Mitch Lafon has issued Part II of his interview with QUEENSRŸCHE's Geoff Tate. The full interview is now available below...

By Mitch Lafon

It’s always a pleasure sitting down for a chat with QUEENSRŸCHE singer Geoff Tate. This time out, Geoff was eager to talk about the stunning Mindcrime At The Moore live album and DVD, as well, as the eagerly anticipated tour with original shock rocker ALICE COOPER and the Godfathers of heavy metal, HEAVEN AND HELL (BLACK SABBATH, but under another name since RONNIE JAMES DIO is singing for them.) During the chat Geoff also reveals for the first time, the band’s intentions to make a covers album and discusses the upcoming greatest hits package Sign Of The Times.

Mitch Lafon: Let me ask you about Mindcrime At The Moore. You’ve had Live:Evolution, Art Of Live, Operation:Livecrime and even the SonyBMG released Extended Versions (which is the band live at the Moore in 2001) – what’s different about the new album and why did you feel the need to put it out?

Geoff Tate: “We did a very extensive tour with Mindcrime II. We did Mindcrime I and II together and it was a three hour show. It was a very theatrical presentation and the fans really loved it, so we thought we should film this thing. The thought was to capture what it is we do with that show. It was a big project with lots of planning and pre-planning and for the first time we recorded a live show after about three months of touring. The band was really familiar with the stuff because in the past we usually recorded and filmed shows where the band is just starting a tour and we haven’t really been that comfortable with the music and the show and it kind of shows somewhat. This is a really good show and it’s really entertaining. The camera work is really good and there’s tons of backstage footage. It’s a real great package.”

ML: This is really a ‘show’ because of the whole theatrical element...

GT: “Yeah, we never did that before. In the past when we did the Operation:Livecrime thing it was primarily just the band performing and we used movie screens to tell the story, but this time we used movie screens, but we also had actors and props to augment the story.”

ML: Do you want to do more theatrical presentations?

GT: “Yeah, but I don’t want to particularly do the Mindcrime story again. I think we’ve done that now and we’re moving on to other things. We’re doing a new album now that is really adventurous for us and it’s a themed record as well and it’ll have a very interesting presentation. We like that kind of thing – we like working with themes and concepts and telling stories with our music.”

ML: What is the theme and when will the album be ready?

GT: “I don’t know the answers to those because we’ve just begun working on it. The plan is for all the songs to relate to a topic. It’s sort of a big topic so there’s room for different explorations of points within the theme. Each song is a point of the theme. It’s interesting and musically it’s very different for us. We’re in a place musically that we haven’t been before which is always exciting from our end and we love pushing the boundaries of what we think we can do and what people expect from us.”

ML: Is the theme current events...

GT: “Yeah, this is sort of a social commentary.”

ML: I had mentioned the other live albums you’ve done – is that something you want to keep doing. Do a tour and capture the moment – and release a live album and DVD after every tour?

GT: “I think it’s important to do that. I think it’s important to document the progression... And where the band is going. It’s fun to compare it to where you’ve been and see if you can get further than where you were. It’s a thing I think our fans really enjoy.”

ML: Of course and with Mike Stone in there it’s a whole different vibe. He seems to have re-energized the band.

GT: “He’s a very interesting character. He’s really come into his own now. I can’t relate to what his experience with us has been because I’ve always been in the band, but to step into an established band with a history and to step into somebody else’s shoes and try to carve out your own niche and let your personality influence the band and developing a relationship with the fans is a very difficult thing to do... And he’s done it with grace and elegance and it’s really respectable. I really respect him for the way he’s handled things. DeGarmo (our former guitar player) was a very influential member of the band. He was a songwriter and on guitar – he and Michael really set a standard of music writing. They were doing things on guitar that nobody had really done before. Doing the different chord inversions and modes that they invented. Nobody was doing that at the time. It’s a thing that influenced a lot of guitar players. Those are big shoes to fill, but Stone has done a really good job of that. He’s really come into his own now. The four of us are really intense moody irrational people most of the time and he’s a level headed guy with a great sense of humour and he keeps everybody from beating each other over the head too much.”

PART II...

ML: Let’s talk about the Heaven And Hell tour with Alice Cooper...

GT: “It’s great and I can’t wait for it. Alice Cooper was the first rock concert I ever saw when I was a kid. I saw the Billion Dollar Babies tour and I guess I subconsciously was inspired by that. I thought, at the time, this is what a rock concert is. It defined my vision of what rock music is and I carried that with me. I like a theatrical production when I see a band and playing with him is going to be fantastic and Ronnie (James Dio), of course, is an old friend and actually is the first band we ever opened up for on a tour. He treated us incredibly graciously and was very supportive of the band when we first started out. I’ve never had any contact with the Black Sabbath guys, so that will be a real fun treat to know them and see what they’re all about.”

ML: Any chance Ronnie will join Queensrÿche onstage to do ‘The Chase’?

GT: “I hope so, but we haven’t talked about it yet.”

ML: After the Heaven And Hell tour – what are your plans?

