QUEENSRYCHE - "We’re Not A Band That Is Easily
Categorized" [Hot Flashes - 05.06.27 17:31:25]
Special Report By Mitch Lafon
On a recent stop near Hartford, CT, Queensryche frontman Geoff Tate, sat down with BW&BK to discuss the band’s current tour with metal masters JUDAS PRIEST as well as their upcoming album Operation: Mindcrime II, due out through Sanctuary early next year.
How is it touring with Priest?
Tate: “It’s great. The bands get along really well. We actually weren’t planning on touring this summer, but we toured with Priest last summer in Europe and they seemed to really like what we do and musically we fit together nicely. So, they called us up and asked us and we were like ‘we’re making a record right now, but it would be interesting to take a break and go out on the road touring with THE PRIEST.’ “
When you’re making an album and head off on the road... does it affect the music.... does it change the vision?
Tate: “Well, you have to get ready to play live. 'I’m American' (new song from Mindcrime II) hasn’t changed since we brought it out and started playing it. We did all the arrangements before we left Seattle. It’s fun playing it.”
This set list is mostly the first three albums – is this rediscovering your roots? Or does it simply fit better with Priest....
Tate: “Really, it’s to fit better. It’s to keep the Priest fans out of the beer line while we’re playing. Those old songs are fun. It’s like trying on your old favorite pair of jeans and seeing if you can still fit into them. It’s fun wrapping your head around that old stuff and seeing where you were thinking back then.”
When I interviewed you for Tribe you said the band had evolved and everybody changes, etc... How does that fit with you going back and doing the old songs?
Tate: “Oh, still. Those songs are from our past. We wrote that stuff. It’s in our heads. It’s in our psyches. As a musician you try to grow and change and find ways to change what you do in a unique way. So, that you can satisfy yourself musically and creatively, and also you don’t want to lose your fan base. It’s like walking a tightrope line. I think we’ve evolved and changed dramatically over our history and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I like that and I think it’s the reason why we’re still around making records and touring. It’s because we take those risks and chances. We’re not a band that is easily categorized. We do a lot of things and I like that about us.”
For a long time fans said ‘do an Operation: Mindcrime II’, but you said ‘no – we’re not going to do that’. Why have you decided to do it and where do you find the inspiration to do it?
Tate: “I really hadn’t thought seriously about doing it until I got asked about a year ago to write a treatment for a screenplay for the Mindcrime album. In doing so, I found all this information that you have to come up with when writing a screenplay which you don’t need to include when you’re doing a musical record – back story, character development and all that. As I was writing it out and getting more detail, I found that I had so much material that a sequel was obvious. The more I worked on it – the more interested I became and then I mentioned it to the band and they seemed to like the idea. We found it challenging to take the theme ideas and move them into the 21st century with new production ideas and a more mature approach to the music. So, everybody got on the same page and when you can get everybody from a band on the same page when you’re writing a record it’s a miraculous thing. So, you run with it.”
Is there an Operation: Mindcrime movie? When is that coming out?
Tate: “It’s not even in production yet. We’re still writing the screenplay for it.”
Film cinema or film TV?
Tate: “Film cinema.”
Do you plan to star in it?
Tate: “Ah, no.”
You’ve mentioned in the past that Operation: Mindcrime was inspired by people in the Saint-Sulpice bar in Montreal – are you taking the same characters and just re-visiting them twenty years later?
Tate: “My thought process is this – at the end of the first album Nikki is imprisoned. So, my thought was – what would I be like after 18 years in prison. What would I think about? What would I plan on doing? My thought was that I’d analyze everything in my life. Where did I take a wrong turn and who is responsible for me being in the situation I’m in. So, I’d come up with a plan of attack of what I’d do – when and if I got out. So, the album takes place 18 years after the original and some of the same characters re-visit. Pamela Moore plays Sister Mary back from the dead acting as Nikki’s conscience. We have a male lead singer who is going to be singing the part of Dr.X. Nikki and Dr.X kind of do an opera presentation (aria) back and forth. It’s pretty dramatic. We have an orchestra being recorded in Prague. There’s 74 minutes of music. It’s a big big record.”
What’s the musical direction? Full metal... sort of metal...orchestral?
Tate: “I hate to put boundaries on it. You know metal is a genre that can be defined in a number of ways and I’m not so much interested in other people’s definition of metal as I am in my own. I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I figure a band like Queensryche has been around 25 years - we define what metal is. So, there’s songs on it that people are going to find to be very traditional Queensryche songs from different eras of our past and there are songs on it that are very new sounding. There’s very aggressive songs, there’s moody introspective stuff...”
Not a carbon-copy of Mindcrime at all then...
Tate: “Not even close. It’s light years away from Mindcrime. Mindcrime was a one-dimensional record musically. We broke out a little bit of the metal with Suite Sister Mary, but it was still a metal record. Well, this is that and more. We really tried to explore the different emotions the characters were going through, so it’s very story driven. There’s light moments followed by really bombastic moments. It’s kind of like life. You’re not on ‘ten’ all day long. Lots of peaks and valleys it’s like the Himalayas man.”
Is Operation: Mindcrime II the period (to the story) or is the ending open ended?
Tate: “You’ll have to wait and see.”
Now, personally – you did a solo album and talked about doing a second one. Where are we with that?
Tate: “We are with an album that is pretty much finished and awaiting release.”
The next album for you – same as the first with loops and rhythms almost dance beats in parts? Are you going out on a ledge again or more towards Queensryche?
Tate: “I can’t really say yet. I’ve got 27 songs and probably 11 or 12 will make it on to the CD. So, I can’t say ‘what’ is it yet, but it’s a lot of different stuff. Stuff that I’m interested in, but Queensryche couldn’t tackle. Things that are too left of center for Queensryche.”
Album title? Release date? Before or after Mindcrime II?
Tate: “No, No and after Mindcrime II.”
Will you tour solo?
Tate: “Yes.”
Where do you go after the Priest tour?
Tate: “I go home to spend time with my kids. We’re going to do some sailing, camping and motorcycling. Got two BIG weddings this summer in our family and the band is playing a date at Sturgis – the big bike festival in August. Then we have the rest of August off – we’ll finish the record and in September we’ll go out and do some Mindcrime dates (the show we did last year).”
Will you have to listen to Mindcrime II from song one to the end? Is it thematic in that sense?
Tate: “I think so. It has a chronological order to it.”