Dead Rhetoric: Given the fact that the industry has changed significantly since your early days, how have you adjusted to the changing tides?
Stevens: Yes, it’s been a huge, drastic change. It’s just the way that record sales are, the downloading and everything. You don’t have to have that many sales to be considered a pretty good success. They’ve adjusted the way they look at that, but then that comes into revenue and you can’t really make money on album sales. You ride on the tours, get merchandising going and make that a little bit more interesting. Have some online merch stores, give fans a good variety of things that have the band’s name on it and that people might want at home. We tour a lot more as a business to make money on the shows. The social media piece is important, getting out there every day to keep everybody in the loop of what you are doing. You have to go out and play, that part hasn’t changed, you have album cycles but I think they are a little bit further apart now. You used to do albums every year and a half and definitely people wait…like Iron Maiden it has been five or six years since they put out one, The Book of Souls. I think people are looking at alternative ways to make music where you don’t make an album but more of a production of something, because it’s kind of hard to download a Broadway presentation. It’s easier to download a CD. You might see people going in that kind of direction to get around sort of the downloading issues.
Dead Rhetoric: What goals do you set for yourself now, and how do you feel about your voice and range today compared to the Edge of Thorns days of Savatage?
Stevens: I just try to take care of (my voice) and be smart. Do the right choices, live healthy, don’t go beating it up. Making sure everything is working right, and luckily everything has been working our very well. My range has increased the last couple of years, which is kind of cool for my age. It’s kind of hard to sing like you are 26 again, which I’m not. (laughs). It’s been really good, I can’t complain. I can do most of the stuff I did off Edge of Thorns when I was 26, and I’m 49 now. I have been lucky. I’m going to keep rehearsing it, exercising it, it’s a muscle that’s got to be worked. I’m looking to always improve, I am always looking for ways to hit a note better, do more rehearsal like that. Don’t have any kind of crazy stuff happening.
Dead Rhetoric: If you had to place two songs from your vast musical career in a time capsule for people to unearth 100 years later, which efforts would you pick?
Stevens: Just two of them? Well… I’d do one from Savatage, that’s how my career got started. “Chance” off Handful of Rain, that’s kind of a timeless marker. We still perform that in Trans-Siberian Orchestra today, and it still has the potential to be played in different kinds of stories. Let’s see- maybe I would be safe to do a Circle II Circle song right here, “Solitary Rain” that ends the new album. It’s deep and has a lot of different sides. Between those two songs you can see every vocal side that I have.
Dead Rhetoric: What would you say have been some of your most memorable fan interaction experiences? And have you had any scary situations to deal with in terms of weather conditions either in traveling to shows or on stage?
Stevens: Not really. We had some rain at Wacken but that wasn’t too severe and it looked really cool with the light show. It looked a lot worse than it was with all that water. We got wet a little bit but it wasn’t anything dangerous. I’ve been lucky, I haven’t had to deal with any lightning problems for outdoor stuff, or the wind stuff that is tragic. I’ve had a few interactions with some drunk fans at the end of the show that had a little bit of an opinion about something, but we can see those things. It was just the alcohol and the fan probably didn’t even remember what he was talking about. You just want to be aware to not let them jump too head first into anything, you want to be cautious and keep a distance.
I haven’t had any bad fan interactions. One time in Brazil we had a fan jump on top of the bus as we are trying to pull away. The bus driver was swerving from side to side trying to lose him off the top, we wouldn’t have done that and sought out the police to get the guy off. They do things a little differently over there. He did eventually fall off into a ditch. I can’t think of that was too awful at all, our fan base coming from the Savatage fan base has always been a very well behaved group of smart people. Very discerning and very critical- they will spend more time giving you some good feedback.
Dead Rhetoric: How will the next 12 months play out for you between Circle II Circle, TSO, and your other musical endeavors?
Stevens: I’ll be going out with TSO as a part of the West Coast touring company for the winter tour. That will take us up through the New Year. After that we will be going back out with Circle II Circle for a European run to support this new album. We have the spring free from TSO so I will go back out probably in the United States and do a nice little run of dates to support Reign of Darkness. I have a couple of bands that I’m talking to that will be a nice package and I will reveal in due time. After that anything we could do as far as shows will be icing on the cake. That will take us midway through next year. Maybe some festivals too for Circle II Circle.