At that point, I was just thinking about doing rock photography. Writing hadn’t even entered my mind. But I put Queensryche into rotation between Iron Maiden with Di’Anno singing and Anthrax’s Fistful of Metal. And as each new release came out--The Warning, Rage For Order—I followed the band.

A few years later, I had already moved to NYC and begun to make contacts. I had photographed a few shows, but ended up having my equipment stolen by my roommate’s crackhead brother. (Hell, I didn’t even know what crack was back then! I was so naive!)

So, it was with a heavy heart that I called my editor over at Metal Mania/Rock Scene to let her know that I couldn’t produce any of the photos I had shot for her. Off the cuff, she asked me if I could write. Now, I had written some pretty stellar term papers in my day, and read tons of rock mags, but never really tried my hand at anything more than transcribing interviews for the editor of Reflex. That’s when she told me that she couldn’t make an interview that day, and asked me if I’d do it for her.

Sheepishly, I asked who it was. When she said Queensryche, it was like the sun peaking out from behind the clouds, as I not only knew about the band, but was quite familiar with the material. So, I borrowed a tape recorder and a couple tokens from the Reflex editor and hotfooted it over to the EMI/Capitol offices here in Manhattan to interview Geoff Tate without even having heard their newest release (at the time), which was a little thing they had titled Operation: Mindcrime. I jumped right in the deep end, and depending on your viewpoint, the rest is history or hell….

So here it is, 17 years later, they are taking the Operation: Mindcrime show on the road and getting ready to do part 2, and I get the chance to come full circle by getting on the phone with Geoff.

CHRISTINE NATANAEL: Good morning, Geoff!

GT: Hi Christine.

CN: How are you?

GT: I’m doing good, how are you?

CN: Very good. So it’s been awhile since I’ve spoken to you. You’ve got your DVD out now, so I wanted to know, out of all those shows you did with Dream Theater, had you decided to film it before you did the tour?

CN: Why?

GT: I don’t know, there were just so many issues to figure out, you know? It was questionable as to whether the tour was actually going to take off, because of the technology issues. We didn’t want to do the shows unless we could play together, and having, you know, all those--when we had ten musicians on stage playing together, it was just really a challenge for both of our, the bands’, technical camps, putting it all together, making it all happen. You know, this giant drum kit, you know, not just a drum kit, or not two regular drum kits, but a giant drum kit.

CN: Yeah, Mike Portnoy’s got a pretty big one.

GT: Yeah, so it was a technological nightmare, putting it all together. Honestly, there were so many details we had to figure out, that that’s not one of the things that got by us, we had planned on it. It had to do with our relationship, we didn’t know those guys; we didn’t know how it was going to be. You know, it seemed kind of presumptuous to go, “Oh, you know, we’d like to film all this, too.” (Laughs)

CN: I guess they didn’t mind, huh?

GT: No, it turned out that it worked out fine. The bands got along great, they did great shows, we had great memories from the tour, and it was fun. It was really fun playing with those guys, they’re great musicians.

CN: That’s good. I actually have some pretty stellar photos of you, especially of you and James singing together…

GT: Oh, good.

CN: You know, I’m sorry to tell you my reviewer didn’t care for your record that much. I thought it was absolutely great, but I’ve been a Queensryche fan since day one.

GT: Well, you either love ‘em or you hate ‘em.

CN: Yeah, I think it’s just that he’s much younger, and he doesn’t understand the style.

GT: Oh, if he is younger, he wouldn’t get it at all…lyrically, musically, it’s over his head.

CN: Yeah, well, even when Queensryche came out initially, it was over most peoples’ heads, so you know, now that we’ve progressed and matured, and obviously we’re all older…

GT: Yes. So it doesn’t do us much good to backpedal.

CN: This is true. I read a lot about your motorcycle trip that inspired a lot of the lyrics.

GT: Uh-huh.

CN: How long have you had that bike?

GT: Well, I’ve kind of grown up with bikes, so I’ve had bikes for periods of time, and not had them, and gotten another one, and put it away. (Laughs) It’s kind of one of those things you have a relationship with, like sailboats, or musical instruments. You’ll find one that you really love, use it a lot, and then, you know, you kind of either outgrow it or find something you like differently, make it so it’s different, it handles better, so you put it away.

CN: Yeah, I’ve always been a gearhead chick myself.

GT: Have you?

CN: Yeah.

GT: Are you still a musician?

CN: Yes, I still sing, even if only in my living room.

GT: Oh, cool.

CN: As a matter of fact, you were the one who spurned me on to sing better…

GT: Oh, good.

CN: …in trying to reach your vocal heights, because as a young girl, my voice changed, which is not too common in females. I went from a soprano to, like, a contralto, and just trying to keep up with you on those early Queensryche records was, you know, amazing.

GT: It’s a workout.

CN: Yeah, definitely. How did you start singing in that style? I know that you studied voice, obviously.

GT: Well I’ll tell you, it was kind of a roundabout path, which is kind of the story of my life. I was playing with a band, and I kept losing my voice, and somebody says “Look, maybe you should try a voice teacher, just go to get some advice on what to do.” So I acted out, I found this guy named David Kyle, who is a very well-respected voice coach in Seattle, so I went to see him, and as it turns out, he’s one of the premier voice teachers in the world, for like 40 years. So anyway, I started studying with him, and everything changed for me, you know. He really had me focus on what my issue was, really worked on boosting my confidence level. By the time I had finished with him, I was well on my way to really discovering my voice for the first time, after I’d been singing for quite a long time, you know. He really helped me out, really started me taking that direction, and experimenting with what I wanted to do, so finally I got to the point where I just got to thinking about singing, and just did it. And I think that’d kind of the key to anything in your life, there is a period of time when you’re thinking a lot about stuff, a certain thing you want to do, or something you’d like to get, or something you’d like to accomplish, and then there’s the point when you just do it, where you stop thinking and it just becomes what it is you do.

GT: Um, certain times, yeah. It’s just been a matter of age and voice changing. I’ll start in one area, and train it to go in the other areas, and by the time you’re my age, I’m 45, your voice gets lower and lower and lower, and you start being able to explore those deep tones that you never did get in your 20s and 30s.

CN: Yeah, because I noticed on the new material that you weren’t doing those higher pitches anymore.

CN: Yeah. Also, there are things that can be conveyed better with a lower note.

GT: Oh yeah. You know what, it’s funny, I don’t even think about that. I don’t even think about the gymnastics of singing, or what note to hit or anything like that, I just go with the vibe of the music or what the message is I’m trying to convey. But when I was a young kid, I was always trying to show off, and hit the highest note, and hold it the longest. And then, I don’t know, I guess maybe maturity or a different kind of mind, you stop thinking about that and get more involved in what the song is about.

CN: It’s true, it’s very true. Plus the style of music has changed, you know, the whole metal thing with the drop tunings and whatever, everything’s lower now.

GT: Yeah that’s true.

CN: I listen to what we called “metal” in our day, which is now power rock or classic rock, and it’s so different, everyone was singing those falsettos.

GT: I think with the drop tunings, it’s really opened up the industry to a lot of people that couldn’t sing like we did, that couldn’t hit those notes, that couldn’t stay in that vein. It opened up the area to a lot of other singers, which is great. The more the merrier, I think the more diversity you have, the better. But for my ear, though, I really despise the drop tunings. I don’t know, something about the older style just rings true to me, to my sense of hearing and my sense of calm. I find it much more pleasing to listen to the way instruments were tuned then.

CN: Yeah, I always enjoyed your minor keys as well. Something is very--I have the affinity for those minor chords, A minor especially is a good one, and D minor. I always enjoyed in your earlier work the way that it would change, and the way that it conveyed the sense of drama by using that style. So recently I was looking at your artwork online, the rejected artwork for the Tribe album. Who was it that came up with the cover you have now?

GT: The artwork?

CN: Yeah.

GT: I guess I’m not sure what you’re referring to. The rejected artwork, what’s that?

CN: On your web site, it’s got images that were supposedly submitted to you for the cover of the Tribe album. One was a motorcycle with a license plate that said Tribe.

GT: …(Silence)

CN: Does this ring a bell?

