GEOFF TATE Says 30th-Anniversary Edition Of QUEENSRŸCHE's 'Empire' Will Include 'A Lot Of Bonus Content'

During a brand new interview with Rock Confidential, Geoff Tate was asked about the status of the previously announced 30th-anniversary edition of QUEENSRŸCHE's "Empire" album. He said: "That will be released in the first quarter of 2020. It's done. It's got a lot of bonus content, live tracks and liners. You're gonna love it."

Tate also talked about his upcoming tour on which he will play "Empire" and the QUEENSRŸCHE album "Rage For Order" in their entirety.

"I look forward to performing 'Empire' next year, because there's songs on there that I've never performed live," he said. "Some of them I have never performed since we recorded them. It's going to be special. I mean, we're opening with the 'Rage For Order' album. It's going to be fun."

1986's "Rage For Order" introduced a much more polished look and sound for QUEENSRŸCHE. The album featured keyboards as prominently as guitars, and the group adopted an image more closely associated with glam rock or glam metal than with heavy metal (of which glam metal was a subgenre). A video was filmed for the song "Gonna Get Close to You", originally recorded in 1984 by DALBELLO.

Released in 1990, "Empire" 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.

Tate told Eonmusic that one song from "Empire" that was rarely performed live is "Anybody Listening?" "When QUEENSRŸCHE was together, we never really put that song in our set. We just had a hard time playing it, for some reason; it just never jelled or felt right. And I'd really like to play that song again, and play it right."

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. Original QUEENSRŸCHE members Michael Wilton (guitar),Scott Rockenfield (drums) and Eddie Jackson (bass) responded with a countersuit. The settlement included an agreement that Wilton, Rockenfield and Jackson would continue as QUEENSRŸCHE, while Tate would have the sole right to perform the albums "Operation: Mindcrime" and "Operation: Mindcrime II" in their entirety live.

Tate has been replaced in QUEENSRŸCHE by former CRIMSON GLORY singer Todd La Torre.

Geoff recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of "Operation: Mindcrime" 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).