QUEENSRŸCHE Singer's 'American Soldier' Track-By-Track Breakdown

The Breakdown Room, AnybodyListening.net's QUEENSRŸCHE discussion forum, has posted a track-by-track description of the band's forthcoming album, "American Soldier", written by vocalist Geoff Tate. It is also available below.

QUEENSRŸCHE's twelfth studio release, the epic concept album "American Soldier", will be available from Atco/Rhino on March 31 for a suggested list price of $18.98 (CD) and $9.99 (digital). The ambitious album encompasses a dozen songs inspired by numerous interviews with veterans conducted by Geoff Tate, the group's singer and chief songwriter, who was intent on telling their story using their words. After speaking with soldiers who served in various conflicts — from World War II to Iraq — Tate turned their firsthand experiences from the frontlines into an unflinching musical examination of the life of a solider and the consequences of war.

QUEENSRŸCHE vocalist Geoff Tate's "American Soldier" track-by-track description:

01. "Sliver":

Geoff Tate: "'Sliver' is the introduction of the soldier into the military environment. It is 'bootcamp.' Time to grow up and let go of your childhood and become an adult and move into the world arena.
Military drill sergeants use the phrase 'welcome to the show' when referring to warfare and I used this as one of the main lines for the song. I had interviewed A.J. Fratto, a Navy rescue swimmer and crew chief for the Blue Angels, and later had him down to the studio to sing the lines for the song. All the lines of the songs were taken from the interviews I had conducted. These are the soldiers words:'This shit's for real; there's no where to hide.'"

02. "Unafraid"

Geoff Tate: "'Unafraid' is an interesting and different song for QUEENSRŸCHE. It's different because we used the soldiers' own words from the interviews as the verses for the song. Not only do we have people other than myself performing the verses, but they're not even singing — they're speaking. The two men are talking about conflicts of different time frames — one Vietnam and the other Kosovo — and in listening one would get the impression that they were talking about the same situation, because they are saying some of the same things.

"Musically, it's a pretty adventurous track. We constructed the music around the verses. If you listen, the guitar in the verses is in mono, not stereo, so there is room to hear what is being said. On the chorus, the music changes to stereo again with me singing the lyrics. There are a lot of interesting audio things going on with this record, which is what makes it so effective to listen to with headphones."

03. "Hundred Mile Stare"

Geoff Tate: "This is one of my favorite songs on the collection. I like the idea of what this song is saying, and the lyrics are almost hard for me to sing, because the soldier is saying, 'What ever happened to people feeling a conviction and having faith in an idea and a belief? People can't stand their ground. I've always known that it's very black and white, and I have no fear of any judgment. The military has taught me that...' I find that statement to be really challenging, because I'm one of those vacillators that goes back and forth and tries to think of every angle, the cause and effect. That's definitely not me talking! [Laughing]

"The chorus talks about the mentality of the unstoppable force. If you've ever played a sport or have been on a roll writing music as a musician, you know that unstoppable feeling — that's what this song is getting at. It's a combat song, really. It's one of my favorite melodic QUEENSRŸCHE songs. It's very anthemic with really beautiful parts."

04. "At 30,000 Ft"

Geoff Tate: "This song is about a pilot and his experience, which is very different from ground personnel. Pilots have a very different perspective on things, a very different job. The song deals with this particular soldier's feelings of being separate from the devastation he is inflicting. He's above it all, flying 30,000 feet in the air, dropping bombs on targets. He's not involved in hand-to-hand ground combat. He said that it's a strange feeling to know that you've just wiped out an entire city with a touch of a button, and then you're back at the base, watching reruns of a TV show. It's just another day at the office. There's no emotional attachment to it like a guy who was in a platoon and may have lost buddies. The pilot is dealing with a whole different set of issues that are a lot harder to define...