GT: I remember seeing that, something like that.

CN: They were somewhat ‘70s cartoonish, sort of. You know, views of the engine of the motorcycle or whatever, and one was a road sign with the tri-ryche on it, instead of like Route 66 it had the tri-ryche.

GT: Okay. I don’t remember a lot of that, so I don’t know, but who came up with the one that we used?

CN: Yeah.

GT: It was Rory Berger, who worked on, I think, our last 3 album covers. He came in for that one-- something that was really simplistic and right to the point.

CN: Yes, because it captured so many things, in that it had that Native American vibe to it, which went with the album title Tribe, the colors were good, not like your usual green or red or whatever you usually use, it was different for you, so I was curious about it.

GT: We kind of had an interesting experience when he drew that. He had been sitting outside in the morning sun, and kind of sitting on a chair on his patio, and was just sort of relaxing, not thinking about anything. And all of a sudden, he had his sketch pad sitting by him and a piece of chalk, and he just had this feeling like he should get up and draw something. And he grabbed whatever, the first thing that he saw was that lump of chalk. He went over to a big rock that was sitting in his yard, and he just drew that symbol, and then he looked at it, and went “Okay, cool”, and walked away from it. Then he came back awhile later and looked at it again, and went “You know, I should take a picture of that.” So he went and got his digital camera, and took a couple of photos of it at different angles, and showed it to me a few days later. He said “Look at this, what do you think of this?” and [I said] “Oh great, that’s great, that’ll work perfect!” So there it was.

CN: Sometimes it’s simplicity that rings true.

GT: Mmm-hmm, absolutely.

CN: It goes back to what you were saying about singing, if you think about it too much...

GT: Yeah, it’s kind of like that with anything. I think there’s probably a certain learning curve that you need to work on to a point, where you need to practice your pathology, your methodology and your physical side of things, and then there comes a point where you just gotta get away from that thinking about it so much and just do it. It’s like a golf swing. The more you think about a golf swing, the worse you play.

CN: (Laughs) That’s so true.

GT: You have to get up there and practice enough on the swing to make it part of your body, it’s challenging your body memory, and after that you’re on the way, letting it go, not thinking about it or worrying too much about it.

CN: It’s true. So Pamela [Moore, the voice of Sister Mary] is going to be joining you on tour this year.

GT: Yeah, it’s going to be fun.

CN: Yes, I think it will be great fun. You know, I still have one of her old Radar demos.

GT: Oh, really?

CN: Yeah, from when she was out here in New York--a long time ago--right about the same time that you came out with Operation: Mindcrime. So it’s good, I’m sure a lot of the younger crowd has never heard her, seen her outside of your records.

GT: Yeah, probably not.

CN: It’ll be exciting for them. Are you going to film any of the stuff with her?

GT: Oh, I don’t know. Probably, because we film every night now.

CN: That makes sense, a document at this point.

GT: Yeah, because you never know when you might need it, or need a section of it, or whatever.

CN: Yeah, and not to mention the technology is so different now, it’s a lot easier, with the digital stuff.

GT: It’s all become so small and compact. I mean, when we first starting bringing film into our shows, we were using the old projection cameras, you know, they were like 6 ft tall by 6 ft wide, required their own case, and they were very delicate, and you had to have like 2 hours to tune up before each show.

GT: Now it’s all on DVD, and on digital images that you can shift and rotate, and manipulate an hour before the show.

CN: I know, it’s great. Are you going to have the big screens this time?

GT: Uh-huh.

CN: I think everyone has those now, don’t they, once they hit a certain point.

GT: Well, it’s definitely very helpful.

GT: Mmhm. Yeah, it definitely helps fill out the story and take the audience into a different place.

CN: When you did that, it reminded me a lot of Queen when they did Bohemian Rhapsody, because that record was done in the studio using tricks that they just couldn’t duplicate on stage at the time. So they would just put a little reel-to-reel tape player in the middle of the stage, and let it play during the operatic part of the song, and leave the stage, so I thought it was a very good thing that you could actually darken your stage and show parts of the story, and it brought back that memory for me.

GT: Ahhhh.

CN: What are you listening to now, Geoff?

