Zak Stevens, best known for his work with Savatage and Trans-Siberian Orchestra, is about to release the second record from his newest project Archon Angel. The new record, II, showcases Zak’s amazing voice and the stellar guitars of Aldo Lonobile. Zak recently took some time to talk about this new release.
Please press the PLAY icon for the MisplacedStraws Conversation with Zak Stevens –
On “bookending” the pandemic with Archon Angel’s two releases – We were at the very tail end of the previous world because our record came out right before the pandemic, I would say one month before that actually took hold. We were playing on 70000 Tons of Metal, we did a couple of shows, which was the only two shows that we’ve done with Archon Angel and it was to promote the first album Fallen. So nobody really knew it was out there. A couple of days later, we found out there was a cruise ship out there that had people that were stranded out because they had this new mysterious disease, but that was literally days after we got done. It seemed like something was going around on the ship, but we didn’t know what it was called back then so there was no real (fear). I think I knew a couple of people (that got sick). I don’t really fear too well on those ships, I always seem to get some kind of sinus thing on there every time. The shows were good. But yeah, literally days after that, everything shut down. So you have a record coming out in February 2020, and in March, nobody’s doing anything, so it was an interesting time for a record to come out. But being the first one, it wasn’t so bad, it was a good way to start the project, and now that we’ve had the time to get into the second record, like you said, I think things have just progressed and gotten a little bit better all around. :47
On if they had to change how they recorded the two records – No, it doesn’t really change much. When the band’s in Italy, the producer, Aldo Lonobile, he is our guy who produces several records with Frontiers. He contacted me originally about doing it, he goes, “Hey, I work with Frontiers Records in Italy in Naples. Would you like to do some records together?” He’s great, great guitarist, great songwriter in the rock realm, and he had a band Secret Sphere that I knew about before that played at ProgPower USA there in Atlanta a few years ago, kind of how I knew about him. He’s got several other projects he has produced Geoff Tate’s record on there for Frontiers, he produced Chris Caffery with Spirits of Fire just recently. So these are all kind of an inner circle and stuff, so I really like it, the work he does. We have several other songwriters that work with Archon Angel, including my wife Katherine, who does all the lyrics and stuff and the storyboard and things like that for videos and records and me just doing the vocals and stuff. We have synth player Antonio Agate that does some writing with us, as well as our keyboard player, Alessandro del Vecchio, I think that rounds out the songwriting team for the most part for both records. We were already doing it (remotely) like that. I have to because I’m in the USA. We did get a new studio this time, the studio was kind of rebuilt and definitely upgraded and stuff over there, as I understand it with Aldo, so he was excited to get into the second record with the new toys and stuff like that, he got with a new studio, which is great. And I said, “Yeah”, I mean, any time we can do improvements, get into a new facility and stuff like that, that he likes I’m all for that. The process is pretty much the same, but we just got more used to it and everybody’s roles were a little bit more defined, so I think it made it even better for the music this time. 2:39
On maturing as a band between the first two records – I think every time you have to try to mature a couple of levels every time, and we wanna get a little more, I would say, investigative about how far can we take it. We’re in metal, and you know how that is, it kind of is what it is. That’s what we really love about all the fans of metal, we like it, we don’t want it to go too crazy, get into other realms, we don’t wanna go pop, we don’t wanna do the country, obvious things like that. So we have a definitive realm, but what we’re doing, I like the fact that on this record really stretched the boundaries a little bit. We actually did go outside the envelope because we’re using some exotic scales and things like that on this record, scales that aren’t really included in Western music. Egyptian scales, Byzantine scales. There’s something like 360-something scales in the world, and in Western music, what me and you grew up with, listening to maybe rock radio or all the Western music, including classical music, done by all the composers that we really utilize is probably about six scales, believe it or not, six or seven, six to eight scales, does all the western music. So, there’s what, 350 plus more that we haven’t discovered from all around the world. So we kinda got into that and that was kind of our jumping point to try to expand horizons a little bit. There’s a song called “Away from the Sun” that comes to my mind that uses an Egyptian scale. It’s about the desert because once you start getting into that, it lends itself… You might not know the scale, but you know you’ve heard that music before and where it came from in the world so it leads us to that setting. So that’s the kind of stuff we’re doing now that we didn’t really do on the first record, I was just like, a mass of songs coming in, we go, “Which ones you like, pick the best 10 or 11 out of 15”, but we had a lot more to choose from this time, and it just got a little bit more targeted just because of being around a little longer. 5:22
