Music Street Journal correspondent Greg Olma recently caught up with QUEENSRŸCHE frontman Geoff Tate. The following is an excerpt from the interview:

MSJ: I saw you on the HEAVEN AND HELL tour. How did you enjoy doing the tour?

Tate: "It was great. It was really a treat to play on the same bill with those bands; two bands that were very inspirational to us when we were first starting out. The albums that BLACK SABBATH did with Ronnie were incredibly influential to us. In fact, songs we referenced when we were talking about writing our own material. In fact, Queensryche was originally called THE MOB, inspired by the Mob Rules album. And then later, Ronnie James Dio invited us on our first ever tour as an opening act and kind of gave us our start in the touring world. And Alice (Cooper) was actually the first rock show I ever saw. I saw the Billion Dollar Babies tour when I was a kid. A lot of memories, you know, attached to what it is that those guys do. And really a treat to watch them play every night and see the years of experience in playing music together. Just seeing it from a different perspective. You know, especially Tony Iommi; really underrated guitar player. [He] just does some incredible stuff. And the way he and Geezer Butler play together, the way they bend notes together, in sort of, I don’t think they think about it anymore. They have a thing they do that’s really special."

MSJ: You’re coming back to Chicago in February. What can we expect on the next tour since it is not "An Evening With…” like the last few times you came to Chicago?

Tate: "Well, we have something kind of special in mind for this. We have Don Dokken, who’s an old friend, who’s going to be opening for us solo; playing an acoustic set. Then we’re playing kind of a selection of all our records plus some of the songs that we recorded on the covers album."

Go to this location for the complete interview.