Geoff Tate of Queensryche
by Deb Rao
Staff Writer
Queensryche unleashed their epic concept album, American Soldier on March 31. Brutally honest, graphic, and hauntingly real, Queensryche latest release, American Soldier will captivate you from the opening track to the grand finale’. Queensryche are no stranger to a concept album having released Operation Mindcrime in 1988 and have never shied away from controversial subject matter. American Soldier finds Queensryche and lead singer Geoff Tate taking on the perils of war, the good, the bad and the ugly. You will find nothing pretentious and no stone left unturned on American Soldier.
American Soldier features twelve tracks that are carefully orchestrated with a vast array of melodic melodies combat hard driving riffs, fast and furious drumbeats and outstanding vocals by Geoff Tate.
Geoff Tate of Queensryche has checked in with Hardrock Haven to discuss the making of American Soldier and future touring plans for the band.
HRH: Geoff, How did your Dad play a major role in the motivation to write American Soldier?
TATE: I think a conversation that I had with him a couple of years ago that I ended up recording for the record definitely kind of pushed me in that direction. He peaked my curiosity so to speak.
HRH: You also spent a lot of time on the road talking with Soldiers about the war. How did this affect your viewpoint of the military after listening to your conversations with these Soldiers?
TATE: I walked away with this project with a feeling of gratitude of the Soldiers experience and what they sacrificed and what they go through. I think that is one of the main points that I hope people take away with after listening to the music is that same feeling. Especially in America I think that we take for granted quite a bit what our military does. We are very free to follow our dreams and pursue our goals and we don’t worry about an unwelcome force kicking in our door at night. We don’t have to defend our patch of ground. Because somebody else is doing that for us watching our back. What the soldiers do is a very important thing. I hope people realize that with the release of the album.
HRH: When you are a soldier you are in combat everyday. What people don’t realize that when they return home, their lives are forever changed. Did any of the soldiers that you spoke with ever regret going to war?
TATE: No not one soldier that I talked to ever regretted his experience. They all seem to have taken the experience no matter how difficult it was or how easy and learn something from it that has helped them improve their life in some way. By giving them strength, a personality and character. That was really one of the things that impressed me. Out of all the conversations that I had, all of them tended to have such a high sense of duty and honor that is something that really grasps you.
HRH: One of the most moving songs on the album is a song that you did with your daughter Emily on “Home Again.” In retrospect, after listening to the song it can take on two meanings being a Father on tour away from his family, or a soldier leaving his family for war. What was the inspiration behind this song?
TATE: It wan an interview that I did with a soldier that was talking how difficult it was to be away from your family and be thousands of miles away and being in a very dangerous situation. We were kind of plotting in that concept in a sense because of the amount of time that I spend away from children. I can definitely relate to his opinion on it. As he was talking about his experience I was really relating to it that is the inspiration for the song. I had just finished writing the song actually; my daughter came home from school. She asked, “What are you doing?” I said, “I just finished writing this song. Do you want to hear it?” She said,”Yeah.” So I was playing it down for her. After she listened to it I said, “What do you think?” She looked up from reading the lyrics and she had tears rolling down her face. I said, “What is wrong? Why are you crying?” She said, “Well I am just so happy that you wrote a song about me.” So I said, “You think that is about you?” She said,”Yeah, you are gone all the time. I really miss you. I get scared sometimes. I call you and you don’t answer the phone.” It hit me right then that she really connected with this song. I said do you want to sing it with me? She said,”Yeah.” So I quickly put the microphone up and got her headphone mix going and she sang the song. We took two or three takes on it. But the emotion and the innocence that she had in her delivery was really special I thought. It really captured the feeling of the song really well
HRH: Was it hard to orchestrate the music to this album? There was a lot of spoken word by the soldiers on the album.
TATE: What we tried to do is paint the picture musically in support of what the words were. The words were of course taken from the interviews. Actually, the interviews were really invaluable in writing the songs. Because you could sit and listen to the audiotapes and watch the film interviews you would really walk away from those with a musical impression. It really helped us write to it.
HRH: It is so intriguing you used the Soldiers audio for lyrics. Their stories made it ever so authentic. Did you have this idea in mind from the get-go? How did the concept of American Soldier all come together?
