QUEENSRŸCHE Drummer: 'Our Fans Are Gonna Be Really Pleasantly Surprised' By Next Studio Album

Robert Williams of Metal-Rules.com conducted an interview with QUEENSRŸCHE members Michael Wilton (guitar),Eddie Jackson (bass) and Scott Rockenfield (drums) prior to the band's headlining performance at the South Texas Rock Fest in San Antonio, Texas on October 13. You can now watch the chat below.

On the band's current setlist:

Wilton: "A lot of this is just bringing songs that we haven't played in a long time, for various reasons … It's just about kind of listening the fans more and listening to what they wanna hear and kind of working the things out. A lot of these songs we wrote a long time ago. So we had to go back and re-learn a lot of it."

On whether re-visiting some of the band's early material will influence QUEENSRŸCHE's musical direction going forward:

Wilton: "Well, a lot of it is keeping a common thread in your roots. Granted, we wanna expand on what we've done, especially the first seven albums, but also we've grown as musicians and we kind of like to keep a modern edge to it. Just as we've progressed as musicians and in our musicianship, we like to explore that as well."

On whether QUEENSRŸCHE has been writing new material:

Jackson: "Yeah, we've been doing that for quite a while — I think it's last half a year — at least with [new singer] Todd [La Torre, also of CRIMSON GLORY] and Parker [Lundgren, guitar]. But [even] before that, we're always constantly writing. But we got Parker and Todd involved and we've been moving forward with a lot of new material, and we're gonna actually gonna be recording it here within at least a couple of months, and hopefully have something out by spring, a new album out by next spring."

On what Parker and Todd bring to the table in the songwriting department:

Rockenfield: "I think it's all about chemistry. I think we've just found a good chemistry between the five of us. I mean, Michael, Eddie and I have had chemistry for such a long time, and Parker has been with us now for many years, playing our old material. And we're always thinking and looking at the future, and we've talked about what to do and how to do it, and rolling Todd into the equation, he's just stepped in and fit the role of what QUEENSRŸCHE wants to achieve and what we wanna do. The writing process so far has been really great. As Eddie said, we've been working on stuff for quite awhile now. We've got a lot of new material that's ready to go, and we're looking to be in the studio here really soon and have something out really early of next year and get back on the road and support the record that's out and tour around the world. And once again, coming back to it, I think it's just about the chemistry. We just got really lucky with the five of us; the chemistry is really gonna prove itself."

On the lyrical inspiration for the new material:

Rockenfield: "I thnk it really depends on the song we're working on at the time. Whatever a particular song lends, or feels like it needs, we try to make that the emotion of the song. Hence, the lyric will hopefully follow that emotion as well. We're still working on a bunch of stuff, so at this point in time I think… The proof will be in the pudding when everybody can hear it when it finally comes out. But I think our fans are gonna be really pleasantly surprised and they're gonna have something that I think they're gonna consider some good work by us that they've been missing for quite a while. And we're just really excited about it."

On the band's legacy:

Rockenfield: "We've got a great legacy. I mean, we don't take it for granted by any means. We've been fortunate to stay in the music business and make it a career of ours with great chemistry together for a long time. And with our new movement now, with having Todd in the band, and our ability to go out and really focus on some of the great, fun material that has made QUEENSRŸCHE memorable, that's what we wanted to do. I mean, [the fan support] has been crazy. Even as of just last night, with the show that we played in Corpus Christi, it's just been a blowup of response to us today, just after last night. It's hard not to have enthusiasm when that happens to you. But that just hasn't been kind of happening to us for a bit; we've been kind of a little stale, I think, for unfortunate reasons, and I think now we're just looking to change that."

QUEENSRŸCHE's setlist for South Texas Rock Fest:

01. Queen Of The Reich
02. Speak
03. Walk In The Shadows
04. The Whisper
05. En Force
06. Child Of Fire
07. Warning
08. The Needle Lies
09. Prophecy
10. Roads To Madness
11. I Don't Believe In Love
12. My Empty Room
13. Eyes Of A Stranger

Encore:

14. Take Hold Of The Flame
15. Jet City Woman
16. Silent Lucidity
17. Empire

Interview:

Performance: