Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice, spoke to Queensrÿche frontman Todd La Torre about the band’s new album, The Verdict, and the whereabouts of drummer Scott Rockenfield.

About Rockenfield: "I'm gonna have to give you a back story.  Scott had a baby February of 2017 everyone's happy for him and he wanted to take paternity leave and we totally supported that. Then after about  six months we're kind of saying hey how's it going hope everything's well, when do you think that you might be coming back?  We never really got a definitive answer.  So at some point management told us that he wanted to take the rest of the year off and then it was like okay well what about  January of 2018? And I was told from management that you know there was no confirmation on that yet.  So Casey has been filling in with us the whole time which was only supposed to be a very temporary thing. Honestly dude  I don't know anything beyond that I mean  I don't talk to Scott I haven't talked to him in over a year and a half so I don't know what he's doing I don't know what he's up to I don't know if he wants to come back as he never wants to do it again. I have no idea and he hasn't made any of that known to my knowledge to any of us and so when people ask is he is he coming back at the end event have no idea. 

“We just we don't know anything and we can't give an answer so let me get back to more of your point so that's kind of where it is right now. It's also important that you know people know that I when I joined this band and we were writing songs for the even the first record some of the guys would send me some songs and  I would call Scott and say ‘hey you know they sent me some tunes to put drums on is this ok?  I don't want to step on your toes and or anything he said no no no it's totally fine whatever keeps the process moving forward I was like okay cool’. So I would I ended up doing a lot of drumming on demos just to keep the songwriting going and shape the songs and I did that on Condition Human. So fast forward to this record and Scott is basically off the grid family mode and he wasn't involved in the writing process at all. So of course I did all the drums on all these songs and when it came time to record  we were hopeful that he would at least do the record like okay you weren't part of the writing but here's the songs and you know the door has always been open. But we weren't getting confirmation about anything and so it reached a certain point where it was a few weeks before we had to enter the studio that was booked and flights were booked and there was still no confirmation. So finally you know in a nutshell he basically gave the band his blessing to record without him."

The Verdict was produced, mixed, and mastered by Zeuss (Rob Zombie, Iced Earth, Hatebreed) at Uberbeatz in Lynwood, WA, Planet-Z in Wilbraham, MA and Watershed Studio in Seattle, WA.

2CD edition tracklisting:

Disc 1
"Blood Of The Levant"
"Man The Machine"
"Light-Years"
"Inside Out "
"Propaganda Fashion"
"Dark Reverie"
"Bent"
"Inner Unrest"
"Launder The Conscience"
"Portrait"

Disc 2
"I Dream In Infrared" (Acoustic)
"Open Road" (Acoustic)
"46° North"
"Mercury Rising"
"Espiritu Muerto"
"Queen Of The Reich" (live) (Live 2012)
"En Force" (live) (Live 2012)
"Prophecy" (live) (Live 2012)
"Eyes Of A Stranger" (Live 2012)

"Man The Machine" lyric video:

Queensrÿche will hit the road in March for their headline tour featuring supporting slots from Fates Warning, with The Cringe joining both bands on select dates. The tour will kick off on March 2nd in Orlando, making stops in major markets such as New York, Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and will wrap on April 3rd in Seattle.

Tour dates:

March
2 - Orlando, FL - The Plaza Live
3 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL - Culture Room
5 - Atlanta, GA - Masquerade
7 - Baltimore - Sound Stage*
8 - Uncasville, CT - Mohegan Sun^
9 - New York, NY - Irving Plaza*
10 - Worcester, MA - Palladium*
12 - Cincinnati, OH - Bogarts
13 - Detroit, MI - Diesel
14 - Chicago, IL - Concord
15 - Milwaukee, WI - The Rave
16 - Medina, MN - Medina Entertainment Center
17 - Davenport, IA - Rhythm City Casino Resort^
20 - Dallas, TX - House of Blues
21 - Houston, TX - House of Blues
22 - San Antonio, TX - Aztec
23 - Albuquerque, NM - El Rey
26 - Tempe, AZ - The Marquee
27 - San Diego - Observatory
28 - Los Angeles, CA- Fonda
29 - San Francisco, CA - Slim's
30 - Sacramento, CA - Ace of Spades

April
2 - Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom
3 - Seattle, WA - Neptune

* with support from The Cringe
^ Queensrÿche only

(Photo - Grizzlee Martin)