Spirits of Fire recently made their debut as a new project on Frontiers Music Srl with their self-title album, and just before its release, I had the chance to get on the phone with Chris Caffery to discuss the new band, the background and process behind it, Chris’ influences over the years as a guitarist, songwriter, and musician overall, being a part of TSO, plus a secret new project that’s in the works. Check out the interview below: 

I want to start things right off with the main topic right now, Spirits of Fire, exciting self-titled album just about to come out next week, and from what we’ve all heard so far, this record is definitely sheer pure Heavy Metal – give me some of the background of writing this record for you all.

Well, it was kind of one of these things where we sat down when the project was first being talked about, and the main goal was just to have music that the fans who liked the bands that we were in before would like. Not to necessarily sound exactly like it, but when you had Tim singing in Priest, and me with Savatage and everything, it was just like, can we get music that will be able to satisfy these fans off the bat and then just see what happens from there? Because it’s always difficult to say, especially as time goes on, what it is that everybody’s going to like or listen to. I mean, every time I listen to new bands and new music and I hear bands that are very successful, I didn’t even realize that that style of music even got so successful, because everything keeps changing and growing, so the smartest thing I think you can do as an artist a lot of times, is just do what you do and reach out with that. It’s hard to always keep chasing things. I know that when the record sales were higher and the industry was more related around your actual sales of a record, there was always that kind of pressure coming in from the record companies because they would hear somebody’s single that came out and be like, “Well, we want you guys to have a song like this one”, so they’d play you a ballad or a song that sounded like another band that got a huge hit and a lot of sales, and you would turn around and have pressure on your records to have something like that. With this, there wasn’t, it was just like, make a record that people that like you will like, and I think that was the way we just started writing, to have some cool songs with some good riffs and things that were going to give a lot of space for Ripper to sing, and music that was going to be fun for musicians to listen to as well as the people that just like listening to pure metal. 

That’s awesome. So it sounds like it’s a very natural process for you guys, just got together and did whatever came out, in a sense.

Yeah, nothing was absolutely perfect in the writing style because I wrote what I wrote for this record, which was eight of the songs, I wrote by myself, sitting in my studio, this is something I hope gets a turnaround for the next record, even if Ripper’s out on the road, if I could find time with Mark and Steve to go and write some riffs and things where they could have an opportunity to contribute and we could come up with some really different stuff that gets thrown in there, you know, musical influences directly into the writing, I think that’ll be something that’s cool. But you know what, it’s in its baby steps now, it’s just a band of friends and people that got together and we’ll see what happens with it. 

Of course, and I think some good things have been happening and are about to happen with it, because there were the two singles just released, and a lot of people are loving the sound of Spirits of Fire so far. And this record has actually been in the making for a couple of years now, so how does it feel for you to finally be delivering the finished project? 

*laughs* You know, it’s really great for me because this was…not like it was an eternity, but it has been a couple of years and a lot of that just had to do with the fact that everybody had different schedules going on, and nothing was lined up perfectly as far as getting Ripper’s vocals done or getting the bass done or getting things in to be mixed and finished. Everything had its different stages, I think the one person that had everything finished the fastest was me, because I just managed to find some months that I had to write my stuff and get it done and then when the songs were finished, and I knew which ones we were using, I had more time like right before the TSO tour, I was rehearsing for that, so I had weeks to sit home and just finish my guitar tracks, so I’d prepared myself and I’d just been waiting for everyone else, but I understood what was going on with them. But yeah, it’s definitely fun for me now to finally see it get finished and get out, it’s just a process that takes a little bit longer when you’ve got that many different people. I mean, when I finished my last solo record, I had it mixed and mastered right around the same time as the Spirits record was, and my solo record came out in July and we were just shooting the first video for Spirits in July, *laughs* so it’s a different thing with the whole entire process of getting it done. 

It sounds, from the way you’re describing it, like you guys did it remotely? You recorded some parts in your own studio, with the others doing their own thing as well, then kind of bringing it all together, was that the style of recording this?

Yeah, that’s why I’ve nicknamed the band “Spirits of Files” *laughs*.

*Laughs* That’s great. Of course this also has you being involved in yet another project beyond Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and your recent solo ventures that you mentioned, so what brought Spirits of Fire up to the forefront now? What made this the right time for it all?

