QUEENSRŸCHE Singer: 'As An Artistic Statement, I'm Very Happy With This Album'

Keith Loria of the Wilton Villager recently conducted an interview with QUEENSRŸCHE frontman Geoff Tate. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

On "American Soldier" being a concept album about war from the perspective of those on the front lines of wars from World War II through the present:

"It started with a conversation I had with my father. He was a war veteran in Korea and Vietnam and all growing up, my dad never wanted to talk about his experiences and sort of blew it off. I was always pestering him about it to tell me stories. One day out of nowhere, he just starts talking about 1953 and Korea and this is staggering to me because I have been waiting all my life to hear these."

"This was one of the more challenging records for me to write, lyrically, because I am not involved in the songs. It is not about me, and it's not about how I feel. It is me interpreting stories from the perspectives of the soldiers and putting their words into lyric form, retelling the story in the most honest way that I could.

"As an artistic statement, I'm very happy with this album. I think we've said what we want to say and we've done it in a way that is respectful to the people that are involved. I hope that people talk about it and debate about it, and I hope it rubs some people the wrong way, because that rub is what inspires conversation. That's what art should do."

On the fact that QUEENSRŸCHE has decided to play songs off only three albums when on stage this year:

"We took a poll on our web site and the fans dictated what they wanted to hear and the older albums they picked were 'Rage for Order' and 'Empire'. We want to satisfy all our fans so what we are doing is creating two separate set lists that will comprise all of the songs from these three records and we are going to alternate night after night so people can hear all the songs if they go to two shows."

On the band's longevity:

"The secret for staying I think has to do with being able to tell stories and being able to do something that your audience finds entertaining or interesting. I think you have to, as a musician and artist, follow your gut and write music and create songs that are interesting to you so hopefully they will be interesting to your audience."

On how he still loves being on stage with QUEENSRŸCHE each year:

"I enjoy looking at the audience and singing a song and seeing how it affects them and seeing really strong feelings from people and feeling that back. It's always fun to play a song and look out at the audience and seeing two people holding each other and feeling something because that's their song, or it was the backdrop for some point in their life. That's an amazing feeling."

Read the entire interview from the Wilton Villager.

QUEENSRŸCHE live at the House of Blues in Cleveland, Ohio on May 6, 2009: