Paul O'Neill (rock producer)
| Paul O'Neill | |
|---|---|
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O'Neill in 2011
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| Background information | |
| Born |
February 23, 1956 New York City, New York, United States |
| Died | April 5, 2017 (aged 61) Tampa, Florida |
| Genres | Rock, rock opera, progressive metal |
| Occupation(s) | Composer, lyricist, producer, songwriter |
| Associated acts | Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Savatage, Badlands |
Paul O'Neill (February 23, 1956 – April 5, 2017) was an American music composer, lyricist, producer, and songwriter.
A New York City native, the second of his parents' ten children, Paul O'Neill's 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. O'Neill 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. It was there that he first met engineer Dave Wittman who had the ability to capture on tape the sounds O'Neill was hearing in his head. Paul ended up shelving the project because he was not happy with final results. (A habit Paul would repeat over the decades much to the frustration of his accountants.) However he has credited Slowburn's initial failure as one of the luckiest things that could have ever happened to him for it gave him the opportunity to learn the recording and concert business from the inside out. All the little nuances of how you broke acts in America and Canada, which was different from, Europe, Asia but more importantly how to make your artist success last. In addition, touring the planet with some of the world's biggest bands gave him an insight not only to the how the music industry differed from country to country but also a better sense of history, peoples and finance than you could learn from books alone.
He landed a position at Leber-Krebs Inc., the management company that launched the careers of Aerosmith, AC/DC, Def Leppard, Ted Nugent, The New York Dolls, Scorpions and Joan Jett among others. Specifically, he worked as the personal assistant of manager David Krebs. In the 1980s, O'Neill became a large rock promoter in Japan, promoting every tour of Madonna and Sting done in that decade, as well the largest rock festivals done in Japan until that time, with such acts as Foreigner, Bon Jovi, Whitesnake and Ronnie James Dio.
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