TODD LA TORRE: 'I've Brought Back A Lot Of The Vocal Acrobatics That Were Missing' In QUEENSRŸCHE 'For A Long Time'

In a new interview with Chile's PowerOfMetal.cl, vocalist Todd La Torre was asked what he thinks his "biggest contribution" has been to the evolution of QUEENSRŸCHE since he joined the band in 2012. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, the key word you said there was 'evolution' because I was gonna say I think I've brought back a lot of the vocal acrobatics that were missing for a long time. As far as the evolution of the band, I don't know how to answer that other than the fact that the band is free to write as heavy a music as they want or not. There was a long period of time where heavy ideas were being stifled and were not being accepted. And so when I got into the band, I think that the chains were taken off and these guys felt like they could write whatever they wanna write without being told it's too heavy, which I think is, again, contributing to that evolution. But I don't know how I've contributed to the evolution other than just embracing the old catalog and performing those songs in standard tunings, like the records go, and really embracing the [debut QUEENSRŸCHE] EP record and performing it, or the entire album 'The Warning', things like that — playing all these songs that fans love to hear that they haven't heard in a long time."

Regarding what fans can expect from QUEENSRŸCHE in the coming months, Todd said: " Same as we've been doing for the last 13 years. We write records, so we're working on a new record now, and then we'll go tour on it. It's just kind of way the nature of the beast is. We tour year round and try to find pockets of time to write new music and then record it and put it out and promote it and do videos, that kind of thing. So same thing that we've been doing. We're just working on the next record now."

Last August, La Torre told Canada's The Metal Voice that he has been embraced as the singer of QUEENSRŸCHE by most of the band's fans, more than a decade after he joined the group as the replacement for original frontman Geoff Tate.

"Look, any time you have a singer change in a band, especially one where the singer was a huge part of that sound, you're gonna have people that, right off the bat, they're just gonna be very skeptical," Todd explained. "They're not gonna like it. It bothers their feelings because they have all these memories with that band, with that singer, with those songs and that voice. And I totally get it. And yeah, there's times where we play shows and some guy's got his arms crossed, like 'Impress me, bro' kinda look. Like, shitty-looking attitudes. And I'll look right at 'em and I'll go, 'Smile dude. We're having a good time.' And they won't even smile at me back. And then, a couple songs later, I'll reach out like that to fist bump them, and they'll do it — nine times out of ten they'll do it. And they see, like, 'Hey, this guy's all right.' Their guard is down a little more and they're a little more receptive to just listening to the vocal on its own merit.

"Let's say that I had a recording of the original singer's voice pumping through the P.A. and I was faking it to his voice. People would still say, 'Ugh, he sucks,'" La Torre continued. "It's, like, you're literally hearing the original guy. I would love to do that as a test one day as a spoof, but I wouldn't. And then after a while, people are, like, 'All right. That was really good.'

"I'm never gonna be the original guy, and that's okay," Todd said. "I told that to Geoff when I saw him in Spain [in 2017 when Tate had a chance encounter with his former bandmates at a festival]. We talked, and I told him what I told him. I said, 'Yeah, I can hit the high notes, but you're the original guy. You recorded some of the best records ever. I don't care if you ever sing another high note again. You don't have anything to prove as far as I'm concerned.' But it's everybody else that tries to compare and pit people against each other. And he said I sounded amazing. So to the people that wanna say I don't, your boy is saying I sound really good. And at the end of the day, man, I know when I sing well, and I know when I have a bad night or an off night.

"There are people, a lot of times, that say, 'Hey, I owe you an apology.' I don't even know who they are," La Torre added. "'I said some really horrible things about you. And I didn't wanna like you, but you won me over, and I'm a fan now.' Awesome. And those people will champion you 10 times harder because they were, like, 'Oh, I didn't like him either, but you've gotta listen to this,' or, 'You haven't heard what he did with that,' or whatever. And let's be honest, we play everything in the standard tuning. Some people say, 'Oh, he can't hit those notes.' Yeah, I can. I do it every night."

Asked to explain what it means when he says that QUEENSRŸCHE plays all of its songs in "the standard tuning", Todd said: "Most guitars are just, you strum and they're just E — standard tuning… And listen, back then, '80s and rock was very much always in E — maybe E flat where you downtune it a half step. And singers that struggle a lot of times will say, 'Hey, we're gonna need to tune this one down.' So the song, all the music gets tuned down. You tune the music, the key, the instruments down a little. And then when you play those same chords, you play the guitar the same way, but it's just a little bit in a lower key, and so it makes it easier for a lot of singers to sing those songs still, just not in the standard tuning that they were originally recorded… There's nothing wrong with that, if that's what you have to do to to make it work. What's not cool is when you act like you didn't do it, and there are singers that do that, or it's frustrating when people will say, 'Oh,' whatever band it is, 'that guy's still hitting the notes like the record.' And they don't realize that, no, he's not. It's tuned down. It's not the same. And you can compare 'em — you can 'A-B' 'em and listen. You think he's killing these high notes. He's not. He's singing lower note that still sound good, but let's make no mistake. It's not how it was recorded. And again, that's fine. There might be a point in my life where, yeah, I can't do that. But you can still sing it really, really well. At [51] years old, I still — when I feel good and I'm not ill and tired and everything — I can sing all the QUEENSRŸCHE stuff in standard tuning and it's fine. It's not a big deal."

QUEENSRŸCHE's sixteenth studio album, "Digital Noise Alliance", came out in October 2022 via Century Media. The record was once again helmed by Chris "Zeuss" Harris, who previously worked with QUEENSRŸCHE on 2015's "Condition Hüman" and 2019's "The Verdict" LPs.

Guitarist Mike Stone, who rejoined QUEENSRŸCHE in 2021, contributed guitar solos to the band's latest studio album.

Since late May 2021, Stone has been handling second-guitar duties in QUEENSRŸCHE, which announced in July 2021 that longtime guitarist Parker Lundgren was exiting the group to focus on "other business ventures."

Stone originally joined QUEENSRŸCHE for the 2003 album "Tribe" and stayed with the band for six years before leaving the group.

For the past eight years, drummer Casey Grillo has been filling in for original QUEENSRŸCHE drummer Scott Rockenfield, who stepped away from the band's touring activities in early 2017 to spend time with his young son.

In October 2021, Rockenfield filed a lawsuit against guitarist Michael Wilton and bassist Eddie Jackson, alleging, among other things, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and wrongful discharge. A few months later, Wilton and Jackson filed a countersuit against Rockenfield, accusing him of abandoning his position as a member of the band and misappropriating the group's assets to his own personal benefit. That dispute has since been settled out of court.

Image credit: CaPa