QUEENSRCHE Singer: 'Rock Is Pretty Much Dead'

QUEENSRCHE singer Geoff Tate was interviewed for the summer 2011 issue of U.K.'s Classic Rock magazine. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Classic Rock: You've called ["Dedicated To Chaos"] a "headphones record."

Geoff: That's the way people listen to music now. People today are plugged in switching between their iPod and phone, back and forth, listening to music all day long. No, I don't miss the days of guys siting around listening to vinyl. I don't miss the past much. I love the age we live in. Every day there's something new to wrap your head around. I want to keep embracing new ideas, technology, work of art, literature, films. If you stop doing that, your brain gets lazy.

Classic Rock: Songs like "Wot We Do" sound like hip-hop. Can rock fans handle that?

Geoff: Well, I think they should. Rock is pretty much dead. If you look at the numbers, it's definitely not the music of the times anymore. If it's gonna keep moving, bands need to embrace new ideas. There's a lot of elements to rock that, mentally speaking, are kinda boneheaded. Like the whole "chunk-chunk-chunk" guitar progression the stuff you play when you're learning the damn thing. You would hope bands would get beyond that.

Classic Rock: Wikipedia describes QUEENSRCHE as "progressive metal." So you agree?

Geoff: Absolutely not. I never want to be in anybody's genre. I don't want anybody to ever tell me what I belong to, where I should go, what I'm part of. That's not anybody's business but my own. Brackets are so over. Honestly, these days, with record companies pretty much gone, all the rules are changing. There's not gonna be any need for genres or categorization, it's all gonna be alphabetical order. The beauty of the Internet is that we can all invent ourselves any way we wish.

"Get Started", the new video from QUEENSRCHE, can now be seen below.

"Get Started" comes off QUEENSRCHE's new album, "Dedicated To Chaos", which sold 8,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 70 on The Billboard 200 chart. The band's previous CD, the epic concept album "American Soldier", opened with 21,000 units back in April 2009 to enter the chart at No. 25. This was roughly half the first-week tally registered by QUEENSRCHE's "Operation: Mindcrime II" album, which shifted 44,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release back in April 2006 to debut at No. 14 on The Billboard 200 chart.

QUEENSRCHE's 2003 effort, "Tribe", sold 20,000 copies in the first week while 1999's "Q2K", opened with sales of 28,000.

QUEENSRCHE's top-selling album by far is 1990's "Empire", which was certified triple-platinum in October 1994 for sales in excess of three million copies in the United States. The original "Operation: Mindcrime" release (1988) attained platinum status in August 1991, while 1994's "Promised Land" reached the same plateau in December 1994.

"Dedicated To Chaos" was released on June 28 in North America via Loud & Proud Records, a Roadrunner Records imprint focusing on established artists. The band is currently touring in support of the new opus, which was recorded in the group's hometown and produced by Kelly Gray.

Photo by Andy Batt