Will Savatage play in the USA next year? Johnny Lee Middleton provides an answer

After playing sporadic shows in Europe and South America in 2025 and 2026, bassist Johnny Lee Middleton of renowned progressive metal pioneers Savatage was asked in a recent interview with Metal Walt of Metal Mayhem ROC if the band has plans to tour more in the upcoming years, possibly in the United States, as per Blabbermouth.

We have a 10-year plan, so we’re on year two. So we’ve still got some time left. We have some more music we’re gonna release. We have a game plan. And we’re working on getting some stuff together in the States for next year. But, yeah, we plan on coming back to South America next year and in Europe again, and we’re trying to snake some stuff in the United States, whether it’s a package deal with a couple other bands or just doing some one-off shows with ourselves.

The problem is we never did get to the point of drawing enough people in the United States to warrant the money that we need to pay the 18 guys that I gotta pay to do a gig, and when we did the stuff back in the [earlier] Savatage days, we used a lot of our friends and stuff as crew guys. And it was, like, the music friends. Now the guys we use are the TSO [Trans-Siberian Orchestra] guys, and they don’t work for cheap. So we have really good crew, but they cost a lot of money. And so we could make the guarantees in Europe that make it worth our time to do this, and we’re working on some stuff in the States right now that we’re… You’ll probably see us next year.

performed with percussionist Blas Elias at two festival performances in Sweden and France at the beginning of June. Elias, a former member of Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Slaughter, and Ratt’s Stephen Pearcy, was covering for long-time drummer Jeff Plate of Savatage, who missed the first two performances of the band’s “Prelude To Madness” spring/summer 2026 European tour due to illness.