GEOFF TATE: 'I Have A Lot Of Material That I've Been Writing Over The Last Year Or Two'

Former QUEENSRŸCHE frontman Geoff Tate is planning to enter the studio this year to record the follow-up to his "The New Reality" album, which was released in 2017 under the OPERATION: MINDCRIME band name.

"I have a lot of material that I've been writing over the last year or two that I wanna release in some format that I need to finish up," Tate told "Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon" in a new interview (hear audio below). "And I think I'm gonna do that this summer as I'm in Europe most of the summer. I think my wife and I are gonna rent a house in France and just kind of move in over the summer and then I'll work on the record there and then fly off to the [AVANTASIA] festival dates as they happen. Because they're so sporadic — you'll do one festival date, then have four days off. And you'll do two festival dates, then have six days off — that kind of thing."

Asked how he is planning to make his new music available to the public, Tate said: "I have a lot of stuff, and I don't know how I'm gonna release it. Is it gonna be an album? Is it gonna be two albums? Is it gonna be released as individual tracks? That's sort of sounding a lot more attractive to me nowadays rather than trying to make a record, a full album of stuff. I just don't know. There's all kinds of interesting ways of doing things now. There's no rules anymore, so it's really about what you want and how you wanna go about doing it. It's a brave new world."

Geoff also talked about the musical direction of his new material, saying that it won't necessarily be similar to anything he has done in the past.

"I wish I could do what the fans expect," he said. "I have no clue what that is. [Laughs] Honestly. I can't get a straight answer out of anybody, 'cause everybody describes music so differently — they have different feelings about music and they have different experiences with music. So I go with what I like, what's interesting to me at the time."

Geoff recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of QUEENSRŸCHE's "Operation: Mindcrime" album by performing it in its entirety on European and U.S. tours.

Tate's post-QUEENSRŸCHE band OPERATION: MINDCRIME released three albums over three years as part of a trilogy: "The Key" (September 2015),"Resurrection" (September 2016) and "The New Reality" (December 2017).

Geoff will celebrate the 30th-anniversary of QUEENSRŸCHE's landmark "Empire" album on a special tour next year. Released in 1990, the set included the hit ballad "Silent Lucidity", which reached No. 9 on the Billboard singles chart, helped propel "Empire" to No. 7 on the album chart and earned two Grammy Award nominations.