Jon Oliva's Pain Reacts To Matt LaPorte's Death

And Oliva says it's even more hard to bear because he believes his brother Criss, who died in a car crash in 1993, used LaPorte to channel his art. The brothers founded Savatage in 1978 and it didn't last long after the younger sibling's tragic death. Jon went on to form JOP, and recruited LaPorte in 2004, although the pair's friendship went back much further.