GEOFF TATE Says His Upcoming Autobiography 'Will Be A Real Interesting Read For People'

In a new interview with Saginaw, Michigan's Z93 radio station, former QUEENSRŸCHE frontman Geoff Tate was asked about the status of his long-awaited autobiography. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Yeah, it's pretty involved. I'm a journaler, so I keep pretty good notes about what happens every day. And I've been doing that all my career. So I've got extensive recollections of events, which is kind of a blessing and a curse because — well, it's a blessing that I have the information [and] it's a curse that I have the information. [Laughs] So, yeah, it's really about deciding what to release and what to say and how to say it, really. So, it's a tricky thing, because, honestly, as life goes on and unfolds, it's not always neat and tidy. There's really big, messy sections of life. And they deserve to be talked about, I think, and discussed. And everybody sees it differently. My perspective is one angle. My drummer's perspective is another. He lived a different life than me, although we shared some experiences, but how people see those experiences is, in my experience, very different. So, I think when the book is done, it will be a real interesting read for people. I know it's been really interesting to write."

Tate went on to say that the "hard part" will be "editing" his book. "There's a lot of really boring sections of life, where you're just kind of contemplating your next endeavor or your next move," he explained. "But there's also really interesting sections, like planning for albums and what happens in the studio, the joys, the high points, the low points of struggling with different personalities within the organization, and also people that you hire to work with you, like producers and engineers, and how you may have an idea of how that's gonna work when you start out, but then you get working with them and it's not working out, and how do you make that all happen. And then there's all the ancillary anecdotes, [like] what happened with nearly getting arrested and in Amsterdam, and things like that. [Laughs]"

Last August, Geoff told Mike Hsu of the 100 FM The Pike radio station that he thought he was "close to finishing" writing his autobiography, only for him to send it to his publisher and for the publisher to send it back 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 said.

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."

In June 2023, 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 in the fall of 2022 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."

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.

Last year, Geoff completed a world tour during which he celebrated 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.