QUEENSRCHE Singer: 'We Just Wanted To Make An Album With A Bunch Of Diverse Songs'

Jeffrey Easton of Metal Exiles recently conducted an interview with vocalist Geoff Tate of Seattle progressive rockers QUEENSRCHE. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metal Exiles: The new album, lyrically, is all over the place. What was occupying your mind while you were writing "Dedicated To Chaos"?

Geoff: Life, and I am fascinated by life. I find myself in all of these situations all the time commenting about things. I do not have an answer to every situation that I am in, I just pose the question. In the song "Retail Therapy", I am so inundated by iPhone apps, programs for my computer and social media, I am just so caught up in it all the time. I do not make a judgment on it in the song, I am just pointing out that it's there and I am hooked. I think on a lot of the tracks on the album, there is not a position I take, I am just painting a picture that it exists. Are we caught up in it? Is it good? Is it bad? That is how I feel about modern life; it is moving so fast, it is just fascinating to be alive right now. It is a real time of change, not just technologically, but socially and politically. We are growing at a stunning rate and it is probably because we are just connected so much, everywhere in the world. We are able to monitor all of these places everyday and it is fascinating to watch.

Metal Exiles: But is it good or bad, though?

Geoff: I do not know, I do not have that answer. Nobody does, until we spend enough time doing it. But then what is good or bad? Those decisions are based on certain frames of reference on any given time period. We used to think slavery was good. We used to think that driving 55 mph was good and that chanced in the '70s. We have all kinds of opinions on what is good or bad so I do not know.

Metal Exiles: As it is lyrically diverse, it is musically as well, maybe the most diverse QUEENSRCHE record to date. How hard was it to make the entire album work together with its many sounds?

Geoff: I enjoy that process quite a bit, putting the albums together in an order that works. This album was less time spent on that than any other, though. Primarily because of the way we release music these days, it is not an album anymore, it is a playlist. It's not a single anymore, it's focus tracks. All of that terminology is changing the way we think about music. All of these studies point out that we do not listen to albums anymore, they say, we just listen to specific songs that they like and put together a playlist. I say, sure, why not? Especially with this album. With "Dedicated To Chaos", there is no theme or concept, they are all individual tracks so put them in any order you want. I even tried them alphabetically and that works very well too.
Metal Exiles: I know that Vivian Campbell (DEF LEPPARD) said recently that nobody cares about albums anymore. Do you think that's true?

Geoff: That's a very global statement, but going by information I have, and talking with different record companies, there is a lot less emphasis on selling albums. Instead there is more focus on the content of the song. The public is leaning that way as well.

Metal Exiles: As far as I am concerned, I still like going out and buying CDs (and records for that matter).

Geoff: They say that the older people are the ones that keep the record bankrolled as well as the artists. Pretty much everybody under 35 are downloading and illegally.

Metal Exiles: You have a bunch a different vibes on this album. What was the focus on with "Dedicated"?

Geoff: We just wanted to make an album with a bunch of diverse songs. Usually when we sit down to make an album we talk about what we want to achieve and with this one the two major points we wanted to cover was diversity within the songs. We wanted them as different from each other as we could make them. The second thing we wanted to do was play our instruments differently. You do the same thing for so long you develop habits, these ways of doing things that you go to because it's easier. Then you start repeating yourself and we wanted to make the songs diverse so to make them that way we played our instruments differently. Each member approached their instruments differently in their own way. Scott [Rockenfield, drums] set up his kit differently than he had before which forced himself to play in different times. Parker [Lundgren, guitar] taped his fingers together in different configurations to force himself to reach for notes differently and exercise his fingers. I changed my recording location to a different studio to give myself a whole different vantage point for inspiration. Eddie [Jackson, bass] just went out and bought a bunch of new equipment so he is out opening new artistic doors for himself.

Read the entire interview from Metal Exiles.