As part of my long-running TSO Interview Series, I caught up with guitarist Alex Skolnick.  Though Alex has a long and varied career in several genres of music, for this interview, we focused on his time with Savatage and TSO.

Some of the subjects we covered:

- Why he took the Savatage gig and why he did not continue on with them
- The man who deserves a lot of the credit for TSO's stage moves
- The song that Alex loved to play each TSO show
- The one song that Alex recorded for TSO
- His favorite moments with TSO
- And much more!

http://musicandartinterviews.blogspot.co...lnick.html

Enjoy!

YES!!!!! Oh my gosh Dan, you have no clue how happy this interview made me. I love reading and seeing Alex in his interviews and was hoping you'd get to interview him one day. What a complete surprise. It's great hearing how his love for the sound of music over just the showmanship of performing still holds strong. But even in Trans-Siberian Orchestra he found his niche in the trademark moves and enjoyed them ;-) I'm a bit shocked all he got for the albums was a few riffs and then Believe and that's it! Truly we all love Al's guitar works, we know we do because he's a genius. But so is Alex and if I had him working at my fingertips, I'd so be utilizing his incredible talent a lot more than just one official song in two albums in nine years. Imagine how much less others are getting?

Great interview.

Interesting how he never mentions Chris Caffery. I wonder if their relationship is strained. I think Caffery was one of the guys who wanted Alex to play Criss' solos closer to their originals.

This part of the interview hit me .....


"There would be parts of the show where I remember feeling lost. I would be playing a part that required a lot of technique, I'm putting my heart into it and I was trying to figure out why people didn't seem to be noticing. Then I look to my left and the girls are doing these dance moves and to my right there is an explosion and fire and then a platform coming down. I started having enough moments like that along with the feeling of how much energy I was expending that I realized it was time to go."


When we saw the show in Orlando I was watching the girls doing their dance during the ending of The Mountain and while I was watching them I realized that over to the right Al Pitrelli was just killing it. Everyone's attention was on this dance while Al was off to the side just playing his heart out. I get the feeling this is what Alex was talking about.

About 4 and a half minutes in .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z-J36JT...u.be&t=281

(01-03-2018, 10:59 PM)groo1322 Wrote: This part of the interview hit me .....


"There would be parts of the show where I remember feeling lost. I would be playing a part that required a lot of technique, I'm putting my heart into it and I was trying to figure out why people didn't seem to be noticing. Then I look to my left and the girls are doing these dance moves and to my right there is an explosion and fire and then a platform coming down.  I started having enough moments like that along with the feeling of how much energy I was expending that I realized it was time to go."


When we saw the show in Orlando I was watching the girls doing their dance during the ending of The Mountain and while I was watching them I realized that over to the right Al Pitrelli was just killing it. Everyone's attention was on this dance while Al was off to the side just playing his heart out. I get the feeling this is what Alex was talking about.

About 4 and a half minutes in .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z-J36JT...u.be&t=281

I, for one, do not watch the dancing. I'm usually in the first 5 rows so I am watching the band more. Even the lights and pyro are not paid much attention to, in part, because the full effect isn't there when you're close. It's there just enough to not be a distraction and focus on everyone else.

Thank you so much for this incredible interview.

I've always had my thoughts of why Alex left but was never sure and I am glad to know that there were musicians who think that TSO has become "a little much entertainment" for the aspect of musicianship in some ways (not everything). I still love TSO.

I've never thought the dancers were cool for this show. It takes away from the music and it used to infuriate me being younger. Regardless of how beautiful those girls are and how great they are at singing. The show is about emotion, music and the story. Sometimes the dancing was cool when they are singing in the background and etc.

Because I watch the West all time and frankly there has not been a show I loved as much when Skolnick was in the band. Because the show now in recent years seemed so choreographed until this year. Which was quite a step up from years before. More improvised solos and etc like him and Caffery used to do.


I'd love to see Alex come back some day but I totally get why he left. Nice to have some clarity.
I wonder what the "drama" was about? I figured everyone in TSO got along fairly well. Nice to hear some background on David Z too.

Killer interview! I never see Alex talk this extensively about Tage and TSO! Good stuff man! He was always my favorite guitarist in TSO and I liked that he didn't do the showboating that they encourage now.