This spring, TSO is set to release a new non-Christmas CD, Night Castle, which will reportedly contain the band's rock version of Pachelbel's Canon in D major, a popular number when performed at their stadium shows.

"We are definitely moving out of the holiday market," Wood says. "The Christmas niche was a smart and clever way to build up a multimillion dollar business, but we have other things to say, too, so we're branching out.

"The new CD is going to blow people's minds."

While the appeal for some might be the rock part of the whole classical-rock band premise, Wood says that without a major appearance by string players, there would be no "classical" in the band at all.

"Strings," Wood says, "are very much a part of the sound of the orchestra. If there were no strings on stage, it would just be a rock 'n' roll band doing classical music, and that would be very boring. We would have failed right out of the box.

"The fact that we have a string section gives us a really cool classical credibility."

For the studio recordings, a full string orchestra is brought into the studio, but onstage, Wood anchors a string section made up of local string players recruited in each city just for those shows.

It's a good gig—if you're the right kind of player for the job.

Over the last 12 years, Wood has established strong relationships with the strings bookers in the various cities in which TSO plays, bookers who know which temperament and type of player works well in the TSO environment, and which players will not. Each TSO show requires seven local string players: two cellos, two violas, two second violins, and one first, who sits next to Wood.

Over the course of a standard tour, TSO employs more than 100 string players.

"We've gotten to the point where we've established a really cutting-edge, exciting, spirited string section," Wood says. "The strings are onstage—they are very visible to the audience, so if you have a string players who are not necessarily trained to think about performance—about how they look, how they physically maneuver the instrument—then they won't work out as a part of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra."

Playing with TSO, it turns out, is not for everyone. One element that most professional string players are not accustomed to—especially those who've spent their careers in an orchestra pit or symphony section—is being seated five feet away from erupting fountains of hot fire, playing under lasers and smoke pots and big pieces of moving machinery. "It's like playing in a war zone," Wood laughs. "And they also have to sight-read, while playing three hours of music practically nonstop. I have to spend hours with the string players before a show pumping them up."

Then, of course, there's the little matter of the choreography.

That's right, choreography.

"We have choreography that the string players do," Wood says. "You can't be a string player and just sit there, not in one of our shows. We are moving all the time, we're using our bows in choreographed ways, were moving our heads in choreographed ways—we're doing all kinds of things. Our performances are not just musical, they're visual, too, and not every string player is prepared for that."

For Wood, who eats, sleeps, and breathes the whole rock-star environment, from the tour buses to the late nights and long hours, there is nothing better than playing violin in a rock 'n' roll orchestra.

"I love every second of it," he says. "I kiss the ground of every city we play in. I am the luckiest string player in the world, because for a string player who loves to rock 'n' roll, this is the perfect scenario. I get to be with my string-playing colleagues from all over the country, and they're all killer string players, and I also get to hang with my greasy rock-band friends. And, together, we get to rock the rafters night after night playing Beethoven and Mozart!

"How much better can it get?"

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