GEOFF TATE Discusses His Version Of QUEENSRŸCHE, Solo Career In New Audio Interview

Earlier today (Wednesday, July 24),Michael "Mick" McDonald and the MotorCityBlog conducted an interview with QUEENSRŸCHE singer Geoff Tate. You can now listen to the chat using the audio player below.

Tate and his solo band will support WHITESNAKE tonight at DTE Energy Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan. (Note: Geoff is the replacement for CINDERELLA frontman Tom Keifer, who canceled his appearance at the event last week because of "personal reasons.")

Tate's second solo album, "Kings & Thieves", sold 1,800 copies in the United States in its first week of release. The CD arrived in stores on November 6, 2012 via InsideOut Music.

In an interview with ARTISTdirect.com, Tate stated about his vision for "Kings & Thieves", "Typically, when I make a record, I have an idea of what I want to try to accomplish. I go about making that happen by making lists. I'm a list maker. I jot down all of these ideas I've got and I form those ideas into an outline. Then, I start using it as a punch list to take care of all these details I'd like to do. I knew I wanted to make a really solid rock record. I didn't want to stray too far into other musical endeavors. I wanted to keep it more rock-oriented with traditional rock instruments. I also knew that I wanted it to be more of a live record where all of the musicians get in a room and actually play together. A lot of it was recorded and written at the same time. That was very fun, and I've never done that before. It has an effect that makes the music seem more immediate and raw rather than being a polished, rehearsed-into-the-ground record, which I've done throughout most of my career. Making this record was a different process for me, and I made it very quickly. It flowed from the moment I started until the time I was done with it. It only took about six months to make. By comparison, QUEENSRŸCHE records have taken years to make."

Asked if there is any connection to his first solo record, Tate said, "Well, it has been a long time. It's been a long time coming too. They're two really different records to me. On that first solo record, I really wanted to stretch outside of the QUEENSRŸCHE box and do everything I could never do. I wanted to explore my influences in my writing. That first album has R&B influences, which I'm very into. It's got classical and electronica influences, but it doesn't have a lot of rock. 'Kings & Thieves' is really a rock record. I focused on that aspect."

"Frequency Unknown", the new album from the Geoff Tate-fronted version of QUEENSRŸCHE, sold around 5,500 copies in its first week of release in the United States to land at position No. 82 on The Billboard 200 chart. Released on April 23, it was produced by Jason Slater at a studio in Northern California.

Photo credit: Stephanie Cabral