GEOFF TATE: 'Every Night I Look Around The Stage And Think That I'm So Glad To Be Here'

Sarah Edelstein of Ticket Alternative recently conducted an interview with QUEENSRŸCHE singer Geoff Tate. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Ticket Alternative: [Your current] tour is celebrating the anniversary of "Operation: Mindcrime". Did you ever imagine that 25 years ago that you'd be here today still touring and bigger than ever?

Tate: Well, it's not something I really thought about much. As a writer and performer, you don't really think about those things, you just kind of do what you do. You find yourself working in these wonderful situations, like I am right now, working with these great players, and I'm just having a great time. Playing this music is really a treat to me, because it's a band of people who are really into it and are really excited about playing the music and bringing their own interpretation of the music into the arrangements, it's fantastic and powerful. Every night I look around the stage and think that I'm so glad to be here.

Ticket Alternative: What has been one of the funniest moments you guys have has as a band on this tour?

Tate: Pretty much this is a band of very professional players who take this very seriously, so there are not mistakes that are really funny that occur. Our new drummer sat in with us for the first time and I asked him to take a drum solo and he said he'd be glad to. He started playing this drum solo that brought everybody, including the band, to the edge of the stage and everyone was just enthralled watching him play. It was a very unique drum solo. There's some really amazing things that he does and none of us in the band had seen him do it yet, and it was his first show with us, and we're all on the side of the stage with our jaws dropping hearing him play this stuff. It was pretty amazing.

Ticket Alternative: Have you guys had any crazy fan encounters on this current tour?

Tate: We have a meet-and-greet every night where we meet the fans before the show. We sit and talk, sign autographs and photos and things like that. Those things are really interesting because you get the first-hand feedback from people. There's a lot of emotion in it and a lot of times people tell you these fantastic stories of where they were the first time they heard a song of yours and how that music affected them and I love hearing that. As a writer, you have your own idea of what your saying and a story that your telling but that story can be interpreted so many different ways. You never know how people will hear it because we all hear music differently.

Read the entire interview from Ticket Alternative.