"I wrote this song, and then months later I got a chance to play it for Lynn, the pilot whom I wrote it about. We have it on camera. He was reading it, and tears were running down his face. I asked him what moved him, and he said the line, 'The tortured, painful cries will never fall upon my ears, and never stain my elder years. My heartbeat is all I'll feel.' He was disconnected from it all at the time, but now he thinks about it regularly.

"There is a very effective musical section during the solo where Michael used the guitar to be representative of an airplane flying over the city dropping missiles and bombs, very chaotic."

05. "A Dead Man's Words"

Geoff Tate: "This was inspired by a situation that is very prevalent in the military. They have a policy that no soldier is left behind: If somebody is shot down behind enemy lines or in a man-down situation, the military mobilizes to get them to safety.

"This is a story about a soldier that was shot down behind enemy lines and how a group of volunteers went in to rescue him. It's told from the perspective of the soldier who was shot down and injured and the soldier who volunteered to go in and get him.

"Last year on our American tour we had a contest to win a chance to sing on our record and a gentleman named Vince Solano won and sings the part of the rescuer.

"The story is set in the Middle East, so we gave the music that feel with Middle Eastern modes and Arabian scales."

06. "The Killer"

Geoff Tate: "Shoot or die? What are you going to do? On the battlefield, you have to make that decision and you have to react quickly. Fundamentally, I think the song is about judgment — making the call and standing by your actions. This song wasn't inspired by any one interview; it was a combination of all of them. All the battle veterans I interviewed had the same perspective: kill or be killed.

"The other idea represented in this song was how do non-military people relate to what the soldier experiences in battle. One soldier said that on his return from the Gulf War, his mother wouldn't even talk to him because she thought that what he did as a soldier was disgusting; it went against her religion. She felt so strongly about it that she couldn't even look him in the face. There's a line in the song that other people have written before, and I have used in other songs, 'You can't begin to imagine where I've been until you've walked in my shoes.' It's a very true statement and one that maybe we should all contemplate."

07. "Middle Of Hell"

Geoff Tate: "The title of this song came from a something a soldier's dad had said on the eve of his son's deployment. He asked his son to be careful because he was going into hell. The soldier wrote back to his family a month after being overseas and told his dad, 'You were right, I'm in the middle of hell.' A soldier named Anthony was on humvee patrol in Baghdad. His vehicle was blown up with a buried mine and Anthony was severely injured and almost died. He said that patrolling the streets was incredibly tense because every time the vehicle would stop there were hundreds of people surrounding you and they didn't seem happy. They didn't want soldiers there. Everyone was dressed as a civilian so how do you know who the enemy is? How do you deal with that? You're on constant alert, watching for something out of the ordinary.

"He also told a story about being back home from his tour of duty and was pulled over by the police. When he asked what he was doing wrong, the officer said that he was driving down the middle of the road. Anthony said he was sorry, but he'd just gotten back from Iraq, where they couldn't drive in the actual lanes because that's where the bombs were. That inspired the line in the song, 'We drive straight down the centerline. No mistakes, not like last time. You don't want to be on the wrong side of Hell.' The chorus says, 'I'm all right. I'll be all right,' and that's a mantra these guys constantly repeat to themselves. They may have lost an arm, a leg, and an eye, but they'll still keep telling themselves they're going to be all right.

"Musically this turned out very hypnotic, it's very representative of driving. I put down a saxophone solo that Michael plays off with the guitar, intercepting and colliding at different times so the song has a mesmerizing feel with an underlying tension."

08. "If I Were King"

Geoff Tate: "This is a song about guilt. A soldier who lost his friend in a firefight and spent a lot of time afterwards struggling with his feelings, wishing he could have done more to save his friend. The song is saying if I were king, if I could do anything, I'd have you back in my life again, back by my side. I thought that was a very interesting and inspiring viewpoint."

09. "Man Down!"

Geoff Tate: This was a bizarre story to me. It's about a soldier who came back from his tour of duty and felt like he couldn't connect and fit comfortably back into civilian life. He felt like he could not stay in one place. He had to keep moving. So he bought a car, packed everything he had into it, and spent six years driving across the country, back and forth and up and down. That struck me as very David Lynch-like.

