3 months ago
Paul O'Neill feels a little like Santa this year, finally delivering the gift Trans-Siberian Orchestra fans have so patiently waited years to get their hands on.
"Night Castle," the band's second non-holiday album, is a long-awaited follow-up to 2000's "Beethoven's Last Night." It was released in October. In what had become as much of a tradition as TSO's annual holiday shows, band members inevitably promised audiences the new concept album would be coming "soon."
"It was originally supposed to come out in July 2005," said O'Neill, TSO's founder, producer and writer. "Obviously, we missed that deadline. The later it got, the more pressure we felt to make it even better to justify the delay."
The project morphed into a double album with 26 tracks and a 68-page booklet. The first disc is a rock opera that begins when a 7-year-old girl at a beach encounters a stranger who tells her a story that takes her across the world and through time.
"It's basically a story of how human beings constantly ... keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again," O'Neill said.
It's similar to the "Christmas Eve and Other Stories" tale that TSO tells annually on its holiday tour, which comes Nov. 27 to the Reno Events Center.
"A lot of our stories have hope intertwined with them," O'Neill said. "A lot of people are going through troubled times in life, but no matter what it is, we can overcome it. I always have to have happy endings. If you want sad endings, read the paper."
The second disc on the "Night Castle" album pays homage to artists who have influenced the band, including a version of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "Nutrocker" and Carl Orff's 1930s composition of "Carmina Burana" -- both songs TSO has been performing in in recent years.
Many of TSO's longtime touring musicians show up on "Night Castle," including Al Pitrelli, Angus Clark, Johnny Lee Middleton and Jane Mangini. Former Journey frontman Jeff Scott Soto, who joined the TSO tour last year, also is featured prominently.
When the band's label learned of the heft of "Night Castle," O'Neill said it suggested a $27.99 retail price, something he quickly squashed. They eventually settled on $10.99, with the digital download available for less than $10.
"It's important to us that everybody's able to afford the tickets and the albums," he said. "Every year we want to make it bigger and better."
With "Night Castle" complete at long last, TSO plans to take minimal time off after the holiday trek ends Jan. 3 and then begin work on a world tour in which they'll perform "Beethoven's Last Night" in its entirety, followed by "Night Castle."
"We're really psyched about it," O'Neill said. "We just want to get out there and connect with fans."
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