Geoff Tate and the rest of the merry men of QUEENSRŸCHE stopped in Montreal on November 12th as part of their current Operation: Mindcrime I & II tour. With a couple of full length interviews already under our belts this year, this was the perfect opportunity for a quick pre-show chat and update.

Mitch Lafon: How’s the tour going and is it exciting to do a presentation of both albums?

Geoff Tate: “Yeah! It’s very challenging and it was a very challenging show to construct and put together, but the tour is going great. It’s doing well and people seem to like it. There’s nothing else like it out there – it’s presented as a rock opera with actors joining us onstage and there’s film screens and sets.”

ML: How is that for you as a singer? Does it get distracting?

GT: “There’s quite a lot to remember. You have to be at certain places at certain times, so you have to be more disciplined.”

ML: Does it take away the spontaneity?

GT: “Well, it’s different every night because – there’s different stages so we can’t always set the whole show up. So, that changes things and makes you ad lib parts and think of a different way to do it – so there’s a lot of spontaneity in that respect, but musically there’s no spontaneity at all. It’s all just really exact.”

ML: Is that comforting?

GT: “Yeah, it’s comforting. It’s fun. It’s different for us, but it’s not the way we’ll always present ourselves. It’s an interesting way to do it for this project because it’s so unique.”

ML: Is this a one-time deal or would you do it again in say five years?

GT: “I’d like to get away from it for a while simply because it’s exhausting playing that character. He’s such a messed up guy. He’s so full of hate and anger and I’m not that angry all the time (laughs). It’s hard to muster that up every night. I’d like to do a set of very mellow acoustic songs to balance it out.”

ML: I guess the ‘unplugged’ tour is next.

GT: “That’s not going to happen for awhile. It’s too bad that you can’t change the tour around a lot - in one city present it one way and in the next city do a completely different show altogether, but you can’t do it that way.”

ML: The fans over the years had this anticipation for the Mindcrime II album – now that they got it – where do you go from here? What’s next?

GT: “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead. I’m thinking Christmas and taking a break and then we’ll see what happens after that.”

ML: You’re also working on your second solo album. Is it done?

GT: “I’ve been working on that for awhile.”

ML: What’s it like? The first one was a little off-the-wall...

GT: “Well, the first one was really focusing on different genres of music that I’ve always liked and were influential to me, so I wrote songs in that vain and picked writing partners to work with that didn’t come from a rock background. They came from a jazz, R&B; and classical backgrounds and that was a really fun experiment. It was a very satisfying record to me, but the new solo record is quite a bit different. I don’t know how to describe it yet, but it’s very different from the first one.”

ML: When will it come out?

GT: “I don’t know... as soon as I finish it?”

ML: So, there’s no deadline or pressure to finish it....

GT: “No. Queensrÿche has never been one of those bands that people pressure. We just do things at our pace and when it feels right... We’re not very calculated.”

ML: Why the need to make a solo album?

GT: “Well, Queensrÿche has always been a band that can try a number of different things, but we are limited by the ability of our record company to sell what we do. We have to appeal to a certain genre and making a solo record is an escape from that. It’s doing whatever you want musically. Although, I don’t like to think of myself with Queensrÿche as being pigeon-holed to do a certain thing, but in a sense we all are once you have a successful band and you’re making music successfully and living off that.”

ML: There are expectations...

GT: “Yeah, there are expectations and you can’t push it too far or people will freak out.”

ML: That goes back to my earlier question of what’s next because with Tribe and stuff – you went out on the edge and fans might have thought that’s too far on the edge, but they seem to have brought you back with Mindcrime II. So, where do you want to go? Back on the edge or...

GT: “I have no idea.”

ML: Do you have a timeline in mind – like we want to start writing in the summer and have an album out by fall or it is a case of when it happens it happens?

GT: “Yeah, it usually is. When we get done with a tour we go our separate ways and sometimes it’s a month that goes by, sometimes it’s two and sometimes it’s two years (laughs) before something starts happening. So, I don’t know what’s going on yet.”

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