Paul O'Neill (February 23, 1956 – April 5, 2017) was an American composer, lyricist, record producer, and guitarist. He was the producer of the progressive metal band Savatage, and the founder of Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
Career
Early years
Paul O'Neill was born in Flushing, Queens, New York City,[1][2] the second of his parents' ten children. His music and literary influences, as well as his own artistic visions, were well established before he began working full-time in the industry in his late teens. O'Neill began playing guitar with a number of rock bands in high school and quickly graduated to folk guitar gigs at downtown clubs. He took his first serious musical steps in the mid-1970s when he took his first progressive rock band, Slowburn, into Jimi Hendrix's Electric Lady Studios in New York City.[3] It was there that he first met engineer Dave Wittman[4] who had the ability to capture on tape the sounds O'Neill was hearing in his head. O'Neill ended up shelving the project because he was not happy with final results. He later credited Slowburn's initial failure as one of the luckiest things that could have happened to him, for it gave him the opportunity to learn the recording and concert business from the inside out. Touring with some of the world's biggest bands gave him insight into how the music industry differed from country to country, and a better sense of history, people and finance than books alone could teach.[5]
"I wanted to take the very best of all the forms of music I grew up on and merge them into a new style," O'Neill said in 2011. "Basically I was building on the work of everybody I worshipped: the rock opera parts from bands like the Who; the marriage of classical and rock from bands like Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Queen; the over-the-top light show from bands like Pink Floyd... I always wanted to do a full rock opera with a full progressive band and at least 24 lead singers.[14][15]
O'Neill took the idea to Atlantic Records which, to his surprise, went for it and financed the creation of Romanov which was initially to be TSO's first release. "We were very fortunate," he says. "It was one of the only labels left that still did an "old school" kind of artist development." My original concept was; "We were going to do six rock operas, a trilogy about Christmas and maybe one or two regular albums."
O'Neill's body was discovered in an Embassy Suites hotel room in Tampa, Florida.[16][17][18][19][20][21]
O'Neill's death was announced in a brief note posted on the Trans-Siberian Orchestra website on April 5, 2017, which cited chronic illness. The Hillsborough, Florida medical examiner's office determined the official cause of Paul O'Neill's death as accidental, resulting from an unexpected reaction to prescribed medications to treat his numerous chronic illnesses (including bone augmentation surgery, complications from spinal fusion surgery, heart disease, and hypertension).[22] Found along with O'Neill's body were more than 30 prescription pill bottles in his name.[23]
O'Neill was in the midst of a number of projects, and their continuation was in doubt.[21] On June 24, 2017, TSO announced on their Facebook page that the band would continue the 2017 Winter Tour of "The Ghost of Christmas Eve" in O'Neill's legacy and honor. During the tour, the band (with Kayla Reeves on the east, and Dino Jelusic on the west) honored O'Neill while playing "The Safest Way Into Tomorrow", with images of sunglasses and motorcycle gloves (both trademarks of O'Neill's) projected on the stage's video display.[24]
^ abGraff, Gary (April 6, 2017). "Trans-Siberian Orchestra Founder Paul O'Neill Dies at 61". Billboard. Retrieved April 7, 2017. O'Neill was working on several projects at the time of his death, both intended for Broadway – Romanov: What Kings Must Whisper, a rock opera about the Russia's Bolshevik Revolution in 1918, and an expanded, rewritten version of Savatage's Gutter Ballet. There's no word yet on how work will proceed on them without O'Neill.
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