TATE: That was something that sort of evolved. As I collected interviews I really started seeing commonalities in their stories and their experiences. So I focused on what those commonalities were and created outlines of their stories and that is what we intended to focus on in constructing the songs. We really just tried to paint the picture of what their experiences were. When the project first begin. It was really just a project of asking questions and collecting answers really. The whole thing really evolved fairly quickly within a few weeks that it would be a good idea to record them, the words and impressions. As I got more and more conversations recorded I realized that the emotion in their voices and just the authenticity of their experiences would really be better if I recorded them. We started filming them and actually conducting interviews with proper microphones so we could use the audio.
HRH: Over how long a time period did it take to record American Soldier?
TATE: I started working on it I believe in the summer of 2006. We just completed it in January 2009. So it was quite a long time really.
HRH: The album cover has a picture of the Soldiers combat boots on the cover. What does this denote to you?
TATE: Do you know the old saying, “How can you know me until you walk in my shoes”? I think the album cover really says that. It is an hour of music where you get to walk in the Soldiers boots for a while. You really get to understand their experiences first hand.
HRH: Did Queensryche ever perform over in Iraq?
TATE: We are going to be going over to Iraq this year.
HRH: How has the political climate changed since the release of 1988 and your release of Operation Mindcrime? I know George Bush Sr. was in office then, and now we have a new President but there is still a war going on. Do you think things are getting better?
TATE: That is really a difficult question to answer because the human dynamic it changes so much. For better or worse, it is really hard to judge. I think politics are one thing and the social situations or social growth is another thing. I think we have come along ways since 1988 as a country. I think we have gone through ups and downs and changes. We have kids that are becoming adults now that were just children in 1988. So their perspectives and experiences will shape how the next few years turn out as well.
HRH: Do you find it easier to write a concept album and gather a bunch of songs with one central theme?
TATE: Well yeah know you have the concept of an album, which in my mind means a collection of songs. I think there is a couple of ways that you can go with that collection of songs. You can write twelve songs that are all very different from one another and explore a lot of different thoughts and ideas. Or you can write around a central theme and focus those songs on that central subject. Which I find to be very challenging and very satisfying creatively to do that. It is very difficult in a song form to explore a subject in-depth. You got a limited amount of time with the attention span that you are dealing with. The album collective gives you much more time and so many different ways that you can explore a theme. You can write about it from so many different angles.
HRH: The Queensryche tour kicked off on April 16th in your hometown of Seattle. Tells us a little bit about the tour. Also, are Queensryche going to be performing Rage For Order and Empire?
TATE: Actually, we are going to be presenting all of the songs from those albums on this tour. We have two set lists that comprise all of the songs from those records. We are gong to be switching back and forth from those set list nightly. So that people that come to multiple shows you can hear all of the songs performed in their entirety.
HRH: Will there be a special stage show and special effects on this tour?
TATE: We have new films and video presentations to support the new album and our past albums as well. We have some very interesting visual technology that we are bringing on the road this year. I don’t know how to describe it but it is an image distortion screen that you can run multiple images into and project them around the venue and re-create new images from the combination of images. We really have an interesting touring group. We have the four original members of the band. We have a new guitar player Parker Lundgren who is going to be joining us on second guitar and Jason Ames who is an Italian guy, he is going to be joining us on third guitar and keyboards and back-up vocals. We have one of the Soldiers that performed on the record; A.J. Fratto will be joining us on vocals. My daughter Emily is going to tour as well with us this year.
HRH: That is great. So we will get to hear her sing, “Home Again” correct?
TATE: That’s right!
HRH: Geoff, You give a really strong vocal performance on “American Soldier”. You have been noted as one of the top singers to emerge out of the ’80s genre and are still going strong today? How do you keep your voice in such great shape with your constant touring schedule?
TATE: I think I get stronger the more I sing. It is the constant practice of playing every night for two and half hours it will early make you stronger or kill ya. (Laughter)
HRH: Geoff, Is their anything else that you want to say about American Soldier?
TATE: I think it is a very good album. For the band it was a wonderful, wonderful experience to be able to participate in portraying the soldiers story. We really, really learned a lot from this project. I think it really changed us. It changed our way of thinking in a very positive way.
HRH: What were your Dad’s thoughts on the album? I know he appears on the song, “The Voice”? He is also a veteran.
TATE: He is very proud of that. He really loves the album and the whole idea behind it. He was very supportive of the project all the way thru.
HRH: Geoff, Thank you so much for talking time out for this interview for the readers and all of the Queensryche fans at Hardrock Haven . We strongly support American Soldier. I hope to be out to see Queensryche perform at Hampton Beach.
TATE: Wonderful. Thank you so much Deb.