Queensrÿche guitarist Michael Wilton has revealed that a Black Sabbath/Van Halen concert convinced him to give up a promising career as a baseball player and focus on music.

Speaking on the White Line Fever podcast, Wilton spoke of touring Europe with a representative baseball side when he was in school and of being torn between the two pursuits.

“Before I became a musician, I was a jock,” says Wilton. “I played baseball, I played football, I did all that stuff in school. I was actually pretty good. I played second base and I played third base. I had quick hands and good eyes.”

But one fateful day, Wilton attended an event that changed his life. “It happened when I was in high school and I went to the Black Sabbath concert – I think it was the Never Say Die Tour, where Van Halen opened for them. I had never seen them live. They opened with a song called “On Fire” and that moment – I think I was a bit hazed at that concert too but it just amplified the surroundings… when that song started and I saw him on stage, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”

“That was the decisive moment because I thought ‘this baseball thing, it’s all so political, it’s all who knows who. I’m going to be a musician, I’m going to have my freedom’. Ha. It’s more political, it’s more who you know in the music industry than it probably is in the baseball industry.”

Having just completed their year-long Condition Human world tour, Queensrÿche have released a new music video for their song "Bulletproof".

Speaking about the story behind the track as well as the new video, vocalist Todd La Torre comments: “’Bulletproof’ is a journey through a relationship gone bad, however painful the relationship is you still find a way to persevere. We elected to present the song in a live setting as a sharp contrast to the videos we've done for the Condition Human album to help bring this chapter to a close and start the next journey."

The band recently released a visceral music video for their song "Hellfire", which spotlights the Malaysian passenger flight crisis in 2014.

Speaking about the influence and subject matter for the video, Todd La Torre stated: “’Hellfire' is a depiction primarily based on the tragic events surrounding the Malaysian airline flight MH17. Despite the storyline's foundation, the lyrical and visual narrative transcends into other pertinent, global subject matters. Civil unrest, guerrilla warfare, media propaganda, and social inequalities are just some examples of the multifaceted issues marbled throughout “Hellfire”. A poignant illustration of an unfortunate yet timeless reality."