On his influence coming through more on this record – I got a little bit more involved. I think each time I’m gonna be increasing my writing a little bit more with every record. It was great because I just kind of jumped in and the music lends itself to that too. You gotta have some inspiration, and for us, it’s the songs, and then we get the songs first, and then we say, “Hey, what story is this about in the life of the Archon” in this very complicated world of Gnosticism that was like a second-century Christian religion of heretical dissent? We call it Archon Angel because he’s got wings, but back in that time, he was the Archon, the only intermediary to allow the people of Earth to speak to demiurge or whatever, God if it was pretty Christian. Some of this stuff comes from pre-Christian, which would have been gods, not just one God. The belief was that was the only being that could be the medium or the mediator between to allow the people of Earth to talk to the gods, and in this, we’ve kind of just worked it into stories that we hear from other people and work that into his life. Because obviously, it’s fiction as far as we know, so we’re just trying to put stories with something that looks cool, and that gives us some inspiration. When we get the songs now we’re thinking, “Okay, we got the music, what is everybody feeling”, especially when I’m working with my wife with the lyrics and stuff like that, and we both work on vocal melodies, mostly, I’m doing the vocal melodies. It’s cool to listen to the track and say, “It’s blank, what story do you think this represents in his life, and where is this at in the timeline?” And that’s kind of the way we work this, so we use the music primarily all the way for inspiration, and then I just listen to it and try to come up with the coolest vocal melodies possible using all my experience. Well, 30, so a little bit over 30 years in the business, so I’m just happy to still be doing it. If I do outside projects and sing on guest appearances and everything, I use that as learning experiences for myself because it keeps me from kinda going stagnant. If you’ve been in it for so many years, just doing records for certain bands, you may fall into some kind of stagnation. I use outside projects, especially things like Archon Angel, which is not really considered an outside project, this is one of my bands, period. I’m still trying to expand what I do vocally, I’m still stuck within the parameters of my voice that I was born with, you’re kinda like you’re born with a pair of vocal cords, and that’s it, you can’t go to Walmart or anywhere else and go get a new pair off the shelf and say, “Hey, let’s try the opera ones this week. Now, let’s try grunge metal”. Just keeping the voice going and keeping everything rolling and singing all the time, inspiration comes from other places too, and so these doing these records, it’s just really my way of keep continuing to learn. The team we got around us writing those songs, both in Italy and here, I’m always learning a lot from them, and I’m thankful to be learning so much with Archon Angel. 8:28
On what he sees as the future of Achon Angel – Well, it could develop into more. Being the distance factor, and the cost of everything right now. When you look at the cost of American bands or anybody going and traveling to Europe for tours, especially newer bands now, they’re extravagant, it’s astronomical costs right now. That’s why even bands that are completely situated in America, to go off on a European tour, you’re gonna have to have a pretty big package, you may have to get multiple bands, if you’re newer, like Archaon Angel, even more of a challenge just to fill the venues. So we need to build. It’s gonna be a studio thing, primarily for a little while until we build the brand. Then I think it would come to where we can play festivals and stuff like that. The same kind of thing that Savatage is still looking to do. We have our arenas that we played with TSO in America, which is really all the guys in Savatage, it’s all of our main job. But having a band like Archon Angel, we’ve got a sound that’s quickly developing and it is so much fun that there’s such a place for it, and again, it’s a learning thing for me. Hey, we got a lot of work done at the end of last year with Savatage even. In 2015, we came together and played Waken, Savatage and TSO at the same time. Very aggressive. That was cool. And then the idea was to come back and play and do another record. So we’re still on target for that, we got more work done coming into this year, when we were all there playing with TSO and we all just got to meet and get together and have meetings. I was very excited about that. So we’re making progress. I have to tell everybody, just on the Savatage side, keep being patient because we’re doing everything we can, we got a few things outside of our control, but it’s not a big deal, and we’re just kind of working through those. We got the music rolling, we’re working on a lot. It’s abundant, I’ll say that everybody’s got a job to do. That’s one area that I would like to see really developed, get Savatage back there. It came to my mind when I was talking about playing festivals, that’s the perfect way. If we came out with this album, we can go straight to doing that. It would make so many people happy, including the band and people who are waiting for Savatage to do something else. 12:58
