TODD LA TORRE: GEOFF TATE Has Great Musicians Joining Him, But That's Not QUEENSRŸCHE

Last week, Ria Fend of London Rocks conducted an interview with QUEENSRŸCHE singer Todd La Torre. You can now listen to the chat in the YouTube clip below.

On the drama surrounding the release of "Frequency Unknown", the new album from the Geoff Tate-fronted version of QUEENSRŸCHE:

Todd: "To be honest, it's not something that we really pay much attention to. I mean, obviously, it's everywhere on the Internet, so you can't avoid it.

"There's a trial in November that will determine the [QUEENSRŸCHE] name — who gets that — and I feel very confident, everyone on our side feels very confident that Michael [Wilton, guitar] and Scott [Rockenfield, drums] and Eddie [Jackson, bass] will be awarded the name. And obviously, it'll boil down to whatever kind of corporate contracts are established and put in place and that kind of a thing. I'm sure there will have to be some type of financial compensation for whichever side gets it. But these guys were the majority, they were the songwriters, and…

"I guess I will quote Scott Rockenfield from a previous interview where he says for any one person to call themselves the band name is ridiculous.

"I know that on [Geoff's] record, he had him and two other writers that aren't even in the band. And those guys that play on that record are not the guys that you see on the stage. So it's a group of great musicians that he has joining him, but that's not QUEENSRŸCHE."

On what fans can expect to hear on his second album with QUEENSRŸCHE and the follow-up to this month's self-titled effort:

Todd: "I think that on the next record, there might be stuff that's a little heavier. And also probably some longer songs. I think that there was a song that Michael was working on, and he was, like, 'Dude, this is gonna be an eight-minute song. This is really killer.' And I said, 'Well, that's fine with me.'

"I wouldn't mind the next record kind of letting the music breathe a little bit more in the sense of… Today, people really want you to be into the meat of the song in a relatively short period of time. The days of hearing songs that PINK FLOYD wrote or LED ZEPPELIN wrote or… look, a lot of the metal bands that I've always loved. There's always that long intro, and it kind of gets monotonous and it loses your attention. I think if we can write a long song in a very creative way, then that would be something that I'm looking forward to. A song like 'Roads To Madness' — that's a ten-minute song. Take [the listeners] on this really long journey; for a song [to do that] would be really great.

"I guess the next record… I remember saying to the guys, on the next record, I would like there to be songs that are even heavier than whatever we did on this record. I really wanna be able to push the threshold as far as I can with the heavier side. But certainly there are moments that I love just as much that are not heavy songs but that are just really great songwriting and big orchestras and song dynamics. So we're just gonna try to outdo his record on the next one and see what we could come up with."

On what it’s like to front one of his favorite bands:

Todd: "When people ask me, 'Man, aren't you just freaking out that you're singer of QUEENSRŸCHE?' Part of me says, 'Yeah.' But a bigger part of me says 'No,' because I've lived this in my mind so many times. It's just now you get to see what I've been seeing in my dreams."

Interview:

"Fallout" audio stream:

"Where Dreams Go To Die" audio stream:

"Redemption"(new song) audio stream: