blowaway."

Source:	youtube.com
Band profile:	Savatage