{"id":5671,"date":"2016-09-10T09:56:47","date_gmt":"2016-09-10T16:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/Interviews\/?p=5671"},"modified":"2016-09-10T09:56:47","modified_gmt":"2016-09-10T16:56:47","slug":"taking-on-the-world-in-conversation-with-geoff-tate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/Interviews\/2016\/09\/10\/taking-on-the-world-in-conversation-with-geoff-tate\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking On The World: In Conversation With Geoff Tate"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Andrew Bansal<\/strong><\/p>\n

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After parting ways with Queensr\u00ffche, veteran metal singer Geoff Tate has continued making music under the Operation: Mindcrime name, and has taken upon a massive undertaking of a concept album trilogy. ‘The Key’, the first album of the series was released in 2015, and the second part ‘Resurrection’ is now ready for release on September 23rd 2016 via Frontiers. Just like he did in Queensr\u00ffche, Tate still focuses on the concept-based approach, but didn’t find the inspiration for this trilogy straightaway. In this candid interview with Metal Assault, Geoff Tate discusses how he came up with the concept, his love for hiking, live shows, performing old Queensr\u00ffche material, future plans and more. Enjoy the chat below.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll be putting out a new album called \u2018Resurrection\u2019 under the Operation: Mindcrime name. I believe it\u2019s part of a trilogy for which you put out the first album last year and this is going to be the second one. What made you decide to do this trilogy?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, I\u2019ve been wanting to do a large-scale concept project for a while. I like the idea of trilogy, a tri-act structure. It\u2019s a common structure that writers use when they construct a book, a play or a screenplay for a film. I thought that format would work really well with a musical as well So I\u2019ve been wanting to do it for a while but just didn\u2019t have the subject matter. A couple of years ago my wife and I were on a holiday. We were hiking the El Camino de Santiago trail in Northern Spain, which is a 500-mile hike. It took us about a month to hike the thing, and along the trail there was lots of time to think, you know. You kind of get outside your everyday schedule, you\u2019re in this completely different environment. I suddenly got an idea, I started writing down some notes, and before I knew it, I had the story that I thought would work really well with a trilogy concept. So I got home from the trip, got back to Seattle and immediately began composing music for it, and here we are a few years later! The first album is out and the second album is getting ready to be released.<\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t have thought that you\u2019re the kind of guy to go on such hikes. It\u2019s rare for people to find such kind of time these days to go on those long hikes. Is that something you do often?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I live outside the Seattle area, in the foothills of the Cascade mountains, and my wife and I are pretty avid hikers. We hike the trails through the mountains there, I\u2019d say probably three times a week. It\u2019s just kind of part of my exercise program. Hiking uphill is really good for that, and it\u2019s beautiful too. We take our two dogs to run with us, so it\u2019s kind of a fun thing to do. But it\u2019s nothing like 500 miles, I tell you (laughs). That\u2019s hard, really hard work. But it was a really beautiful trip, and if you\u2019re interested in that kind of thing I would highly recommend it because you see some beautiful sights and you go through the Spanish wine country, the frontier area and then you go up to the forested mountain section of the country, before you reach the ocean. And you go through these little tiny small towns and some big towns and cities, beautiful cathedrals, wonderful food and great wine. It\u2019s really an amazing trip.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s awesome to hear, and I\u2019m definitely going to look into that. Coming back to the music, of course you\u2019re the mastermind behind the \u2018Operation: Mindcrime\u2019 albums that Queensr\u00ffche put out, and this band of yours is also named after that album. Would you say that the music you write for this band is always going to be based along similar thoughts and approach to what those albums were?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the sense that \u2018Operation: Mindcrime\u2019 the album was a concept album, yeah, the stuff I\u2019m doing now is conceptually based, it\u2019s a storytelling sort of format with the music. That\u2019s really primarily what I\u2019m ultimately interested in doing. I like creating new music and writing concept pieces. Music that has themes and some different sort of content than normal, that\u2019s what I\u2019m interested in.<\/p>\n

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You went through a lot of things about three or four years ago and we\u2019re not going to get into that here, but after that, starting this band, did you think that you were starting fresh, and was that a good thing for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In some ways, yeah it was really a fresh start. But in many ways nothing has changed at all, really. One of the things that I think I became very conscious of was the fact that now that I really don\u2019t have the name Queensr\u00ffche to adhere to, I\u2019m a little bit more open and free to create the kind of music that I want to write and be presenting. When you have the name Queensr\u00ffche, there\u2019s a certain expectation that you have to meet to a certain extent with fans. But because I didn\u2019t have to meet that anymore, I could do what I want to do, and this album \u2018Resurrection\u2019 specially is a real solid example of where my head\u2019s at musically.<\/p>\n

