Queensryche's Geoff Tate Has It Covered!

By Kimberly Katz
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Having already sold over 20 million albums, Seattle-based Queensryche is still at it, this time releasing Take Cover, a collection of the bands favorite cover songs. Unlike many cover albums, Queensryche takes a stab at more obscure songs such as Black Sabbath's "Neon Knights", Buffalo Springfield's "For What it's Worth" and "Heaven on Their Minds", from Jesus Christ Superstar. An album of covers may be an unexpected new twist for Queensryche, but rest assured, the band has left their stamp on each track, and in most cases, take each song to a new level.

Having seen Queensryche perform just a couple months ago, I can tell you that the progressive metal band, coined as one the most "ahead of their time" bands in the 80's and 90's, is just as sharp and full of energy as ever. Geoff Tate and other original members since 1981 Michael Wilton, Eddie Jackson, Scott Rockenfield, along with newer member Mike Stone, have plans for future Queensryche albums filled with original material, but thought an album of covers would be a nice change of pace, at the same time giving the band a chance to relax and have some fun.

Currently, the band is busy touring Take Cover and will hit Chicago's House of Blues February 1st and 2nd. I got the opportunity to check in with Queensryche front man Geoff Tate while taking a brief break from the road.

Buzz - We met you briefly after your show here in Chicago a couple weeks ago, and your voice, dude...Oh my God! It's so off the hook.

Geoff - Oh, thank you.

Buzz - Thank you! Oh, it's incredible - incredible. I wanted to talk first of all about your new album of covers, Take Cover. How did that come about? How did you guys decide to do an album of covers? I know it's an homage, but how did you all agree on it?

Geoff - Well, it really wasn't something we thought about much. We were at sound check one day doing what we do, and we play a lot of cover songs at sound check - kind of as a fun exercise - kind of to alleviate the boredom of touring, you know.

Buzz - Sure.

Geoff - Kenny from our record company was there and after the sound check he said, "Wow, I didn't realize you guys knew all of those cover songs. If you record those, we'll put a record out. What do you think?" And we were getting ready to do some studio work in Seattle - I think the next week when we were home - and we all thought, Wow, that would be kind of a fun little project to do. So we all just picked a couple of our favorite songs and recorded them.

Buzz - That's a great idea. Who picked "Heaven on their Minds" from Jesus Christ Superstar?

Geoff - That was Mike Stone, our guitar player.

Buzz - I'll tell you, dude, Ted Neeley's voice, which is like yours - operatic - like rock opera - it's absolutely 110% still [at 63 years old], so you have plenty of time to enjoy your voice.

Geoff - (Laughs)

Buzz - You guys have very similar ranges in their dynamic and their power and you have the ability to be dramatic and theatrical with your voice, and at the same time be fully technically, like on par with an opera singer.

Geoff - Well, you know, as I grew up, I wanted to be an opera singer.

Buzz - Did you really? Was that your aspiration as a kid? Was it your mother or aunt who was an opera singer?

Geoff - My aunt Cecilia was an opera singer and was in the Cincinnati Opera for years. The thing I like about opera though is the discipline in the singing. What I have a real problem with is a lot of the music I really don't care for.

Buzz - Right.

Geoff - Probably because I'm a songwriter I think in terms of songwriting and a lot of the songs - I guess you'd call them - from operas aren't really songs in the modern sense. They're from a different time period when there were different ideas on what constituted a song. A lot of the melody choices were kind of difficult to wrap your head around. I think, at least for a modern guy like me. I think that writing my own stuff is more of a thing that I'm interested in, you know?

Buzz - Sure, it's much more fulfilling, too, because you get to express yourself. Every time you perform you get to express your own thoughts.

Geoff - Right.

Buzz - And also in opera, obviously, sometimes you're singing in a different language and it's not the same kind of emotional outlet if your translating in your head what you're singing all the time. Do you know what I'm saying? If it's not your original language, like Italian or something.

Geoff - It's difficult to latch onto the emotion of the words if it's not your own language. Right.

Buzz - Exactly. Right. So that's so neat! So, you've got "Heaven on their Minds" and I noticed you have a Police song on there - "Synchronicity".

Geoff - Uh, huh.

Buzz - That's cool. Who picked that one?

Geoff - Uhhhh, that was Scott, our drummer.

Buzz - Oh, that's neat. How's your take on that? Is it totally different? I haven't heard it yet.

Geoff - Well, it's a lot more guitar attentive. The Police were kind of limited in their guitar work, of course, being a single guitar band. The guys took the liberty of rearranging the song, you know, with the strength of two guitars.

Buzz - Right, right.

Geoff - There's a lot of interesting stuff going on, but I think it's a real interesting rendition.

Buzz - Oh, cool. I can't wait to hear it. I interviewed Sting's guitarist, Dominic Miller, a couple years ago. He's really, really talented. He does a lot of writing and stuff. And I met Sting briefly, and your songwriting kind of reminds me of his in way because it seems like you have those themes that keep coming up. It's like an ongoing story, like an epic story that you're living and you're expressing and it keeps going on. It doesn't end and start on a whole new note like a little pop song or something. It's really got that epic storytelling thing to it. I wanted to ask you - Mindcrime II - that took years to produce. Is that correct?

