PAUL O'NEILL , TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA MASTERMIND, PASSES AT 61

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Paul O’Neill , who turned Trans-Siberian Orchestra into a beloved Christmas staple and a multimillion dollar enterprise, playing to sold-out areas around the world, passed away at the age of 61 from a chronic illness.

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Paul O’Neill formed Trans-Siberian Orchestra in 1996 with a vision for a band that was theatrical, conceptual and, like the world itself, intended to be ever-changing. In short, everything not expected of rock music at that point in time.

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Paul O’Neill at TSO’s concert in London, March 28th 2011.

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Picture Courtesy of Wikipedia

At the time of his passing, he had achieved that dream, turning Trans-Siberian Orchestra into one of the most successful acts of the new millennium, having played in excess of 1,800 shows for more than 14 million fans across the globe and selling in excess of 10 million albums.

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Born in Flushing, Queens, the second of 10 children of Irish immigrants, Paul O’Neill began playing guitar in high school.

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With the dissolution of his first band, Slowburn, he took a position at the management firm of Leber-Krebs, where he learned the recording and concert touring business from the ground up, giving him an insight into how to build a successful act worldwide.

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In the ‘80s, he became a major concert promoter in Japan for acts like Madonna and Sting, as well as many major rock festivals in the country. He also was adept in the recording studio, having produced Aerosmith’s Classics Live I and II albums, among many others.

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O’Neill was attracted to the concept album at an early stage, citing The Who’s Tommy as an initial inspiration. As producer and co-writer with Savatage, he helped devise conceptual full-length works like Hall of the Mountain King, Gutter Ballet, Streets: A Rock Opera and Dead Winter Dead.

In 1996, he joined with Savatage members Jon Oliva, Bob Kinkel and Al Pitrelli – as well as studio engineer Dave Williams, whom he knew from his days in New York with Slowburn – to create Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

The band’s first album, Christmas Eve and Other Stories, was released by Lava/Atlantic Records in 1996, featuring what became one of TSO’s signature songs, the socially conscious “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24,” originally recorded by Savatage, which combined the melodies of the traditional Yuletide numbers “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and “Carol of the Bells.”

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The band made its commercial breakthrough with the 2000 non-holiday rock opera Beethoven’s Last Night, which told the tale of the devil’s battle for the soul of the classical composer. Other Trans-Siberian Orchestra releases include 2004’s The Lost Christmas Eve, 2009’s Night Castle, 2012’s EP Dreams of Fireflies (On a Christmas Night) and 2015’s Letters from the Labyrinth.

By the mid-2000s, Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s seasonal tours found them perennially topping industry trade publication Pollstar’s annual box office charts, both in the U.S. and worldwide, cementing the band’s legacy as a seasonal must-see.

Two of O’Neill’s major influences were writers Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde, the former for his own Christmas classics, the latter for the iambic pentameter he used for the narration in his shows (and the inspiration for his daughter, Irene Wilde’s name). At their peak, Trans-Siberian Orchestra had several productions touring simultaneously, with O’Neill often jetting from Europe to America to go from one concert to the next.

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Trans-Siberian Orchestra show in Detroit, Michigan on December 8, 2006.

Picture Courtesy of Wikimedia

His holdings included the Morrissound Recording Studio in Tampa, FL, which he turned into TSO’s headquarters, Night Castle, pleased to be so close to another of his heroes, Walt Disney.

As a business man, Paul O’Neill headed an operation that numbered approximately 400 people, with 80 musicians and 340 crew members, but treated them all as part of his own extended family.

O’Neill was also a dedicated philanthropist, with TSO having donated $14 million to charity, a writer (he penned a 50-page novella, Merry Christmas, Rabbi) and an avid student of history and collector of rare artifacts – including signed editions of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Books and Winston Churchill’s two-volume biography of his father, as well as letters from numerous dignitaries and Presidents, including one written from Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, among many other significant antiquities.

At the time of his death, Paul O’Neill had two rock operas in various stages of completion, including Romanov: When Kings Must Whisper, about the 1917 Russian Revolution, and an expanded rewritten version of Savatage’s Gutter Ballet, both intended for Broadway.

He is survived by his wife, and his daughter Irene Wilde.

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Paul O’Neill, Trans-Siberian Orchestra Mastermind, Passes at 61

Paul O’Neill, Trans-Siberian Orchestra Mastermind, Passes at 61

Roy Trakin