GT: Ah, the music in my head.

CN: (Laughs) You don’t listen to music at all?

GT: No, I listen to what we do, what I’m working on, which is quite a few different projects all at once. Kind of like, you know, I’m overwhelmed by it. (laughs) I’m listening to fewer metal musicians because I’ve heard that before.

CN: Yeah.

GT: I’m an old man in these circles now, I’ve seen the giant circle come around, and accomplished what young guys haven’t even dreamed of yet. So what they’re doing now, they learned it from us, you know? Not to sound arrogant, it’s just kind of a tribute matter. They can also put their little signature on it which makes it unique, but for me, I’m off to other things.

CN: So do you sing anything besides rock?

GT: Oh yeah. Jazz. Classical stuff.

CN: My voice is always better attuned to blues, R&B, and country, just simply because it’s a cleaner style, and it doesn’t shred your vocal chords as much. I don’t know, I grew up in the south, it’s one of those things, you never get rid of it. (laughs) I mean, I’ve been in Manhattan for 20 years, and I still listen to country music every day. It's my guilty pleasure.

GT: There you go.

CN: So it’s one of those things. Your solo record, how is that? A breath of fresh air to work with new people?

GT: Uh-huh. Yeah, it was really fun, very challenging to get outside of what I normally do, and take a step into the unknown, which is always really satisfying. Yeah, a very rewarding experience that I am definitely planning on doing again.

CN: Well, I know if you’re used to working with the same group of people, to all of a sudden collaborate with someone new, it’s such a breath of fresh air that it brings a new energy and excitement back to what you were doing before.

GT: Yeah it can. It can bring a new tolerance, it can bring imaginative ideas, yeah. It can bring a lot of things.

CN: Plan on doing another?

GT: Oh yeah, definitely.

CN: Soon?

GT: I’ve got quite a bit written already.

CN: Oh, that’s good to hear. Now, obviously, there’s been a lot written about Chris coming back and playing on some of your songs on Tribe. How did it actually all happen? I mean, I’m sure you stayed in touch.

GT: Well, he called up and he said “Hey, I’ve got new songs, and I hear you guys are going to the studio, you want to check ‘em out, and maybe put ‘em on your record?” So yeah, I got together at his house, he played me something he had, he gave me a tape and I went home and started writing lyrics to it and melodies and it all kind of fell together nicely. It was a good working experience with him again, it was fun. It brought back a lot of old memories, it rekindled some new goals.

CN: Right. It had been what, 5, 6 years, or longer, since you had worked with him?

GT: Um, '97, he had left the band, so, it was right after Hear In The Now Frontier came out. So let’s see, '98, '99, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004…yeah, 7 years.

CN: Mmm-hmmm. And he just decided he didn’t want to tour anymore?

GT: Yeah, I guess so. We had sort of reached the cycle’s end, we had spent our life on EMI, and we had just finished our contract with the issuing of Hear In The Now Frontier, so we were done with EMI at that point, and then coincidentally they went bankrupt and out of business. Chris just said, you know, “I’ve spent 14 years doing this. We gave it a good run, and I want to do something else with my life.” He went into flight school and became a pilot, and he does that now.

CN: Ah, he and Bruce Dickinson, both.

GT: Yeah.

CN: The fly boys of metal.

GT: I guess so. (Laughs)

CN: I would like to do a whole photo shoot with all the guys in metal that are pilots, because I think there are quite a few more as well.

GT: Probably.

CN: It might be an interesting photo spread. But EMI going belly-up, did you get your masters back, or you have to wait on that?

GT: Oh, we’ve always had those.

CN: That’s good. I know I went out to see my friends in Testament , and they finally got all their old masters back from Megaforce which is about the same time period as you starting, 83, something like that. Just got a lot of ‘em back. Do you have a studio in your house?

GT: Mmm-hmmm.

CN: What’s it like?

GT: What’s it like?

CN: Yeah, because you know, vocal guys have different requirements than the guitar guys, or the drum guys.

GT: Oh, well, it’s a digital studio, all compact and it just sits in my room. I go work in my office, my little sanctuary where I can do my thing.

CN: Yeah, that’s a good thing to have that sanctuary, isn’t it?