I don’t think there was anything that made it the right time, it was just something that happened to come out, even if it wasn’t the absolute greatest time as far as, like I said, people having other things to do because the perfect time for something is when everybody has nothing to do, but I think what happened is it was just luck for me. Because when Frontiers said, “Hey, we want you to do something and we think that Ripper would be a great singer for this”, it’s like, they didn’t know that he was my friend, I don’t think they knew what our relationship was at all when they brought up the people for this, and when they mentioned Roy, they had no idea that I was so impressed by everything that Roy has done with Halford, and Dickinson, a lot of his other work, and I just thought that he had a great metal mind. He would always do things that I thought were as cool as the bands that those people had come from, so when the opportunity came up to say, hey, you can do a record with Ripper singing, with Roy producing and to have that rhythm section, I was like, yeah, this is something that’s pretty cool, so I think it threw me out of the mindset of it just being a project band…which, I like to use the word “project band” better than the term “supergroup”, because if you use the word “supergroup”, you’re going to have people on Blabbermouth turn around and say you’re not famous enough to be titled with that, so I just call it a project band so they can think of a different thing to cry and complain about when they hear the interview *laughs*. But it’s like, that’s just what it was, it was a really good opportunity for me to do something that was exciting, you know, and of course I knew what was going to happen as far as the ability to get everybody playing, and it’s going to be a matter of time to see what the fans like when the record gets out, which is what’s going to happen in the end. I’m just hoping that the kids that get it, all around the world, there’s metal fans everywhere, they’re going to getting a hold of this record, and in time, I’m just hoping that there’s enough excitement about it that we can turn around and go play for them. I’ve been getting lots of emails from people that are like, you know, “I’m from Argentina, I’m from Greece, I’m really excited, I’d love to see this”, and that’s the type of thing that I’d like to see happen, for us to get out there and play. 

And you’re no stranger to the international touring, doing things with Trans Siberian Orchestra over the years, but that’s really great that the excitement over the record is building up around the world – I think that’s a great aspect of a label like Frontiers, being such an international label, because all these — I’ll use your word, “project bands”, seem to be gathering together…

*laughs*

I love it, you’re avoiding controversial headlines. *laughs*

Well, they do that though, you can do a whole entire interview and they will look for the one thing you said that that they can use as a headline that’s going to make you out to look like an asshole. *laughs* It’s like, “What can we find here that’s going to have everybody jump in and say that this person is a jerk?”, and that’s how they do it, and it’s amazing because you read the rest of the interview, there’s absolutely nothing there most of the time, that they could have used, and somebody there has a really good brain for garbage. They just know what’s going to go out there and make people have that kind of reaction to it. I mean, God bless them, it’s a talent, but I mean, it’s just at the point where if you just don’t read the comments, then the comments aren’t there. So, when people tell me about the comments, it’s like, “Well, somebody said this!”, if you didn’t tell me that somebody said that, I would not know, because I’m not reading them. I’ve got bigger things to worry about, I don’t spend my whole entire life on the internet, I just use it for a promotional tool a lot of the time, so I’m not researching for things and what everybody said that’s going to give me an additional headache today *laughs*. 

Of course, you’ve got great things you’re doing for yourself, you’re not about to scour the internet for negative comments. 

Nah, it’s fine, I really don’t blame anybody for it, I think it’s kind of funny and it’s kind of fun sometimes, I think sometimes it might get a little bit negative in either way when people start talking and arguing and fighting about it, but you know, if you didn’t have something like that there, there wouldn’t be as much there, and it helps to expose things whether it’s good or bad. Whatever the case may be, I’m happy to see there’s people that care enough about music to be looking at those sites and caring, and a lot of times you see really positive things by people that mix in with the negative that you may not have seen if that negative comment wasn’t made. So it’s like you take the good with the bad and realize that all these people are just music fans, and if any of them saw the content live, I bet they would have a different opinion about most of the bands they speak about anyway, because a lot of these bands are much better live than they even get the chance to see in studio, so…we’ll see what happens. 

All good points, but any kind of press is good press when you’re trying to promote something, and that’s just how the music journalism world rolls. But, about the record, you’ve mentioned Tim Ripper Owens a couple of times, and of course, it’s far from your first time working with him, so what was it like being back in studio with him again?

It was just great to hear his voice singing the music that I was writing, that’s something that I really missed about the Savatage records not getting done, or something like a new Butcher record not coming out, it’s like, when you write music for great singers like that – and I’d written a song for Ripper’s first solo record – and you hear them sing your music, it’s always really cool to hear somebody great do their job and their art and what they do best on something that you’ve written. It’s like being a proud father, you know? You get this thing out there and you wrote this riff, or this song, or this melody, then he sings it and it’s like, “Wow, that’s my song with Ripper Owens singing it”, and it sounds great. I mean, I like singing my solo records, and I do that because it’s an artistic thing for me, I never went out there saying, “Hey everyone, I’m going to rewrite the world as a heavy metal singer”, I didn’t do it that way, I did it because I wanted to write music and I wanted to have fun with it, and I’ve had all different types of things in my songs, all different types of music and I scream and sing. To me, it’s like the music is one thing and my vocals are like the 64-colored crayon box that I throw on top, crayon isn’t the greatest art in the world, but it makes things look cool, and that’s what I do with my vocals. So to be able to turn around and hear him sing, it’s just really special. It’s awesome to hear that music with that voice. 

So you said you had written eight tracks, all on your own remotely there, so digging a little bit deeper into the record, tell me a little more about the personal experience and process for you – what were some sources of inspiration while you were writing, or maybe even some challenges that may have come up?

Well, I mean, this stuff was written around the time that I was doing my last solo record and it was actually at the time when Paul O’Neill had passed away. And the thing that was kind of difficult for me, just emotionally, was Ripper was very busy on tour at one time, and I’d written about sixteen songs to start, and he just asked me, “What would save some time and make things easier for me right now is if you could write some lyrics and melodies for some of this stuff”, and there was really no better lyricist that I had worked with or heard or read in my life than Paul. He was, without a doubt, the best lyricist that has ever been out there. I mean, he did so many things with his lyrics, they were through a lot of history and education…but he also related to so many people personally and spiritually, and he knew how to connect. One of the big reasons why Savatage has spread to such a huge level in a lot of these countries, when I’d see these fans, that’s what they would tell me, it’d be like, “The lyrics to this song changed my life”, “You saved my life, I was almost committing suicide and then this song came and saved me”, and a lot of that was Paul, so I called him and I said, “Paul, I have to do this record with Ripper, you want to help me out and maybe write a couple songs for the lyrics?”, and he was going to start to help me, and about a month later, he passed away. So when I was trying to finish what I was doing, on my own solo record especially, I was using a lot of the inspiration I had from him, and then I was writing music and there was a lot of personal inspiration coming from his side in my heart and my soul. When I was writing the last couple of records, there are things that I did because he taught me a lot, and he supported what I did as a person and an artist for 30 years, so it was a big part of what was going on while I was writing these songs. 

That’s definitely a powerful source of inspiration, and on a personal level, I just want to say I’m sorry for your loss, he definitely sounds like an important person in your life.

Yeah, he was incredible, he definitely was — and my dog is barking at something.

…Maybe he saw Paul.

Yeah, exactly! *laughs*

*laughs* But on the musical level,  a lot of times a loss of an important person, things like that, can be a great source of musical inspiration, hard as it is on a personal level, because a lot can come out expression-wise in the music, so it’s a bittersweet kind of thing in a way. 

Yeah, I would always let him hear my new records and he would always be talking about certain aspects of things that he thought were growing, and on the last record, I remember playing a few of the songs that I wrote for him to his family, and them telling me, “Paul would be really proud of what you just did, that’s really good”, and that means a lot to me. Like I said, he taught me a lot, he was a big reason of why I got to be who I was, and he just was a very special person. Behind the scenes, I think there’s a lot of things he did for so many people that people will never even know about, because he just did so much without really asking for anything back, he’s that type of person. And that’s the type of thing that was in his lyrics, he was writing that personally for people. And he would say to me too, “You’ve got to remember when you’re writing lyrics, anybody can write a song about a car or a girl”, and that’s kind of where he was coming from in the sense of just writing your typical radio rock song that was more the fun aspect of those lyrics, “but not everybody can write lyrics that will change somebody’s life”, and that’s what he would do…he continues to do. Now, 20 years of the TSO touring, and he’s still changing people’s lives every year with those lyrics and those songs, whether they were able to see this band when he was alive or not. There’s still a bunch of people coming out to see us for the first time, or buying one of those records for the first time, and his lyrics were changing those people’s lives. 

