CHRIS CAFFERY Reflects On 20 Years Of Solo Career, SAVATAGE’s Return, And The Balance Between Legacy & Future

For guitarist Chris Caffery, best known for his work with Savatage and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, the release of 20 Years of the Music Man means much more than a career milestone. It’s a reflection of perseverance, humor, and the need to keep moving forward despite shifting musical landscapes.

“Well, basically what had happened was I had been releasing a couple of singles, and for me that kind of became sort of easy to do, because I didn’t have to get a whole record done… I recorded a song last year that was called “Do You See What I See Now”, and I decided to contact Mr. Jeff Scott Soto to see if he would share the lead vocals with me, and he did, and I really liked the way this song came out,” he explained.

What began as scattered singles evolved into a full compilation. Caffery admitted that the idea of a retrospective took on momentum of its own: “It started to feel like to me that it was going to have to be a record that was going to need to be done… I just kind of pieced together what I thought was a really neat timeline of the 20 years from when I first really started recording those songs… between 2004 and 2024, that’s where this music was recorded.”

The result is not just a “best-of,” but a sprawling map of his solo journey, including previously unreleased songs, vinyl exclusives, and tracks that slipped through the cracks the first time around. It’s a statement of continuity, that his solo career is not an afterthought to Savatage or Trans-Siberian Orchestra, but a parallel voice he continues to develop.

Among the compilation’s most talked-about songs are the ones that wear frustration on their sleeves. Titles like “Pisses Me Off”, “Sick of This Sh*t”, and “You’ve Gotta Be F*cking Kidding Me” might suggest pure rage, but Caffery explained that his intent was closer to comedy than fury.

“Here’s the thing, I did ‘You’ve Gotta Be F*cking Kidding Me’ because I had ‘Pisses Me Off’, so I thought it was kind of funny… when Holger said to me, well, you had ‘Sick of This Sh*t’… I thought the trifecta of those three songs would be pretty fun to have on one CD,” Caffery explained.

He added that the humor was deliberate: “I like to make people laugh, you know, and it’s like if I’m saying that stuff, it’s a way for me to use my sense of humor to control anger, not bring the anger out.”

For Caffery, these songs are snapshots of a time, as relevant for their energy as their satire. This balance between metal intensity and self-deprecating humor reflects his personality onstage with TSO, where he often uses jokes to disarm audiences. Still, he recognizes the risk of updating the formula for today’s climate: “I considered doing a ‘Pisses Me Off’ 2025 version, or something like that, but people are so sensitive now that if I were to write what pissed me off… instead of making people laugh… they would hear what I say now, and they get mad.”

However, not all of Caffery’s music stems from humor or catharsis. “Then She’s Gone”, one of the compilation’s most poignant tracks, was written in a moment of late-night reflection after personal heartbreak: “I was home one night in the band house… and I just kind of threw it all together really fast… I ju