Ex-QUEENSRŸCHE Singer GEOFF TATE Is 'Amazed' And 'Humbled' At The Staying Power Of 'Operation: Mindcrime'

Former QUEENSRŸCHE vocalist Geoff Tate recently spoke with Australia's Silver Tiger Media. The full conversation can be streamed at SilverTigerMedia.com.au. A few excerpts follow (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On his favorite track from "Operation: Mindcrime" to sing live:

Geoff: "I don't necessarily have a favorite. I'm really attached to all the songs. They're all kind of one for me. I don't think of them so much as separate pieces. I think of them just as the album. Maybe that's because of performing it like that. I hardly ever perform it one song at a time — it's almost always as a group, as its entirety. That's the way I like to perform it the most."

On the album's staying power:

Geoff: "I am absolutely amazed and so humbled by the acceptance that the album's had over all these years. I was doing the 30-year anniversary for the album. I figured it was going to be, like, a 12-week tour or something like that. It's turned into 36 months and 26 different countries. It's really stretched out into something quite larger than I anticipated, and I'm very pleased — absolutely amazed, actually."

On performing the album live:

Geoff: "I think what I do is I sort of put myself into the lead character of the album, and I sort of live and breathe his personality. I can do it pretty successfully for a while, but then it starts taking me over and I have to kind put it away for a while [laughs]. He's really not the most happy character — he's very torn and conflicted and pretty depressing, really. I have to put myself into that frame of mind in order to perform it to do it justice."

On whether he has any interest in musical theater:

Geoff: "I have been asked to do different things like that over time, but I just haven't found something that I felt fits me well — something I could really sink my teeth into. It doesn't mean that it won't happen. I'm always looking around and keeping my options open."

On his next musical steps:

Geoff: "Australia is actually the last place that we are coming to perform 'Operation: Mindcrime' in its entirety in celebration of the 30-year anniversary. In February, we're beginning a new tour, which is the 30-year anniversary of the 'Empire' album. I'm really looking to that, because there's songs on that record that I've never played live before. I'm doing something new there and something different for myself, and I'm really pleased with that. I think it's going to be a great tour for a lot of fans of those records. We're playing also 'Rage For Order' in its entirety, which is a really different album than 'Empire'. The two albums are like night and day. It's really a contrast."

On his recently announced "Backstage Travel Pass" sightseeing tours:

Geoff: "Basically what it is is people sign up to go on a sightseeing tour with me. I've done quite a few now in Ireland, Germany, France, Italy... We just did one in the Pacific Northwest here where I live. We typically organize it around music and sightseeing. A lot of people want to travel some place like Italy, for example. They're unsure — they've never been out of the country or maybe they're not comfortable with the language, but they want to see some things, so we provide an opportunity for them to go along with us. I'm a pretty seasoned traveler and have been to a lot of places, and we just kind of show people our vision of Italy, for example, or Ireland or France. We go to museums; we go to all the UNESCO heritage sites. We also go to a lot of pubs and wineries and distilleries and sample the local beverage wherever we are, and also we have a lot of music surrounding it... Sometimes we base ourselves out of one area. We'll get a big house and everybody will stay at the house... This May, we're going to Scotland, and we're going up into the Scottish highlands for golf, fly-fishing and whiskey tasting and music."

Tate's final anniversary performance of "Operation: Mindcrime" will take place in Melbourne, Australia on February 1. Four days later, he will begin his tour celebrating the 30 th anniversary of "Empire" in Tampere, Finland.