Of course, I mean, people love TSO, it’s something that resonates with so many people regardless of genre, even if they’re not rock or metal fan at all, there’s something that resonates with everybody in that band, I feel. 

Yeah, I think everybody has also had connections with different people in their lives that sometimes the holiday seasons have the tendency to bring out a little bit stronger than others, whether you are missing somebody for the very first time, or you have somebody that’s gone out of your life for years, whether they’re alive or they’re passed. And that was the thing with TSO too, we would hear from a lot of people who would say, “You know, I hadn’t spoken to my uncle, or my dad, or my brother in decades, and I bought him those tickets to TSO and now we hang out all the time, it’s the same as it used to be”, so it’s just different aspects of what he was able to do, pulling people together, that I don’t think I’ve seen with anything else I’ve worked with in my life. 

That must feel great for you to hear comments and stories like that from people. 

Yeah, I mean, you hear the stories but it’s also really pretty heavy sometimes when you see it on stage, and you’ll know what’s going on, and you’ll watch somebody from the stage, and you’ll watch them crying their eyes out, and you’ll know that there’s a reason for that, it’s pretty…it’s not hard, but it’s pretty emotional. You’ll sit there and you’ll want to cry along with them, but the thing with that is, people want to see the show and feel better, so you’ve got to make sure you try to hide that. It was hard for me, I had to introduce Paul and David Z on the tour from the year when they both passed, there were certain parts of the show and rehearsals, I was having trouble making it through that particular speech of words without breaking into tears, and it was just one of these where you have to be strong for everybody. You know, you’ve got to make sure that you keep the positive thing in your voice, and that energy was hard to recreate sometimes, because I was so close to both of them, and you just want to make sure that you don’t drag out those emotions from people that may be trying to get away from them. And that’s the thing about TSO which, is we’re trying to make a lot of people happy, but there’s just certain points that are going to be very difficult, some of those songs, like “Ornament”, “Ornament” is just a person that’s not there, a lot of times it will hit people in many different ways, especially if TSO was playing a part of their tradition for 19 years in a row and this tour, year 20, was the first time they couldn’t see the band with them. And you know them sometimes, from being a fan that kept in touch with the band or saw us outside at autograph signings, or you know their situation and what they’re going through, it’s an emotional thing, but like I said, you become a part of a lot of people’s families through that band, and so have we. 

You touched upon a lot of points there, but it’s definitely something where there’s pressure…as somebody who is an artist or musician, it’s like you were saying, you have to keep the energy up and keep the smiles up, even if you’re not necessarily doing it yourself, so I guess you could say that would be one of the difficult sides of music industry and just being a musician in general. 

Definitely, it’s a lot more difficult than the usual “I’ve got a stomachache or a fever”, to go up on stage and get it done. You have to do that too, but on the importance level, it’s a heck of a lot more important how those people feel out there than how I feel, and I’ve done shows with the swine flu and 104 point fever and throwing up in the garbage cans, that I don’t let people see on stage, it’s just one of these things where you want to be a different part of that person’s day, no matter what you’re having. *laughs* It’s like, “Let me let everybody know just how bad my stomach is today, I’ll vomit on my shoes”, *laughs* no, I’m going to smile and act terrific. 

*laughs* Well, I think that makes you stand out as a great performer then, if you’re able to conceal that type of thing. So, who would you say has been your biggest inspiration to you as a guitarist and musician overall, would you say that it is Paul? 

I think as a writer, there’s so many aspects of that that came from Paul, but also since I’m going to be talking about where my career has come from, there was a lot that I did learn as far as singers, from people like Jon. Jon Oliva was a masterful singing songwriter, I mean, he had these influences of music from people like Lennon and Freddie Mercury, and he just was very good at recreating that into his own music. So I learned a lot about how to put that into my own music from people like him, and of course, from people like Freddie Mercury, or The Beatles, or the people in Priest and Maiden that I listened to, or the guitar players like Eddie Van Halen or Randy Rhoads, or Rik Emmett from Triumph was a favorite of mine, so that’s different people that you would pick up and learn things from. I mean, it’s not necessarily in the sense of what David Lee Roth would say, “A great song isn’t written, it’s stolen”, *laughs* it wasn’t really in that sense, it was kind of more, you would borrow a lot of those influences into what you did and how you did it. And as a guitar player, I was fortunate enough to be a rhythm guitar player for Criss Oliva, and taught how to play his solos by him. He would always tell me what it was he was doing, so when I had to go in and play his music live, I knew it differently from everybody else because he showed me what he was doing. It wasn’t like I was just listening to a record and recreating the notes, I had the person who played it showing me how he made those notes, and what part of the neck it was on, and what pick he was using, and what effect he was using, and so those influences came from a lot of those players and, like I said, I’ve worked with a lot of great ones myself – somebody like Al Pitrelli is one of the greatest all-around guitar players on the planet, and there’s nothing you can’t learn from him. I’m fortunate, I’ve been really lucky to work with a lot of great singers and a lot of great writers and a lot of great musicians, so you just take all of them and it kind of makes you a little bit better at what you do when you go to do it.  

And it’s made a great musician in you too.

Well, thank you, I appreciate that. I’m still learning a lot of things and I still practice and try to improve at things, I’ll never be perfect, but as long as there’s something to learn, it’s like regular knowledge in general, you want to keep learning it. 

Of course, and that keeps an interest in it too, I don’t think there’s any great musician who’s ever sat back and said, “All right, well, I know everything now, I’m good”, you know? 

Yeah, no, there are certain things that people don’t know, that I have a boxer’s break on my left hand where I play chords, and it’s a little bit more difficult for me to play out a quick jazz chord than it is for other people because half of my left hand is broke. I mean, it’s not necessarily Iommi, where he’s missing part of his fingers, but there’s things that make certain things that I do a little bit more challenging than others, but it’s just things that happen throughout your life that you have to go and throw into your life. I’ve learned a lot, I’ll say that, and I’m still learning. Like I said, you never stop learning, whether it’s music or or life or knowledge or whatever, you can always find something to get some knowledge and some better things into your life. 

That’s true, and that’s great stuff overall. We’ll wrap up with one last question, a general question for an outlook on the near future for Chris Caffery. 

Well right now, I’m obviously doing all the press for this thing, I’m starting to write for the next Spirits record, there’s a studio project that I’m working on, it’s not necessarily a project band, but I’ve been asked to do guitars on a record for someone that’s a really, really big singer in the history of rock music, that I’m working on some things for, and I’m pretty sure that’s going to be happening, but I don’t want to make any kind of announcements on that until everything is finalized, so I’ve been learning some songs that I’ve never played before in my off time, and I’m still doing all my stuff with my hot sauce company, and my Metalphant thing, with Wilbur the little elephant that I have with the children’s clothing and my sea glass art. The sea glass art thing is something I started to do a few years ago, it’s really fun and exciting for me, I’ve been making and selling those, and it’s just a really cool part of something that I never had anything to do with until about four years ago. So I’m always constantly busy with different things, I’m going to blink my eyes and turn around and it will be October and we’re going to start rehearsing for TSO again. But through the rest of the year, I’ll just be doing some shows, there’s a gentleman named Jimmy Sturr that I do some live stuff with, his band had actually won 18 Grammys, and I go out there and play some rock music with his orchestra, which has actually gotten pretty famous over the 50 years that he’s been doing his polka music, but the musicians in that band are some of the best at what they do. Jimmy picks a 40-song show a day, and he doesn’t tell them what they’re playing, he just hands them sheet music, these people are playing really involved orchestra music on their saxophones and keyboards and everything, reading it off of paper! *laughs* I couldn’t do that. So, like I said, I just play around with different people and I might be doing some solo shows this year, I’m trying to see who’s around that I can put into my band in the area and go rehearse, there’s a lot of different rock and roll places and metal places to play in the Northeast, so I can go and do some shows and just have some fun with that. But, time will fly by quick, and I’ll be back on the road with TSO. 

Well, you certainly sound like the type of person to keep yourself really busy. 

Yeah, actually, sometimes it’s too much. *laughs*

But that’s great. That means you’ve always got something to look forward to, the next project, show, tour, record, whatever the case may be. So, lots of good stuff going on. 

Yeah, absolutely. And there’s probably some stuff that I didn’t mention that’ll show up that I didn’t even know about. When they happen, I meant to mention it *laughs*. 

*laughs* Well, we’ve got the basics down, so at least everybody has a general idea of what’s in the near future. So amidst all your busyness and busy life, I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me. 

No, thank you very much, I appreciate it, and I hope everybody enjoys the record, and everybody has a great rest of their winter. Thanks again!

Thank you again so much, great talking with you, Chris.