QUEENSRYCHE ARE RAGING!

QUEENSRYCHE ARE RAGING!

Sharon Liveten

Geoff Tate, the lead singer of Queensryche. is a good sport, really. But here it is, late in the afternoon in the middle of a humongous week-long gathering of music industry geeks, and Geoff doesn't look like he's having fun yet. It's understandable, of course. Tate was a member of the confab’s metal panel, where they not only misspelled his name, but met at the ungodly hour of 9:30 a m.

"It's just not very rock 'n' roll," he chuckles, flashing a weary smile. ‘Til tell you that.”

Even in his weakened state, he admits to being a man in a dilemma; caught between two jealous lovers, so to speak. See, precisely when Queensryche’s current tour is scheduled to end, an ocean-sailing trip he wants to join is leaving. If the tour isn't a huge success, he'll make the trip. But if the tour goes as well as he hopes, dates will be added, and the ship will sail without him. This is a serious stuff. When Tate discusses ship design, he gets the same gleam in his eyes most men reserve for Sonja Bradja "Randy’s (their tour keyboardist and, incidentally, Geoff’s best friend) dad has a sailboat and is planning a European/ Scandinavian ocean trip. We’re hoping to hook up with him.”

If the road trip is over. Even though touring doesn't exactly top Tate’s mostenjoyable-way-to-spend-a-year list, he doesn’t want the tour to end until it’s time to begin recording the next album. See, the studio, where Queensryche (Tate, guitarists Chris DeGarmo and Michael Wilton, bassist Eddie Jackson and drummer Scott Rockenfield) began is where Tate’s heart lies. Completely. Queensryche even managed to release their selftitled EP before ever playing in public. When they finally did start playing live, they found themselves opening for Quiet Riot in front of 10,000 people. It was their third gig. Welcome to the big time, guys.

‘‘We’ve always been more interested in the studio work than live,” Tate admits. ‘‘It’s much nicer to be in the studio, a sterile, clean environment making music. But hard rock bands have to tour. Pop bands can get their music on the radio, get famous and make millions in a very short period of time. You can become famous doing this kind of music,” he laughs, ‘‘but you’re never going to make a whole lot of money. It’s all done through touring; if you’re out on tour a lot, you make an impression on people that you care enough to come to their town. That’s something that they respect, and then they tend to support you longer. Look at Iron Maiden. They toured for years and years, and how many radio stations are playing their music? None. It’s upsetting, but there’s nothing you can really do— except keep touring.”

Tate understandably wants the public to hear his band’s second album, Rage For Order. It took almost a year of hard work just to get it written. ‘‘It was funny,” he says without laughing, ‘‘When we came off the road last year, we didn’t have anything written. We were faced with the situation of, ‘Uh, we have to go record an album, and we don’t have any material.’ We should have been doing some writing on the road. We needed some time to write.”

When that was finally done, it took a while to pick producer Neil Kernon, then they had to coordinate schedules with him. The resulting album is still patently Queensryche—the thick textures and rich melodies are there—but this time it’s possible to hear them clearly. The plodding murk of The Warning is gone. Tate gives a lot of the credit to Neil Kernon.

‘‘The last record,” Geoff says carefully; ‘‘I realized about half-way through, that we weren’t getting what it was we were looking for soundwise. So we got someone else to mix it for us, but it didn’t turn out right either, ’cause we didn’t have the time or the budget. Rage For Order came out the nearest we’ve ever had. Neil became like a sixth member of the group. Everybody felt so comfortable around him, and the suggestions that he made were right in line with the way we thought. We had the ideal situation.”

Currently, Geoff is willing to tour until his legs fall off (even if it means missing the boat to Sweden), in order to get that record heard. These days that may be easier said than done. In light of several recent problems—a kid fell to his death at an Ozzy show, and several venues in New York have been vandalized to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars—touring may soon become a thing of the past. In the not-too-distant future, even bands that are desperate to go on the road might not; their insurance headaches are turning an already costly medium into a prohibitively expensive one.

It’s something that concerns Tate a lot. ‘‘People need to realize that they’re not hurting anyone but themselves,” he insists. ‘‘They can't destroy people’s property, and it’s going to hurt them in the long run, ’cause there won’t be any shows. It’s the bands who end up paying for it, through huge insurance liability rates. People aren’t going to be able to afford to tour. Then, everybody loses.”

This year, at least, Queensryche fans will have their shot at hearing the band— they’re going to be out for months. This time Geoff claims he’s looking forward to it.

‘‘Nothing bothers me anymore,” he laughs. ‘‘We’ve had power go out during shows, equipment break,” he ticks off the disasters on his fingers, ‘‘but the most embarrassing show was when we were touring with Kiss. They have a ramp that goes out front, with a bit of a slope to it. I was running towards the front, and my foot landed on this plastic monitor cable. My foot just slipped off, and I landed on my back in the middle of the stage. I rolled around a bit, to make it look like I did it on purpose. And then, about half-way through my song, the microphone just fell right out of my hands. When you’re in the middle of singing, that’s pretty bad. But we made it through,” he says, shaking his head.

Unlike a lot of musicians, Geoff doesn’t envision himself spending 11 months on the road when he’s 50 years old. He has a better plan.

‘‘If I’m ever really successful in this business,” he says with a twinkle in his eyes, ‘‘when I retire I hope to buy a boat, and do some serious long distance sailing. In Seattle, they’re building one, it’s long, low and black, like one of those in the America’s Cup,” he sighs contentedly.

’Course that doesn’t mean he’d have to stop making music. Studios are becoming more and more portable. Who knows, by that time they might even be waterproof.