Ex-QUEENSRŸCHE Singer GEOFF TATE On His Open-Heart Surgery: 'It Was Quite An Eye-Opening Experience For Me'

Former QUEENSRŸCHE singer Geoff Tate has once again opened up about the aortic valve replacement he underwent last summer. Speaking to Australia's Heavy, the 64-year-old musician said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, all my life I'd been very fortunate to be very healthy until I wasn't. And all of a sudden I needed to have open-heart surgery, which I had in June. And I'd never been in the hospital before. So, yeah, it was quite an eye-opening experience for me to experience that part of… I don't know how to explain it, really. It just wiped me out for a couple of months. [I was in] pretty bad shape for a while there. But I had a fairly quick recovery. It's been six or seven months, and I feel a hundred percent better. I feel strong and I feel like I'm in my late 30s. Before I was having a hard time walking up a flight of stairs. Now I'm running up the stairs — no problem."

Tate went on to say that he "didn't know what to expect at all" from his initial visit to the doctor and subsequent surgery. "It was quite shocking, really," he said. "I went in feeling normal. Because the symptoms I had had just come on so slowly that I just thought it was normal for a guy my age to have problems walking up the stairs. But when I came out of the hospital, I was just wrecked. [Laughs] I wasn't prepared for what that does to you. So I've just been able to start working out with any kind of intensity. They wanted me to wait six months before I started doing pushups, which is a really common thing to do. And against my doctor's advice, I thought, 'I don't need to wait six months. I can start pushups.' And I'll tell you, until a few weeks ago, I couldn't even do one pushup. [Laughs]"

According to NHS, an aortic valve replacement is a type of open-heart surgery used to treat problems with the heart's aortic valve.

The aortic valve controls the flow of blood out from the heart to the rest of the body.

An aortic valve replacement involves removing a faulty or damaged valve and replacing it with a new valve made from synthetic materials or animal tissue.

Tate celebrated his 64th birthday on January 14 during his concert at Amaturo Theater in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Tate's "Big Rock Show Hits" tour kicked off on December 1. Tate and his international band — featuring guitarists Kieran Robertson from Scotland, James Brown from Ireland and Alex Hart from Boston along with bass player Jack Ross from Scotland, drummer Danny Laverde from Cincinnati and keyboardist Jason Ames — hit 28 cities across the United States, including Cleveland, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, Denver and Nashville, on an initial tour leg that culminated on Geoff's birthday.

Just five days after their last U.S. show in January, the band embarked on the "Empire" 30th-anniversary trek that began in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil on January 19, then heads off to Europe for two weeks, quickly followed by three shows in Australia. After "the land down under," they'll return to Europe for a variety of shows that will last through mid-March. They'll return in early June for another extensive European tour.

In April 2014, Tate and QUEENSRŸCHE announced that a settlement had been reached after a nearly two-year legal battle where the singer sued over the rights to the QUEENSRŸCHE name after being fired in 2012.

Tate was replaced in QUEENSRŸCHE by former CRIMSON GLORY singer Todd La Torre.

Geoff will embark on a tour later this year to celebrate the 35th anniversary of QUEENSRŸCHE's classic album "Operation: Mindcrime".

Photo courtesy of Geoff Tate's Facebook page