Geoff - Well, yeah. We kind of started working on it years ago and kind of put it away, then come back to it, then put it away, and finally finished it up and released it in 2006 I think it was.

Buzz - Yeah, I'm trying to wrap my mind around what that story means, with Mary and everything. Pretend like you're talking to someone who doesn't know the story. What is that theme about? Is that like classic good and evil - the battle between good and evil?

Geoff - It sort of really is. It's the story of a young man growing up and he inadvertently becomes a terrorist and falls in love with a woman who ends up getting murdered. And he goes on an all out revenge to find the killer of Mary - the person he loves. He kind of learns a lot about himself along the way, and really, in some ways, becomes a stronger person, and in other ways completely gives up and gives in to his weaknesses, which are - you know he grew up in poverty and never really learned to take responsibility for his own actions - he kind of adopted kind of a welfare mentality - that life owes him something. So that's kind of it in a nutshell.

Buzz - And Mindcrime II continues that story?

Geoff - Mindcrime II is the conclusion of that story where he gets released from prison and goes on his manhunt to find Dr. X, who is the killer. He kind of struggles with the whole murder aspect because he's not a murderer by nature, and he has to almost make himself kill the man. It's kind of an interesting struggle that he goes through.

Buzz - And does he kill Dr. X?

Geoff - Yes, he does.

Buzz - Oooh, all right. Good job. Revenge is sweet. Your audience is so loyal and they range from parents to their kids. It's like a multi-generational audience. You just did a group tour. How are you finding audiences today responding to it - to the band?

Geoff - Usually when people discover Queensryche they are a bit intoxicated with the amount of work we have out. We have 10 or 11 albums and they're all very different from each other. It's kind of like being a starving person and being invited to a Las Vegas buffet.

Buzz - That's such a good analogy (laughs). I like "intoxicated" to. That's a good word.

Geoff - You have all these different choices. We, as musicians in the band, have very broad musical taste that I think shows in our records.

Buzz - Absolutely.

Geoff - We've always sort of retained an essence of a sound of something we've developed. But we really experiment a lot with our sound and albums and make each record very different from the last.

Buzz - Right. That's so awesome. Now how do you compose at home? What, do you have a little studio set up? Do you get ideas in the middle of the night?

Geoff - Yep. All of us in the band have our own studio set ups at home and we compose there and we also have a main studio that's at our bassist Eddie's house. We meet up there a few times a week and record things and rehearse.

Buzz - That's awesome. So you all live near each other.

Geoff - We actually all live within a few miles from each other.

Buzz - Awesome. That's so neat. How did that happen?

Geoff - I don't know (laughs). We are all very close and we kind of grew up together. Been in a band just out of high school and have been doing it ever since. And we have a pretty deep connection and friendship, so we spend a lot of time together. It kind of makes sense. All our kids have grown up together and our wives are friends and the band is friends. We meet up once a week and go golfing.



Buzz - Aww, that's so nice.

Geoff - Our live all revolve around each other, you know?

Buzz - Right. That's so groovy. Now you have four daughters, is that correct?

Geoff - Five daughters.

Buzz - Five! I missed one. Holy moley! How old are they?

Geoff - Well, my youngest is 10 and my oldest is 23.

Buzz - Holy moley! You do not look old enough to have a 23- year-old, dude.

Geoff - (Laughs).

Buzz - Music is keeping you very, very young. Is it hard keeping up with your creativity, and touring, and having five kids?

Geoff - I'm just used to it, I guess - in terms of difficulty.

Buzz - Are you going to try for a boy? Or are you done now?

Geoff - (laughs). No, I'm done now.

Buzz - That's so neat. Do you have any animals in the house?

Geoff - Oh yeah, we have a menagerie - five dogs...

Buzz - Awesome! I love dogs.

Geoff - ...cats, a bunch of parakeets, and we have a giant tropical parrot called a Macaw, fish...You name it. We have kids so I guess you get animals as well.

Buzz - What kind of dogs do you have? What do you like?

Geoff - Well, we have a Miniature Poodle, we have a Pug, and we have a wiener dog - a miniature wiener dog. We have a Boston terrier and a Dalmatian.

Buzz - Oh my God! You have like a little zoo there. How cute! How fun! It must be really cool to come home to.

Geoff - It is. It's a menagerie - a zoo.

Buzz - Do you play several different instruments?

Geoff - Yeah, I play keyboards and saxophone and a little guitar, if I have to.

Buzz - Boy, you're a good sax player. My dad played tenor sax. I love that instrument. When did you learn that? When you were a kid?

Geoff - No. Actually, I learned it as an adult. I played in the school orchestra - I played the trumpet. But I just love the instrument and went and bought a sax one day and decided I was going to learn how to play it and just started practicing. It's like all instruments - you just have to play them, you know - pick them up and play them. Some things you play better than others.

Buzz - So, you learned by ear?

Geoff - Yeah, I learned by ear and I read music as well. I don't use the reading - the musical stuff - as much as I do the playing by ear these days. But, it's all music - it's all good.

Buzz - You know, I love your political stuff. I think it's so ballsy. I love the signs you have about Bush on stage. I'd like to bring this question up because both my brother and father died in 2005 from a disease called Ataxia. It's a brain atrophy that falls in the muscular dystrophies. It's a disease that could have been treated with stem cells. What do you think about Bush constantly vetoing all the stem cell research bills?

Geoff - Well, I'd like to veto Bush.

Buzz - (Laughs) Exactly! How can we do that (laughs)?

Geoff - Well, I think that everybody in the country is really ready for a change and I can't wait for this year's election to see what happens.

Buzz - Right! Anybody that you're going for?

Geoff - Oh, I'm going for Hilary.

Buzz - All right! Good for you. I think it's great that you come out with your political stuff and make it part of your music and part of your stage presence. A lot of celebrities are not willing to go out on a limb and do that and it's so important. It makes your music important.

Geoff - Yeah, I don't quite understand people who are afraid to talk about their beliefs. I think that people who are afraid are simply afraid of losing record sales. I think it's a bit of a cop out, really. Or maybe they just don't have an opinion. A lot of times it's just like that.

Buzz - Right. They're afraid of engendering some kind of bad reaction that will cause their record company to freak out, which is kind of a lame cop out, too. What are some of your personal causes? What kind of things are you pissed off about that Bush has done? What do you think about the war?

Geoff - Well, I made my points, I think pretty in detail about my war beliefs about this particular one way back when we were talking about going to war. I'm honestly so done with politics, I'm just not even interested in it. I'm more into social issues, kind of more an anthropological approach where you just kind of monitor and observe how human nature works and what people are doing and the waves of change that happens within in a culture. I like that kind of stuff. Politics just seems like a never-ending series of compromises that tend to get really diluted by laws and legislation.

Buzz - Absolutely. And I think that for a person who wants to affect social change, there's no more powerful way to do it than the way you are doing it, which is through music and performance and theatre, because there, you're actually directly altering the minds of the populous. You're going right into their hearts and you're impressing upon them new ideas...

Geoff - Absolutely.

Buzz - ...through a live forum. It's like a church, in a sense, and you're the priest, but you're not preaching, you're doing something better than preaching - You're actually emoting and creating the atmosphere them to hold in their minds. Really great work. I can't wait to see your show here at the House of Blues on February 1st and 2nd, here in Chicago.

Geoff - I like the House of Blues. It's a great venue and I love the city. Chicago is one of my favorite cities to be in.

Buzz - Oh, great. What are the audiences like in Chicago for you?

Geoff - They're very enthusiastic, which is nice. It's much better to have an audience with you and participating.

Buzz - Yeah, they know every word, right?

Geoff - Yeah, and they give of themselves. They're there for the experience. They're just not spectators.

Buzz - Do you find that on the coasts - like New York and L.A. - that they're more spectators and a little more judgmental?

Geoff - No, no. Not at all. I don't necessarily equate the judgment aspect with not participating. It seems more of a regional habit. A lot of places you go to - I'm not going to say the Midwest because Chicago's Midwest - but like, Ohio, parts of Michigan, you know...Places...I can't even really generalize, but a lot of places, including the ones I just mentioned are audiences that seem to be watching television. And they just sit there...

Buzz - (Laughs) Veg out...

Geoff - ...Eating snack food, having something to drink, and they're not really part of it. I call them spectator audiences.

Buzz - What do you do when you come up against a really sleepy crowd? What do you do? Do you just pull it out?

Geoff - Well, it's kind of a give and take thing. As a performer, you have a certain level of performance that you play at. When you have a participating audience, they give you energy. They feed you part of themselves and you perform at a level higher than you normally perform at. You start doing things that normally you don't do, or can't do. It's really a wonderful feeling and that, of course, inspires the audience even more so they give you more. It's really an energy exchange. But when you have these audiences that just sort of watch as spectators, they don't give you anything. So, you perform at your usual level. In a sense, they're defeating their own entertainment, because they're not getting anything incredibly special, they're just getting your standard.

Buzz - Yeah, it's true. Some audiences don't realize that unless they have some performing ability themselves or even in community theatre you realize that the energy coming from beyond the fourth wall in the audience is essential. I mean, that's why you're there. Like you said, if it's dead, they're just getting your walk through.

Geoff - Yeah, exactly.

Buzz - When you travel - are any of your daughters into music? Do they come with you or perform with you?

Geoff - My little one - my ten year old - seems to be very interested in it. I think she may follow in her dad's footsteps. I think she's very talented. She has a wonderful voice.

Buzz - Wow! Well, if anything like yours, it's got to be dynamite.