QUEENSRŸCHE Singer Talks About Working With CHRIS DEGARMO Again

BringBackGlam.com recently conducted an interview with QUEENSRŸCHE vocalist Geoff Tate. An excerpt from the chat follows:

BringBackGlam.com: Let's talk about your two new albums, "Sign Of The Times" which just came out, and your cover album ["Take Cover"] that's due out later this fall. Why did you decide that QUEENSRŸCHE needed another greatest-hits package?

Geoff: "There's so much stuff. It's ('Sign Of The Times') a two-disc set, and it's pretty cool actually. The first disc is songs most people would be familiar with… and our second disc is demos and unreleased material. Plus, there's a new song on there that we wrote with our former guitar player Chris [DeGarmo] this summer. It's called 'Justified'. And the artwork is very cool. It's Hugh Syme, he's done some work for us before… it looks fantastic."

BringBackGlam.com: How did the new song with Chris come about?

Geoff: "We meet for coffee pretty regularly. When we have coffee, our conversations usually turn toward events that are going on with either ourselves, or the world. With him it sort of lead to a studio session."

BringBackGlam.com: So Chris wanted a separate career, but he still enjoys making music?

Geoff: "I guess so. He doesn't really like the touring aspect of being in a band. He does like the physical making of the music. We work together whenever we can."

BringBackGlam.com: Do you think you'll get together and make another album with Chris?

Geoff: "I think the two of us probably will."

BringBackGlam.com: But not an entire QUEENSRŸCHE album — just solo work?

Geoff: "Right."

BringBackGlam.com: Do you credit your band's evolving sound to the human experience?

Geoff: "Making a record is…each record is very different in its own criteria. For instance, when you write a record like ['Operation'] 'Mindcrime', it's a story. We felt we had to set the story within the context of a soundscape. So then we had to create a sound for this character to operate within. And so, to do that, you try to find certain core combinations to create a certain atmosphere, and then you utilize those core combinations in different ways. So that you don't lose that atmosphere when you tell the story. It's very challenging to write a record like that. On the other hand, you might have a record that's a collection of individual songs and you want that to be a very different movement from song to song. You want the atmosphere to change. Again, that's a hard way to make a record too: to not have any consistency or theme, or anything like that. It just depends. You use different studios, engineers, every room sounds different. There's different ways to mic instruments — all that adds to the unique soundscape of a record."

BringBackGlam.com: Is QUEENSRŸCHE currently working on an album of all new material?

Geoff: "Well, we began a new studio record a couple months ago, and we're in throes of recording now. We took a little break to record the cover album and to do the tour we're on now. It's our dream tour. We're touring with BLACK SABBATH with Ronnie James Dio singing and ALICE COOPER. These two bands were incredibly influential to us when we were staring out. BLACK SABBATH with Ronnie did three incredible records that really were the catalyst for QUEENSRŸCHE getting together. That was the music that we all discussed, talked about and referenced and listen to. It was all very inspiring to us at that point in our career."

BringBackGlam.com: Do you have a title for the new album?

Geoff: "No, it's not to that point yet. The only thing I can really say about it is that it's a concept album. It has a central theme, and all the songs relate to that theme."

Read the entire interview at this location.