On if he is ever surprised that people are still interested in Savatage – It’s amazing, it’s a blessing, is what it is. We have our job to do. I just want everybody to know we’re doing everything we can, we got a few little things on the management, the label side, try to make a few decisions, but we’re just real blessed that that’s still the case, you know that people really (care), that there is such a demand out there with the band, and it’s everything. For me, it’s kind of everything that my career is based on, that was the first major band I was in, being the second singer for Savatage. It would be nothing greater than to get everything rolling again. 16:10
On what he sees as the future of TSO – We went out in 2021 and you’re kinda on the edge of still not knowing what’s gonna happen in the winter time with the virus, with the different variants and stuff like that. Paul O’Neill and I remember him telling me this before he passed away, and I don’t know why it would come up, but it was just like him to bring up something that was almost foretelling of the future, the guy was a genius, he goes, “Zak, if anything ever happened where we had to take a year off, we can only take a year off, you can’t take two if you take two off its over.” I don’t know, and I always remember that because he said that shortly before he passed away within six months, maybe at the end of 2016, maybe it was during that 2016 tour of TSO in the wintertime. I’ll never forget that because it was like, “Wow, ominous”. So I’ve shared that with the guys and whenever it came up and I said, “We’re gonna have to kinda jump out there and do that, go on charted waters and take a chance”, But you know we fared real well. We did have cases of Covid mostly in the crew, only a few in the West band that year, we got through, the East band had nobody until the last day, actually, when people flew home, we started getting a few but it was over, and that could have been coming from the flights, the long flights people had to take overseas. We got people from Europe, Korea, South Korea, all over the place, so we don’t really know. To get that done was like, it was miraculous. Everybody was very careful. We just had super strict guidelines like really, you gotta put the mask on the entire time, I mean, there’s no way around it, you gotta use whatever we knew. We probably know more about it right now, but we didn’t know a lot about it, we didn’t know as much about it in 2021, so that’s the kind of thing that we’re still doing with TSO. We’re gonna continue to innovate as much as possible to change the show, we just gotta put a new show in for this year. We used to keep the same shows in maybe four or five years, but I think now the plan is to innovate a little quicker. Who knows if the year comes up, like for one of the records where there’s an anniversary, we could switch right into that. In that way, just to keep it fresh, I think right now the big impetus is keeping things fresh. We’ve been touring for 21 years now, I think since ’99 was the first one. So just keeping it as fresh as possible, we still have our catalog that people expect us to play, and that really doesn’t change all that much. I think there’s talk about doing another record, but that’s coming slower since Paul passed. Since that time, we just concentrating on everybody coming together as a family and doing what we think Paul would have wanted. Doing it in the vision of him, and that’s pretty much the way I’ve been with Savatage and TSO. I try to be the number one messenger, giving my feedback about what I think he would have wanted. I’m not the one who worked with him the longest, I think Chris Caffery and Jon Oliva would be. I would say they worked with him the longest, but I’m close there behind even probably a little bit ahead of Al Pitrelli, but not ahead of Johnny Lee Middleton. So that’s the guys that we will get together and say, “Man, what would Paul do?” And that really solves a lot of things. So it’s in the right spirit, we’re carrying on in that spirit, and we’ve been just working real hard to keep a great thing going. It’s so successful. We saw in Rolling Stone they had us at the number one grossing band in 2022, so we’ve worked our way up there real quick within a year. There was a lot of hesitancy on the side of the fans and hey, everybody in 2021, but as things improved, we went right back to where it had been. So I’m really looking forward to it. I think we have an anniversary of one of the records coming up, I don’t know, and they might switch the show to the anniversary show and include everything on The Christmas Attic, I think that might be what’s coming up on an anniversary. One of those songs I sang, it happens to be from that album, so that would be so neat and I just kinda keep that right in there, “Christmas in the Air”. The songs I say we joke because it’s usually the word “Christmas” in them. I got “Christmas Dreams” that I did for you, now it’s “Christmas in the Air”. So that will be a nice transition since that is an anniversary. It’s great to have that be the main job, and then getting Savatage working along and then having an Archon Angel, it’s great for me. It keeps me going and I can’t say enough about the whole management and band and staff of TSO for going in there fighting through some tough times, like you said, and then the fight is there, ao we’re gonna keep on rocking and rolling and see how far we can take it. 17:31