"The military has an expression, 'man down,' which identifies an injured soldier and is a call to organize a rescue. To me, this soldier was injured, in need of rescue because he didn't have the tools to handle his emotions. There are a couple of lines in it that are taken from his description of his never-ending road trip. 'The Cavalry of God' was a tour bus painted with religious slogans carrying pilgrims and gospel singers."

10. "Remember Me"

Geoff Tate: "One of the soldiers was telling me about his experience with his wife. He had been married very young, at 19, and the stress of being away from each other and in a very dangerous situation, as well as the age factor, made the relationship one that didn't last. That seemed to be a common thread with a lot of the people I talked to."

11. "Home Again"

Geoff Tate: "There is a lot of emotion attached to this song. The whole idea of separation between loved ones is one of my favorite topics, perhaps because I live and breathe it being away from my kids and my wife while touring. You miss them so much, and it's like you live two separate lives. When you're a soldier and you're away, it's very difficult to bridge those two worlds.

"This song is inspired by a series of letters. The correspondence was between a soldier/father and his young daughter back at home. He was laughing about how he thought it was really cute to him that in the letters, they were both saying the same things and even using the same terminology. Those kinds of coincidences really get to me. Because it was a father-daughter relationship, I asked my daughter Emily, who is ten years old, to sing the song with me. She did a wonderful performance, so innocent. I'd never shared a lead vocal with one of my kids before and emotionally; it was one of the toughest songs for me to sing on the record."

12. "The Voice"

Geoff Tate: "The song opens with my father talking. All my life I'd been waiting for him to open up and talk about his experiences in Korea and Vietnam. Now in his seventies, he finally did and it was my inspiration for this record, so it only seemed natural to have his voice on it.

"Several of the soldiers I interviewed talked about being injured, being on the edge of death and being brought back. That kind of situation is always interesting to me, hearing what they felt, what they saw, and what happened. Some people see a light and others hear voices, and that is what this song is about, the voice you hear in your head. From what I gather, there's quite a struggle for people at that point. Some people say they're ready to go, and others will kick, scream and claw, clinging to life with all their strength. 'Don't be afraid' is a very powerful phrase that we all grow up with. Our parents constantly tell us, 'Don't be afraid.' I think that if you were lying there badly wounded, the voices you'd hear in your head are your parents', saying 'Don't be afraid.' Or … maybe it's God."

The Breakdown Room has posted the lyrics to "American Soldier". Check them out at this location.

"American Soldier" was written by Tate and producer Jason Slater, along with drummer Scott Rockenfield, and contributors Kelly Gray and Damon Johnson. Slater returns to the QUEENSRŸCHE creative process in the same capacity that worked for the band with the writing and recording of "Operation: Mindcrime II", which was released in 2006 and debuted at #14 on The Billboard 200, selling more than 40,000 records in its first week. The album was QUEENSRŸCHE's highest chart debut since "Promised Land", in 1994. Both "Promised Land" and "Operation: Mindcrime" (1988) have been certified platinum, selling more than one million albums each in America alone, and "Empire" (1990) has reached triple-platinum status. The band's first three albums–their self-titled EP (1983),"The Warning" (1984),and "Rage For Order" (1986) — have all been certified gold, selling more than 500,000 copies each.

In a first for QUEENSRŸCHE, all of the guitar tracks on "American Soldier" were recorded by Michael Wilton.

"If I Were King" (audio stream),the first single from "American Soldier", is now available for download from all digital retailers. "If I Were King" was written based on an interview lead singer Geoff Tate conducted with Sean Lenahan, a veteran of U.S. conflicts in Somalia and Kosovo. Some chilling sound bites from Tate's interview with Lenahan can be heard at various points in the song.

Geoff Tate's video message for BLABBERMOUTH.NET and its users: