Origins and formation Paul O'Neill managed and produced rock bands including
Aerosmith,
Humble Pie,
AC/DC,
Joan Jett, and
Scorpions, later producing and co-writing albums by the
progressive metal band
Savatage, where he began working with
Robert Kinkel,
Al Pitrelli and
Jon Oliva. Oliva had left Savatage to spend time with his family and take care of personal matters. O'Neill took his first steps into rock music in the 1970s when he started the
progressive rock band Slowburn, for whom he was the lyricist and co-composer. What was intended to be the band's debut album was recorded at
Jimi Hendrix's
Electric Lady Studios and engineered by Dave Wittman. Although Wittman's engineering was capturing the exact sound O'Neill was hearing in his head, O'Neill was having trouble with it because many of his melodies were between two and three octaves. Rather than releasing an album that he was not happy with, he shelved the project, but continued working in the industry at Contemporary Communications Corporation (also known as Leber & Krebs). Over the years, O'Neill continued to work as a writer, producer, manager, and concert promoter. In 1996, he accepted
Atlantic Records' offer to start his own band. He built the band on a foundation created by the marriage of
classical and
rock music and the artists he idolized, such as
Emerson, Lake & Palmer,
Queen,
Yes,
The Who, and
Pink Floyd, and
hard rock bands such as
Aerosmith and
Led Zeppelin and the multiple lead vocalists of the R&B groups
the Temptations and the
Four Tops. He brought in Oliva, Kinkel, and Pitrelli to help start the project. O'Neill has stated, "My original concept was six rock operas, a trilogy about Christmas and maybe one or two regular albums." Trans-Siberian Orchestra has sold over 10 million albums in the United States, making it one of the most commercially successful touring acts combining rock and classical music. In the 1980s I was fortunate enough to have visited Russia. If anyone has ever seen Siberia, it is incredibly beautiful but incredibly harsh and unforgiving as well. The one thing that everyone who lives there has in common that runs across it in relative safety is the
Trans-Siberian Railway. Life, too, can be incredibly beautiful but also incredibly harsh and unforgiving, and the one thing that we all have in common that runs across it in relative safety is music. It was a little bit overly philosophical, but it sounded different, and I like the initials, TSO.
Christmas Eve and Other Stories and The Christmas Attic (1996–1998, 2014) Their debut album, the first installment of the intended Christmas Trilogy, was a
rock opera called
Christmas Eve and Other Stories, and was released in 1996. to collect the great composer's soul. Of course Beethoven is horrified at the thought of eternal damnation, but the devil has an offer and the bargaining begins. There are numerous plot twists including the fate of his music, and the ending is based on a true but little known fact about Beethoven. Also in 1998, at the request of
Scott Shannon of
WPLJ, they performed live for the first time in a charity concert for
Blythedale Children's Hospital. In 1999, at the urging of Bill Louis, a DJ for
WNCX in Cleveland, they did their first tour, during which they debuted sections of ''Beethoven's Last Night
. They performed the album in its entirety for the first time during the spring tour of 2010. In October 2011, Beethoven's Last Night'' was released in Europe to coincide with their European tour with new cover art by
Greg Hildebrandt and the missing pages of poetry from the original release. The Mephistopheles songs are sung by
Jon Oliva. To coincide with the 2012 spring tour, ''Beethoven's Last Night: The Complete Narrated Version'' was released by Atlantic/Rhino/Warner Brothers Record. This two-disc deluxe edition includes all the music from the original release and, for the first time, the narration featured during live performances of the album. It comes packaged with a booklet filled with Hildebrandt's illustrations of the story, plus the full lyrics and narration. The narration is performed by Bryan Hicks, who has been handling the live narration on the tours for this album. Creator Paul O'Neill explains, "This is how I have always envisioned the story being experienced. Where the listener can relax, close their eyes and within minutes be wandering the streets of 1800s Vienna with Beethoven on the last great adventure of his life."
The Lost Christmas Eve (2004, 2013, 2024) Whenever the band was off the road they returned to the studio and in 2004 completed
The Lost Christmas Eve, the final installment of the Christmas Trilogy. It is a story of loss and redemption that encompasses a rundown hotel, an old toy store, a blues bar, a Gothic cathedral and their respective inhabitants all intertwined on a single enchanted Christmas Eve in New York City. The next year they combined all three Christmas albums and released them in a box set titled
The Christmas Trilogy, which also contained a DVD of their 1999 TV special
The Ghosts of Christmas Eve (Each of the albums still continue to be available individually.)
The Lost Christmas Eve was first performed live in 2012 followed by a encore tour in 2013. Critics once again called it "stunning showmanship" "that included every trick known to man kind including massive pyro, spectacular lasers, stages that hover over the audience, hot back up singers all the while constantly connecting with their audience." {{Listen
Night Castle (2009–2011) After another few years of touring,
Night Castle, Trans-Siberian Orchestra's fifth album, released on October 27, 2009 was well received by fans and critics alike. It debuted at #5 on the
Billboard Album Charts. It was certified gold in eight weeks and later platinum. "Their most ambitious and adventurous work to date. It runs the gamut from hard rock to classical taking the listener on a journey through history detailing the triumphs and follies of man but is ultimately a story of transformation and love." Initially intended to be their first regular, non rock opera, consisting of ten stand alone songs album, O'Neill credits Jon Oliva persistence that it was too early for such a move and that the fifth album had to be a rock opera. Insisting that "TSO was not like any other band and that the fans expected a story. It was a little bit of a role reversal because when we were working in Savatage, I was always wanting to do a concept record." The two-disc set includes a version of "
O Fortuna" from
Carmina Burana by
Carl Orff, which was previewed live by the band during their 2004–2008 tours. An
MP3 version of the album released through
Amazon.com contains an additional track entitled "The Flight of Cassandra". The first half is a rock opera about a seven-year-old child on a beach who meets a stranger from New York City who tells her a story that takes her all around the world and through time where she encounters various characters, many of which are based on historical individuals such as
Desiderius Erasmus. The second half pays homage to Trans-Siberian Orchestra's influences. It also contains new versions of several Savatage songs as well as "
Nut Rocker", originally by
B. Bumble and the Stingers and previously made famous by
Emerson, Lake & Palmer, featuring
Greg Lake on bass guitar. In February 2011,
Night Castle was released in Europe with two live bonus tracks ("Requiem" and "Toccata-Carpimus Noctem") added. Both live tracks were recorded on the 2010 spring tour at the
Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie, in Texas. Metal Kaoz, reviewed it as a two-hour plus double rock opera CD with, "no filler" that flows smoothly. "The classical layers meet the beauty of Metal music and form the fine blend... a wide range of emotions and musical colors...tracks that will blow your mind. Hit play and wander freely in TSO's, Night Castle."
Dreams of Fireflies (2012) On October 30, 2012 Trans-Siberian Orchestra released a new five-song EP entitled
Dreams of Fireflies (On a Christmas Night) on Lava Republic Universal Records. It debuted in
Billboard Magazine's Top 200 Albums chart at number #9, and #1 in the rock charts. Rather than containing the usual TSO story, it was more like a
Harry Chapin album where a short story is contained within the song. For example, "Someday" is about how people have a tendency to put off saying thank you to individuals that they owe a great debt to and with the best of intention tell themselves that they will do it someday. Also each song is accompanied by a short poem.
Tales of Winter: Selections from the TSO Rock Operas (2013) Released on October 11, 2013, this fifteen-track collection is Trans-Siberian Orchestra's first
greatest hits collection and includes songs from all six prior releases. Cover art once again provided by
Greg Hildebrandt.
Who I Am On November 11, 2011, TSO released a new choral piece entitled, "Who I Am". This was originally released as a digital download to fans who purchased tickets through the band's ticket pre-sale but later became available through other music sites as well as being released on their 2015 album,
Letters from the Labyrinth. The song was performed live as the opening number for the 2011 winter tour in acknowledgment of the rough times many people in the world were going through but bringing a message of hope by pointing out that together we can solve these problems as earlier generations have done in the past. It was accompanied by sound and video clips of individuals who helped humanity progress forward or overcome seemingly impossible situations. The first quote and image was Reverend
Martin Luther King Jr. voice echoing " I have a dream...that all men will be judged by the content of their character," followed by President John F. Kennedy's inaugural challenge, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." It included pictures of
Jonas Salk, the scientist who cured polio,
Saint "Mother" Teresa of Calcutta who spent her life caring for the unwanted and ended with
Neil Armstrong taking the first step on the Moon and the NASA's
Gene Kranz paraphrased quote in regard to saving the astronauts aboard the damaged space capsule Apollo 13, that, "Failure is not an option."
Merry Christmas Rabbi In 2013 the band announced the late November release of a novella,
Merry Christmas Rabbi. Referred to as the final missing piece to the Christmas Trilogy, it is the journal discovered by the girl in the
Christmas Attic rock opera that leads into the song, "Dream Child". Press releases described it as "the story of a fateful Christmas Eve and how one of the craziest gambles in human history leads to a second chance for a troubled youth who finds himself past the point of no return."
Deaths and more touring O'Neill died on April 5, 2017, at age 61, while staying at an
Embassy Suites by Hilton hotel on the
University of South Florida campus in Tampa. Cause of death as determined by the
Hillsborough County, Florida medical examiner’s office, was intoxication from a mixture of
methadone,
codeine,
Valium and
doxylamine, and the manner of death as
drug abuse. In June of 2017, the organization announced that they would continue with their Christmas-themed touring.
The Ghosts of Christmas Eve story, which they had performed in 2015 and 2016, was announced as their story once again for the 2017 tour. David Z, bassist for TSO, died on July 14, 2017, while touring with
Adrenaline Mob for their "
We The People" tour; a tractor-trailer veered off
Interstate 75 in Florida and struck the RV that Adrenaline Mob was riding in. Fellow TSO and Adrenaline Mob member
Russell Allen was also injured in the accident. For the 20th annual TSO winter tour in 2018, the band decided to once again tour with
The Ghosts of Christmas Eve story. In 2019, TSO returned to the
Christmas Eve and Other Stories show, which had previously been performed from the inaugural 1999 tour through 2011. No tour was held in 2020, due to continued mass gathering restrictions tied to the
COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. The band instead played an online livestream performance of
Christmas Eve and Other Stories on December 18, and returned to physical performances in 2021 with the same
Christmas Eve and Other Stories show. In 2022, the band announced a tour of
The Ghosts of Christmas Eve: The Best of TSO and More. A new instrumental song entitled "Carousels of Christmas", written by Jon Oliva, was performed on the 2022 tour. Keyboardist Vitalij Kuprij died on February 20, 2024. ==Legacy==