Chris Caffery

Sabotage fans, are you ready to take a trip into the Wayback Machine? I hope that you are ready to take a trip into the Wayback Machine because today I have a conversation with one of my favorite folks to talk to in the world of hard rock and heavy metal.

I sat down with guitarist Chris Caffery earlier this summer in the midst of a heat wave to talk about An equally hot release that fans can now get their hands on.

I am staring at the CDs that I picked up this past weekend of the band's long overdue double live album, which is called Madness Rains from the Gutter, which isn't that a very sabotage kind of album title.

This release from the fine folks at Ear Music Documents, a concert that was officially previously unavailable, captured in 1990 as Savatage was out there playing shows in support of their gutter ballet album.

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Now, please enjoy our conversation with Chris Caffery of Savatage.

Chris, here's where I want to start, man.

I mean, there's, you know, I mean, so many players.

Chris Caffery, Alice Skolnick, who would replace Criss Oliva, rest his soul.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, it was just like they were lining up at the door, um, for, for O'Neill to work with him, all these guitar players, but they just weren't delivering what he needed for this particular project.

First of all, not many rock bands doing that in 1994 and '95.

Not many anybody was doing anything like that, unless you were making a film.

So when Paul ca- uh, called me and, and I kinda came in- And I knew the guitar players who, who were kinda going through the door, and I listen, Chris Caffery was sitting in the lo-lobby, or the lounge of the studio, you know? And he went in there and played a bunch of stuff, killed it, you know? And I'm like, "Well, why am I here?" He's like, "Uh, and our Paul's got a couple things like, you know, like nobody's nailing." I'm like, "Cool." Now, obviously it wasn't a chops thing, or scales, or burning solos, you know, 'cause all the guitar players that were in there was, like, more than capable of crushing that.

So I'm like, I, what do I do? I put my musical ears on and listen to whatever's going on.

Alex Skolnick was there.

Chris Caffery.

I caught Ronnie Angel from Cities on the way out.

He was there because his brother-in-law, Michael Lando, and he's also the new guitar player for Cities, was in one of the members of the all-star band that was playing.

You know, he's in Bulgaria doing shows for a night of Yngwie music with, with his, his era of Yngwie or, or, um, you know, obviously the KK's Priest thing now.

But he was doing Judas Priest covers on his own, and obviously he had Beyond Fear for a while, and he had that band with Chris Caffery.

What was that, a New Revenge or something? Remember that band?

Yeah, something like that.