GEOFF TATE Is 'On The Second Round Of Writing' His Autobiography
August 23, 2023In a new interview with Mike Hsu of the 100 FM The Pike radio station, former QUEENSRŸCHE frontman Geoff Tate was asked if he was "close to finishing" writing his autobiography after working on it "for quite a few years". He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, I thought I was, and I sent it back to my publisher and he sent it back to me with cryptic notes. So I'm on the second round of writing for it right now, which I've actually come to terms that it's very difficult to do this."
He continued: "It's one thing to write a song. Maybe just 'cause I've had a lot of experience doing that, I find it easier to do. But when you write a book, especially about your life story, I think I expect it to be a lot more detailed in your presentation, and I was sort of taking some broad strokes. I have a lot of stories. Luckily, I've been a journaler all my life, so I keep notes about just about everything."
This past June, Tate told Tony González of Spain's Made In Metal about writing his autobiography: "It's a lot of work to be a book writer, I find. It's different with songs. For example, you might spend one month per song — writing the music and writing the lyrics — and then it's finished. But books can take years to write. Every chapter has to be so in-depth. It depends on what kind of book. In my case, writing an autobiography is a little easier because I know my subject very well. [Laughs] And I've been a journaler for years — I've always kept a diary and a journal — so I have a lot of source material to reference. Like where I was on a certain date, what happened, roughly. So I have a lot of ability to go back and read what I lived."
Tate previously discussed his autobiography last fall in an interview with Keysmash magazine. At the time, he said: "Over the last close to a year, I've been working on my book, my autobiography. And I'm just finishing it up now; I'm kind of in the proofreading stage. And actually reading it through, I'm kind of shocked at how much life I've had. [Laughs] I've done a lot of stuff, and a lot of interesting things. I've done a lot of traveling. I've been to 67 countries in the world. I've been a lot of places, done a lot of things, played a lot of shows, made a lot of friends. I've lost a lot of friends along the way. [I've had] a crazy, crazy life."
In a March 2021 interview with Sonic Perspectives, Tate said that he had "a lot of stuff written already" for his autobiography. "I'm kind of a journal writer, keeping track of everything, 'cause, honestly, the older I get, I can't remember all the stuff," he explained. "I go back and read what I wrote to remember dates and places. 'Cause I've played so many shows — thousands of shows — in different places around the world, and honestly, you just sort of forget, unless you keep track of it and write it down. You forget where you were, or you remember there was something that happened there and maybe you can remember the situation, but you don't know where you were. So it really helps to write it down and keep track of it. I have a lot of things written down — probably eight or nine hundred pages of information. It's pretty much organized by date."
Geoff celebrated his 64th birthday on January 14 during his concert at Amaturo Theater in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
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 is currently celebrating the 35th anniversary of QUEENSRŸCHE's classic album "Operation: Mindcrime".
In the summer of 2022, Tate underwent an aortic valve replacement at the Universitäts-Herzzentrum Freiburg-Bad Krozingen (University Heart Center Freiburg) in Bad Krozingen, Germany.
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