One of the things that\u2019s notable on this one and even on the first one is the production style. I think it\u2019s definitely more modern. Is that a deliberate thing that you think fits the music? What\u2019s the thought behind that kind of an approach?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, now I don\u2019t have to follow the same rules anymore, so it gives me freedom to explore and try different things without having to compromise so much within the band. There\u2019s no band I have to compromise to, so that\u2019s kind of cool (laughs).<\/p>\n

Performing live, what do you think you want to do with this? With a concept album ideally you\u2019d like to tell the whole story but people obviously expect you to play a lot of other stuff as well.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah they do, which is understandable. Music takes a while to soak in with people. It\u2019s a personal journey, a personal experience that you have with it, and it takes years for people to become really enamored with an album or know it really well. So you\u2019ve got to let that time go by and let people become familiar with it. As an artist, of course you\u2019re all pumped up and excited because you want to play your new thing and you\u2019re so into it. But it takes a while for people to get as enthusiastic as you are (laughs). So you have to play songs from your past albums, which I love to. I love performing, I love traveling and I love meeting people. So, I don\u2019t have a problem with that. I like playing concerts and I like to see people singing along with the songs they love and them being familiar with the music.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s not a bad thing for you to be expected to do a whole lot of old Queensr\u00ffche stuff, even in this band?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, I love that music and I love playing it.<\/p>\n

The singing voice changes with age and you\u2019ve kept it maintained in the sense that it sounds good on these new albums, but playing the old songs, are there songs that you like more or like less, now that your voice is different?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve really noticed that. I\u2019ve recently played songs from as far back as the EP and the beginning of the Queensr\u00ffche days, songs from \u2018Warning\u2019, and all the albums, really. I just try to pick a set list of songs that I think the audience would appreciate. I try to get at least one song from all the different eras. Queensr\u00ffche has got a lot of different kinds of music in a lot of different kinds of albums, so I like to touch on all of those, if I can in the show I\u2019m putting on. It\u2019s getting a little tougher nowadays because I have so much material to pick from (laughs). I think I\u2019ve got 18 albums worth of material, over 220 songs. So, there\u2019s a lot of stuff to pick from.<\/p>\n

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You\u2019ve tried to present concept albums with a big production in the past, and many times with Queensr\u00ffche. Is there any plan to do that with the albums you\u2019ve done for the Operation: Mindcrime band, specially considering the storytelling format of the music?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, I\u2019d like to. I\u2019m going to start touring in December in Europe and then in the States sometime in February or March. I don\u2019t quite know how I\u2019m going to present my show this year. I\u2019m playing around with a couple of different ideas, but pretty soon we\u2019re going to making an announcement and all will be revealed at that moment.<\/p>\n

What else do you have going on for the next couple of months before the Europe tour?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to Germany soon for a record release party there, and it\u2019s also harvest time, so I\u2019m visiting the winery that produces my Insania wine. So we\u2019re doing that, and then going to Ireland for a couple of weeks to rehearse with some musician friends of mine. We\u2019re doing some songwriting and rehearsal. And then I come back to the States, and doing a fun kind of a concert tour with two of my friends Blaze Bayley and Tim Ripper Owens. We\u2019re doing this thing called \u2018Trinity\u2019, as it\u2019s the three of us, three ex-singers from famous bands. We\u2019re playing a series of shows on the East Coast of the United States. Blaze is playing songs from his years with Maiden, Ripper of course is performing songs from his years with Judas Priest, and I\u2019m playing Queensr\u00ffche songs. Then we\u2019re playing some music together, harmonizing together on certain things.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s going to be a fun show. Did you ever cross paths with those guys in the past?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh yeah, that\u2019s how I know them. Ripper and I go way back, and I met Blaze in 2000 may be, somewhere around there, 15 or 16 years ago. We kept in touch all these years and we meet up once in a while. They sang on \u2018Resurrection\u2019 on a song called \u2018Taking On The World\u2019, and we actually just finished shooting a video for it two days ago in Seattle. That\u2019ll be out soon, it\u2019s kind of a fun track. They\u2019re great guys to hang out with. The three of us getting together, we have a real fun time because we all have a similar sense of humor, so there\u2019s lots of joking, laughing, road stories and that kind of thing. And we sing a lot (laughs).<\/p>\n

So, on that tour if they ask you to come up and play a Maiden song or a Priest song, what would you ideally play, if you had to pick?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019re working that out now! We\u2019re getting ready for the tour, even though it\u2019s a couple of months away. We\u2019re talking about the presentation of it. I think we\u2019ve got some really cool ideas for it that people will really like. Anyway, it\u2019s called \u2018Trinity\u2019 and it\u2019s coming to the North-East US in November.<\/p>\n

Geoff Tate\/Operation: Mindcrime links: website<\/a> | facebook<\/a> | twitter<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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