GT: “We’re primarily supposed to be making a record. That’s our goal. But we’re doing short little week tours here and there. We’re doing a couple of dates in July. Then, we’re going to Europe in August for a couple of festivals. September is the start of the Heaven And Hell tour and then in January we’re playing dates in the UK with Thin Lizzy (which will be fun). After that we’re hoping to be putting the finishing touches on our new record. Hopefully, in the spring or summer (2008) we’ll be coming out with that.”

ML: Will you be recording between tours such as in October and November?

GT: “Yeah. We’re recording now and any free time we have. When we’re not touring – we’re recording.”

ML: Musically, will it be more hard rock, metal, progressive...

GT: “It’s hard to describe ‘cause it’s in it’s infancy, but it seems to be very very aggressive. The subject matter we’re dealing with is a modern social commentary, so there’s a lot of angst to it and a lot of anger. As a writer, I’m constantly going with what’s going on and what I’m feeling about a certain thing and opinions I have regarding the topic. I guess I have a lot of pent up frustration living in modern day America. The way we live nowadays is so very strange. There’s a lot of living vicariously through others – with reality TV and that kind of thing. People come home after a hard days work and watch someone else live their life. That’s weird to me. We sit on the couch and eat junk food and watch somebody else have this wonderful adventurous life. I don’t understand that or why it’s going on, but it makes for interesting songs.”

ML: Tell me about Sign Of The Times – the new Best Of that comes out in August. Anything unexpected on it?

GT: “There’s all kinds of interesting stuff on it. It’s really a cool project. It’s a two disc set. One disc is filled with songs that people are familiar with – songs that were on the radio and there are different versions of those songs which I think makes it different and kind of unique. The second is a disc of rarities - stuff that’s unreleased. We recorded a lot of records on analog tape and after about ten years the analog tape starts losing it’s molecular structure, so recently we played them and recorded them digitally (so that we have what’s on tape on a digital recording) and in doing that we found all this stuff on them – weird demo stuff, renditions of songs that never made records, parts and pieces of things that were taken apart and used in other songs... So, we’ve put together this rarities disc of all this stuff and it’s really really cool. There’s a new track that Chris DeGarmo and I wrote together called ‘Justified’ (from the Tribe sessions I think). Before Queensrÿche I was in a band called Myth and we recorded a whole bunch of songs and then the band broke-up. When I joined Queensrÿche and started writing with them I took lyrics and melodies from these previous songs and re-worked them into Queensrÿche songs. We’ve taken these songs that were recorded by Myth with me singing and included them on this. I think there’s three or four songs (from Myth) on there and they ended up becoming Queensrÿche songs. It’ll be fun for the fans to hear the original concept for the songs and see what remained the same and what changed when Queensrÿche re-wrote it. To bring it full circle with Myth – Kelly Gray was the guitar player who joined Queensrÿche later (for awhile) on the Q2K record and tour and he actually recorded these Myth songs.”

ML: On disc one which is more of the greatest hits - will it be the unplugged version and AOR radio edits, etc?

GT: “There’s both and some live versions and some studio demo versions.”

ML: Will the second disc include songs like ‘Scarborough Fair’ and some other B-sides?

GT: “I know ‘Chasing Blue Sky’ is included. There’s ‘Dirty Little Secret’ which was recorded in the early ‘90s. There’s also an interview that Chris and I did recently discussing all this stuff (I think that’ll be included too).”

ML: There’s a ton of good stuff coming up for Queensrÿche fans.

GT: “Yeah! And coming out in December – we just finished doing an album full of cover songs. It’s kind of weird for us, but it was really fun to do. We all picked favorite songs of ours and re-did/ re-wrote them – some don’t even sound like the original track at all. We ‘ Queensrÿche-ed’ them out.”

ML: I didn’t know about this. It’s coming out in December? Does it have a title?

GT: “That’s the plan and it doesn’t have a title yet.”

ML: Is the track listing finalized?

GT: ‘No. You’re the first person I’ve mentioned it to.”

ML: What kind of songs are on it?

GT: “It’s all songs we liked and we each got to pick two or three and then we recorded them and picked the best. There’s ‘Innuendo’ from QUEEN. There’s one of my favorites – PINK FLOYD’s ‘Welcome To The Machine’ (which really turned out well). There’s an Italian Opera song which I sing in Italian – it’s called ‘Oddissa’. There’s a really cool version of BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD’s ‘For What It’s Worth’. We did ‘Synchronicity’ by THE POLICE. It’s kind of all over the place.”

ML: Will the opera song be ‘ Queensrÿche-ed’ as well or will it sound like opera?

GT: “It’s very metal. It’s very Queensrÿche. You can take any song and make it a certain way. You can take it completely away from the original. Only use the melody and re-write the chords around it to fit with what you do. We have a very unique guitar approach. Lots of harmony stuff and inverted extended chords and stuff like that. You can play the same chord somebody wrote in a Major key and play it in a Minor key and it’ll sound completely different, but still work with the melody. We’ve done a lot of things like that and with a lot of these songs.”

ML: Have you thought of taking some of your songs like ‘Lady Wore Black’ or ‘Queen Of The Ryche’ and re-recorded them and say this is what they would sound like if they had come out in 2007.

GT: “That would be kind of fun, wouldn’t it?”
For more fun visit: www.queensryche.com