GT: Yeah it is, very much.

CN: Well you know, Virginia Woolf had a point when she said that room with a view. (Laughs) As a writer, I really feel that, you know? I understand it greatly. So, how did your perspectives change once you became a parent, as far as the way you viewed your life, and what you did?

GT: Well I think it was a challenge to incorporate parenthood with being on the road, writing records, doing what it is I do for a living. It was definitely a challenge and an obvious sort of situation to think in different terms, to think of like a “we”-ism rather than a “me”-ism. You know, musicians are pretty self-absorbed people.

CN: Can be.

GT: "Me, all about me..." I think once you choose to share your life with somebody, and to have children, it definitely pushes you in a different sort of mental direction. It opens up your life, I think it adds to the depth of your personality, and I think in writing, you see things from a really different perspective at that point.

CN: That’s true. How many children do you have now?

GT: I have four.

CN: Four? And what are the ages?

GT: 16, 15, 9, and 7.

CN: Wow. Mine is going to be 12. But I find that it changed me immensely as well. It made me look at people and situations in my life much differently. I’ve come up with a theory that we procreate so as to remind us what it was like to be a child.

GT: Uh-Huh.

CN: Because you notice people when they get older, if they don’t have children & if they don’t get married, they’re kind of bitter, and very self-obsessed?

GT: Absolutely, Yeah.

CN: And once you have a child, you get down there with them and you remember how much fun it was.

GT: Oh definitely, it opens up your mind to a whole different perspective, which is good, it’s healthy, I think it’s meant to be that way, you know?

CN: Most definitely, either that or we’d be really bitter and fighting all the time. (laughs) I know my son is at the age now where I sometimes take him to the shows with me. Like, he enjoyed Lollapalooza, I think his favorite thing was the X-box game tent, but you know, he enjoyed seeing like Jane’s Addiction and actually getting a visual for some of the music he’s heard me play in the house. He enjoys meeting the different people that I’ve interviewed, especially the ones that I’ve known for 15 or 20 years.

GT: Uh huh. That’s cool.

CN: You ever take your kids on the road with you?

GT: Uh-huh, yep, every summer.

CN: All of them?

GT: Um, in various groups, yeah. Sometimes it’s me and the two big ones, sometimes it’s the two little ones and vice versa, sometimes it’s all four.

CN: Right. Well that ought to be fun.

GT: Oh yeah, it’s a tribe.

CN: Of course it is. On your days off, what do you do?

GT: Oh we sight see, you know. We go out and go to museums or we go to the theme park or we go to the beach or the desert, just wherever we’re at.

CN: Yeah, it’s always good, because I know at Lollapalooza, I went to interview one of the younger bands, called Boy Sets Fire, and the singer had his son with him. So my son got to pal around with his, and do those little Game Boy/Yu-Gi-Oh things and stuff that kids do.

GT: Mmm-hmm.

CN: Now, I know that Scott [Rockenfield] has done some soundtrack stuff, do you have any leanings in that direction?

GT: Well, we did Last Action Hero a few years ago, with Michael Kamen.

CN: Right.

GT: Who passed away last year.

CN: Right.

GT: So that was very satisfying. I guess that’s probably our most in-depth thing that we’ve done as a group, you know? It’s a very challenging thing to do, I think. When we worked with Kamen, you know, we actually scored music to different sections of the film, and it was music we wrote together as the main theme of the story, so we got to dissect it and piece it together, and put it in different places and adapt it for different scenes which was really challenging.

CN: Yeah, I think that would be very challenging, because you have to do the time codes as well, correct?

GT: Oh yeah.

CN: Yeah, you know, music video is similar but not quite, because you’re giving a visual for your own music, whereas here you’re trying to make music for someone else’s visual.

GT: Mmhm, it’s different, the process. It’s very strange to watch a film without music, too. (laughs)

CN: Yeah, without music or sound effects, because the Foley artists haven’t come in yet, right?

GT: Yeah, you watch it and you go, “The acting in this is just not grabbing me! What does it need? It needs this!” And you hit a note and all of a sudden a melody will pop up from that, and yeah, it really makes the film.