QUEENSRŸCHE drummer Scott Rockenfield recently spoke with Full Throttle Rock Magazine about the band's comeback with singer Todd La Torre in place of Geoff Tate. An excerpt from the interview is available below:

RM: Congratulations on the release of the new album Queensrÿche, you must be very proud of the final result.

SR: "To be honest we are. I mean it has been such a great year for us, we have got Todd (La Torre) singing in the band now with us and ever since he got in with us our energy has changed. We are really excited about making music and when we started making this new record a year ago, just after we met Todd and the creativity and our chemistry together was just on fire and we really found something special together. We made a record we really feel great about, I think this record is a really great representation of what we feel that Queensrÿche is really great at doing. We have wanted to make this record for a long time, and for whatever reason we had a lot of struggles that kept us from doing that, but we have done that now and I think this record is a great representation of what we feel like we want to be. The great thing is, everybody seems to be giving us that same feedback, they really like the record, the media has been great for us and our fans have been really great for us, so we are pretty proud and thanks for asking that."

RM: Some of your previous albums in recent years have been a little hit or miss with some quarters of your fan base and the media, this record has been seen by many fans and critics as a return to form for the band, was there a conscience effort to get back to basics on this album or was this just the natural progression of how the album turned out?

SR: "Well you know that is a great question too, because you kind of hit it, I think right on the mark with what you just commented on, what kind of happened that made this record so special actually started a year ago. So when we got Todd in the band and we were just working on our live show, right when he joined with us we wanted to go out and play music together and that is kind of the short story to it all. But that is really how it happened, we got to know Todd in a short amount of time and we wanted to play some music together. So we learned all these great songs from our past catalogue, all this stuff we had not played in a long time like 'Queen Of The Reich', one of the first songs we ever did that our fans love, that is one of the songs we play in the show and we have been playing. You know, we play a lot of great stuff off The Warning record that we have not done in thirty years, that type of stuff. So in doing that and playing those songs we got to remember what it was like to make that material, why we were so excited back then, why our chemistry was so darn cool and we had such a great time. And I think just playing all those songs for the last year just being a part of that while we were making the new songs, I think it injected that energy and that vibe into the new songs. And we kind of feel that we brought Queensrÿche back to some of those eras that I think our fans as well, really want from us and maybe that is why everybody feels so great about the record because they feel like there is a part of our history in this new record."

Click here for the complete interview.

In live news, catch Queensrÿche at the following shows:

August

2 - Sturgis Buffalo Chip - Sturgis, SD
22 - Dow Event Center - Saginaw, MI
23 - Freedom Hill Amphitheatre - Sterling Heights, MI
24 - Rock Jam - Grand Junction, CO

October

12 - O2 Academy Islington - London, United Kingdom
16 - The Ritz - Manchester, United Kingdom
17 - Rock City - Nottingham, United Kingdom
18 - The Button Factory - Dublin, Ireland
26 - Bürgerhaus Quadrath-Ichendorf - Bergheim, Germany
27 - Rockfabrik - Ludwigsburg, Germany
29 - Moonwalker - Aarburg, Switzerland
30 - Stadthalle Langen - Hessen, Germany
31 - Brielpoort - Deinze, Belgium

November

1 - Effenaar - Eindhoven, Netherlands

Multi-camera footage of the band performing their new song 'Where Dreams Go To Die' during their album release party in Seattle, WA on June 26th can be viewed below;