GEOFF TATE Gets Songwriting Inspiration From Truck Stops

Stephanie Webb, the entertainment reporter and film/TV critic at WZZM 13, conducted an interview with former QUEENSRŸCHE singer Geoff Tate before his May 15 solo show at the Intersection in Grand Rapids, Michigan. You can now watch the chat at WZZM13.com. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On what still gets him motivated to keep going on the road night after night:

Tate: "I enjoy it; I really do. I'm a road dog. I love being on the road. I love travelling. I love new cites. I love truck stops. I love them. There are a whole arena of characters and politics and great conversations with people who travel for a living. Even people that work at the truck stops are really interesting to talk to. I'm always looking for inspiration for songs, so whenever I go to a truck stop, typically there's some kind of issue that happens that may end up in a song."

On how technological advancements, especially digital music downloading, have affected musicians:

Tate: "Well, if you wanna make a living at creating music and selling it, it's horrible. Some comedian I was watching the other night was talking about how he used to sell millions of records and now he doesn't sell hardly any because it's so easy to download it [for free]. He said that it's directly from my IRA into your iPod. [laughs] It's a great way of putting it. But yeah, the downloading has gutted the industry. The industry I don't think will ever recover. It doesn't even resemble what it did 30 years ago. Back then, it was a vibrant industry employing millions of people, creating billions of dollars' worth of economy. And now, it's nothing. Like, for example, our 'Empire' album, which came out in 1990, had a six-million-dollar promotional budget. And today, the average record gets about ten thousand dollars in promotion. So you can see the discrepancy there."

As previously reported, QUEENSRŸCHE members Eddie Jackson (bass),Scott Rockenfield (drums) and Michael Wilton (guitar) recently successfully agreed to purchase Geoff Tate's portion of the QUEENSRŸCHE name. The band will buy out their former lead singer's share of the QUEENSRŸCHE corporation while allowing him the ability to be the only one to perform "Operation: Mindcrime" and "Operation: Mindcrime II" in their entirety. Tate will no longer have use of the TriRyche logo or any other album images aside from the "Mindcrime" releases. He can only refer to himself as the "original lead singer of QUEENSRŸCHE" or "formerly of QUEENSRŸCHE" for a period of two years and that text must be at least 50 percent smaller than his name in all materials. After this two-year period passes, he can only refer to himself as Geoff Tate with no mention of QUEENSRŸCHE at all.

Geoff Tate will be able to finish any confirmed dates billed for his QUEENSRŸCHE lineup scheduled to terminate on August 31, 2014. As of September 1, there will be only one QUEENSRŸCHE entity and that will consist of Eddie Jackson, Todd La Torre, Parker Lundgren, Scott Rockenfield and Michael Wilton. This lineup will continue to perform selections from their entire musical catalog, including songs from "Operation: Mindcrime". The band will be able to use all TriRyche logos and previous album artwork for any purposes as needed by the corporation.