GEOFF TATE Discusses New Solo Album, Upcoming Tour

David Garlow of Examiner.com recently conducted an interview with QUEENSRŸCHE singer Geoff Tate. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Examiner.com: Your writing has always been quite deep and touches on emotions and politics quite often. What gives you inspiration when writing a song?

Geoff: I tend to write from my experience, typically. Somewhere I read that that's probably the truest form of art — coming from what you know. I find life inspirational. We get put into situations that are conflicted and you have to make decisions that are based on your gut feeling. I find that to be interesting. Almost everyone is in a relationship and they play a very important part in our lives. And just being in different places, traveling to places around the world, meeting different people tends to give me a lot of inspiration as well.

Examiner.com: Politics helped name [your new solo] album ["Kings & Thieves"] and the song "Dark Money". What is the message you are singing about in this song?

Geoff: Honestly, I'm not really a political person. I'm more interested in the social consciousness of what politics brings; how it affects people and how people react to politics really is my interest. I'm not into the sporting event of politics, the game that's played. In the song "Dark Money", it's really just a bipartisan look at a situation that is in place now where people and companies with millions of dollars are using that money legally to influence elections. To get candidates in place and get legislation in place that benefits them typically. It's not what we were taught growing up where one vote counts, it's not like that anymore, and the game has changed. So the song doesn't support a side it just points out that the situation is happening, simply to put that statement out there for people to discuss. I think the more we talk about a situation or issue, the more ability we have to solve the problem.

Examiner.com: Absolutely. People need to calm down and open their minds to calm discussion.

Geoff: Yes, exactly! There's that old saying that you don't discuss religion or politics because people get bent out of shape about it. They just can't have a civilized conversation oftentimes without getting the attitude of, "Well, my side's got to win." It's not a game or a sporting event. It's a discussion with the aim in mind to better our lives for everyone.

Examiner.com: The last time I had the chance to see you live was during "Operation: Mindcrime", so it's been awhile. You play in Rochester, New York a couple hours from Syracuse on October 19. What will fans see when they come to a Geoff Tate solo show?

Geoff: Well, I'm going to be playing songs from both my solo albums and a lot of my favorite QUEENSRŸCHE songs and I hope a lot of my audience's favorite QUEENSRŸCHE songs. It's so hard to tell what people like; I have so many to choose from, close to 200 published songs now, so I have almost too many choices! [laughs] Which is a good place to be. But it's a great band, a lot of guys that I've known for years and played music with for years. Kelly Gray (guitarist) and Randy Gane (keyboardist),we go back 30-plus years of writing and playing together. Kelly has been touring with QUEENSRŸCHE over the years and is really an accomplished record producer. And Randy has played keyboards on QUEENSRŸCHE tours over the years, so we are pretty connected, you know? I have my son-in-law Chris Zukas, who is a fantastic bassist, my friend Jason Ames on guitar and vocals, and [he] was a co-writer on the record; and Donny Evola on guitar and Doug McGrew on drums. Doug actually played with me and some former members of QUEENSRŸCHE before QUEENSRŸCHE was formed, so we go way back as well.

Read the entire interview at Examiner.com.

"Take A Bullet" audio stream (courtesy of Ultimate Classic Rock):

"Dark Money" lyric video: