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geoff tate
Video Footage Of Geoff Tate Allegedly Spitting At Queensryche Drummer
Fan-filmed video footage of QUEENSRŸCHE singer Geoff Tate apparently spitting at the band's (more…)...
Geoff Tate On Queensryche: I Can’t Walk Away From My Life’s Work
QUEENSRŸCHE members Michael Wilton, Eddie Jackson, Scott Rockenfield and Parker Lundgren (more…)...
MICHAEL WILTON: ‘We Want To Rebuild The Name QUEENSRŸCHE’
Joseph Suto of Rock Show Critique recently conducted an interview with QUEENRŸCHE guitarist Michael Wilton. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
Rock Show Critique: Now that a settlement has been reached regarding the band and Geoff Tate, does it feel like the world has been lifted off your shoulders?
Michael Wilton: The situation is getting better every day. Once one has been in the trenches for the time that we have in any kind of a court battle, it can be trying. It's all about just moving forward. We're one step closer to where we want to be. It's a bit relieving, and yes, we can sleep at night.
Rock Show Critique: What does it mean going forward now for the band?
Michael Wilton: Well, full wholeheartedly, we want to rebuild the name QUEENSRŸCHE. We want to bring it back to the stature it was in the Eighties and Nineties. We want to reach out to the fans who have been wanting to hear the classics for eons of years. Now we are doing that, and we are able to bring that to the world, basically, and there are so many fans that love the first five, six albums. It's great to play those songs for them, because it means so much to them, and it also means so much to us. We're really happy to be out there and touring and bringing back the classics that fans want to hear.
Rock Show Critique: At what point do you feel the band started to go off course or make a wrong turn perhaps?
Michael Wilton: Well, the band was just firing on all cylinders up through "Empire" and part of "Promised Land". I think everybody was questioning the longevity of what they wanted to be, and what they wanted to do, and if they were happy, and if they weren't. It's a long road of ups and downs, really, the battles. Maybe, as you get older, your style of music changes a little bit. Other people wanted to stay true to what they started in the beginning. You grow as musicians and people, and sometimes it grows the other way. So it's kind of hard to pick exactly when it happened. It was at a point when we worked so hard to build up the integrity of QUEENSRŸCHE, we just got to the point where we started to get a little burned out. When Chris [DeGarmo, guitar] left, it was kind of picking up the pieces and let's see what we can do.
Rock Show Critique: We were the ones who interviewed Geoff and were surprised by how he answered on why you guys weren't playing "Queen Of The Reich" anymore. He had said it was juvenile and how he didn't want to sing it anymore. Was that part of the problem on choosing the sets, etc.?
Michael Wilton: Well, certain people grow out of songs, I guess. Being in a band, it's always kind of a battle to get certain songs into a set. That song, "Queen Of The Reich", was really our first song. That was the song Chris DeGarmo wrote and brought to the band, and we wanted to make it heavy as hell. We wanted to make it a badass song. We were really young back then. We were working at day jobs listening to the local FM rock radio station and we heard "Queen Of The Reich" play on there. We never thought that song would ever be on radio. We heard "Queen Of The Reich" on the radio and I think we lost our mind. That song took off for us all over the world. Magazines and everything. It's such a special song and it's so great that were able to bring some of those songs back that catapulted the band. I think it's still a strong song today, and we're playing it in our live show, and I think it has just as much power and passion as it did back in the early Eighties.
Read the entire interview at Rock Show Critique.
TIM ‘RIPPER’ OWENS: ROB HALFORD’s Return To JUDAS PRIEST ‘Was Good For Me’
Russia's Classic Rock magazine has uploaded a 14-minute video report on the April 18 concert in Moscow from PROJECT ROCK (formerly ROCKSTAR), the new band featuring former and current members of JUDAS PRIEST, ALICE COOPER, OZZY OSBOURNE and AC/DC. The clip includes performance footage as well as an interview with the group's lead singer, Tim "Ripper" Owens, who has previously fronted JUDAS PRIEST, ICED EARTH, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN and DIO DISCIPLES.
Asked how much of the 2001 Warner Bros. movie "Rock Star", starring Mark Wahlberg as a salesman-turned-rock star, was styled after Owens, who fronted a JUDAS PRIEST cover band before being tapped to become the new lead singer of the actual group, Tim said: "When they first [got the idea to do] the 'Rock Star' movie [under its original name 'Metal God'], it was really gonna be about me. And then JUDAS PRIEST pulled away from it, because they didn't like some things. So [the producers] really made their own movie, I think. The similarities were that I auditioned for JUDAS PRIEST and I sang one line of a song and hit a note and made the band. But then a lot of the things, they kind of went out… I mean, I wasn't that kind of fan when I made the band, because I was that kind of crazy kid in high school in the '80s. But this was 1996, so I wasn't living at my parents' with posters on the walls. I mean, it was still pretty cool. I mean, to have a movie loosely based on you is pretty cool."
Regarding whether it was ironic that the "Rock Star" movie became almost prophetic in the sense that Mark Wahlberg's character in the film ends up playing small clubs with his original material after the band's original lead singer rejoins the group, Owens said: "For me, the movie was almost [like real life]. Rob [Halford] came back [to JUDAS PRIEST], which was good for me, to be honest. My career, I went on to do a lot of stuff. It was better for the band, it was better for Rob. So it was kind of funny. I think I became a little bit bigger than the coffee shop singer that Mark Wahlberg was in the movie in the end, just playing there. I still get to play in front of thousands of people in Russia. But it is similar how he went on to do his own thing."
Owens also spoke about the progress of the recording sessions for the debut album from PROJECT ROCK, which also features Keri Kelli (SLASH'S SNAKEPIT, ALICE COOPER, RATT) on guitar, Simon Wright (DIO, AC/DC, UFO, DIO DISCIPLES, Geoff Tate's QUEENSRŸCHE) on drums, Rudy Sarzo (OZZY OSBOURNE, QUIET RIOT, WHITESNAKE, DIO) on bass and Teddy "Zig Zag" Andreadis (GUNS N' ROSES) on keyboards. "I just finished the vocals," he said. "I flew from L.A. — I was in the studio with Keri — I flew directly here. The vocals are done. It's almost done. Probably, like, a September release, maybe. But it's gonna be great. We're really looking forward to it. Keri and I busted our butts on it, especially Keri."
In a 2012 interview with Loud magazine, Owens stated about his departure from JUDAS PRIEST: "Well, you know, we all knew that Rob would come back eventually. That was a given. I love the guys in PRIEST, and if there's anything where I look back and wish, 'Oh man I wish it could have worked out,' that would probably be it. I was glad to see Rob come back, [but] I do wish they would play some of my material when they're out there [on the road]."
Owens recorded two studio albums with JUDAS PRIEST — 1997's "Jugulator" and 2001's "Demolition" — before the band reunited with Halford in 2003.
QUEENSRŸCHE Bassist EDDIE JACKSON Says New Lineup ‘Genuinely Feels Like A Rebirth’
Nottingham Post recently conducted an interview with QUEENSRŸCHE bassist Eddie Jackson. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.
On the split with original QUEENSRŸCHE singer Geoff Tate:
Jackson: "The three of us got together and once we'd made the decision to continue we started to map out the future. Geoff had been working on solo stuff for a while, so QUEENSRŸCHE had been shelved for a while so we'd been developing a side project called RISING WEST with the three of us, Parker Lundgren [guitar], who was with us for the last couple of albums, and Michael [Wilton, guitar] knew [new vocalist] Todd La Torre through another side project.
"When things went the way they did, we decided to return to the QUEENSRŸCHE name."
On returning to the band's musical roots following the split with Tate:
Jackson: "We always wanted to revisit the older material, even back to our original EP from 1983. But for whatever reasons, we were never allowed to do it.
"With the energy we have now, the songs all stand the test of time. It's been fun to go back."
On QUEENSRŸCHE's new, self-titled album:
Jackson: "For a few years, we haven't felt we've had the chance to express ourselves musically, but on the new album, all five of us contributed equally.
"With the first five or six QUEENSRŸCHE albums, the group of us created our own sound and if you bring in a bunch of different musicians, even if the songs are the same, they won't sound the same.
"We have our own styles and techniques that make up our sound and I thought that was missing from the last few albums.
"With [once again working with producer] Jimbo Barton, this album is a return to our characteristic sound. Lots of fans have commented that the album sounds like it could have been released after [their most successful album in 1990] 'Empire'.
TODD LA TORRE-Fronted Version Of QUEENSRŸCHE Films Two New Music Videos
On September 24, Honduras rock journalist Alvaro Villatoro (a.k.a. Lemmy Simmons) ofHard Heavy conducted an interview with conducted an interview with QUEENSRŸCHE drummerScott Rockenfield. You can now listen to the chat using the SoundCloud widget below. A few excerpts from the chat follow.
On the next QUEENSRŸCHE video:
Scott: "A couple of weeks ago, we finished two brand new music videos for the new record. We went down to Los Angeles and shot the next two videos.
"The next single, I believe, is going to be 'Spore'. And then the follow-up single after that is going to be 'A World Without'.
"So what we did is we shot a 10-minute movie of the two songs put together, and it's really great. It's a full scripted storyline, there were actors in the videos, and it's very conceptual. And we do appear in the video as well. But it was really fun and really different, because it's like a movie."
On parting ways with original singer Geoff Tate and replacing him with Todd La Torre:
Scott: "I've gotta be honest. We just didn't know what to expect when we made the decision to move on last year. And Todd has been perfect; I mean, it's absolutely just perfect. He sings so great our old, great songs. Listen, we hadn't done 'Queen Of The Reich' in years, andTodd stepped in and he just sings it — he just does it — and it's just perfect. I can't even tell you how excited we are about what's going on for us right now having him in the band."
On whether the band felt any pressure to release a new studio album as quickly as possible to compete with the Geoff Tate-fronted version of QUEENSRŸCHE:
Scott: "To be honest, we actually didn't — we never felt any pressure to get a record out as fast as possible or to do anything to sacrifice the quality that we always had wanted to keep ourselves at. This record was a great example of that. Our focus was on just writing great songs and getting them to where we felt it was at the top of our game, so to speak, and we wanted to keep our level very high and challenge ourselves. And so we were gonna get the record done when the record was gonna be done.
"We were lucky, because the chemistry amongst the five of us now is so great that we just felt that we didn't have any pressures — we knew we were gonna have a great record and feel really good about it. And I think the response is kind of the proof. The fans and the media have embraced the new record in such a high way; I mean, we're getting almost 10-star reviews on this record all around the world. So for what that's worth, I think that's just the proof that we've done what our fans really had wanted us to be doing for a long time. I think they're very happy that we're back doing what we feel good about.
"We've been around for 30 years as a band, and we've made a lot of records, and some really great ones that I'm very proud of. I think this new record is a record that I'm proud of… It's probably a record that I'm most proud for probably the last 20 years. So, for me, it's really special and I feel really great about it. And we're having a great time. We haven't had a great time for a long time, to be honest; it hasn't been very fun. I think this is now a turning point for us and we just feel really good. We're energized and the fans are energized."
On whether "Queensrÿche" signals a return to the band's classic sound:
Scott: "I think so. I really do.
"In the last year that we started playing all these shows with Todd, our setlist is a lot of just our first five records — it's all that great QUEENSRŸCHE classic stuff that we hadn't played for a long time. And in doing that, I think that started to put us in kind of that mindset, that energy that we had back then, and the chemistry we had together. And so I think when we started making this new record, it was almost natural that we were kind of revisiting that feel for us. And I think this record does.
QUEENSRŸCHE Trial Delayed Until January
Singer Geoff Tate — who was fired from the Seattle progressive rock band QUEENSRŸCHE last year after fronting it for three decades — was granted a continuance until January 27, 2014 in his legal battle with his former bandmates over the rights to the group's name.
Tate and his wife, Susan, QUEENSRŸCHE's former manager, filed a lawsuit in June 2012 asking the judge to award them the rights to the band's name in exchange for Tate paying Eddie Jackson (bass), Michael Wilton (guitar) and Scott Rockenfield (drums) the fair market value for their interests in the QUEENSRŸCHE companies. Wilton, Rockenfield and Jackson filed a countersuit against the Tates in which they accused Geoff of creative obstruction and violent behavior, and Susan Tate of questionable business practices.
In their August 9 motion to continue the trial date — originally scheduled for November 18 — and amend the case schedule, the Tates requested "a minimum 180-day continuance to provide sufficient time for the parties to continue active settlement negotiations without incurring substantial trial preparation costs and, if such efforts fail, to provide sufficient time to complete discovery and properly prepare for what will be a very lengthy trial." The Tates added that "80 potential witnesses" have been identified for trial and they estimated that the parties will need to collectively take 20 to 40 depositions.
Further complicating the scheduling of depositions is the fact that Tate's former bandmates will be traveling for most of September and will be unavailable for depositions. Said the Tates in their motion, which can be viewed on the The Breakdown Room web site: "There simply is not enough time to properly prepare for trial. Discovery is incomplete. Even if the parties only depose a fraction of the witnesses identified, doing so will take 20 to 30 days. Many of these witnesses are located out of state. The facts that underlie this dispute span nearly 30 years. Trial could take three to four weeks with 20 to 40 witnesses."
ZAKK WYLDE, JON ANDERSON, CARL PALMER To Be Honored At ‘Vegas Rocks! Magazine Music Awards’
Vegas Rocks! Magazine has announced the fourth annual Vegas Rocks! Magazine Music Awards, be held Sunday, August 25 at the Las Vegas Hard Hotel & Casino inside The Joint. This event will celebrate Vegas Rocks! Magazine's ninth anniversary in production.
Rock and roll history will be made again with this year's theme of "A Celebration Of Classic Rock," featuring some of the most legendary artists in the music business. Jon Anderson (YES) will be honored with the "Voice Of Progressive Music" award, Carl Palmer (EMERSON LAKE & PALMER, ASIA) will receive the "Drum Legend Icon" award, Zakk Wyldewill receive the "Riff Monster" award and newcomer Laura Wilde will receive "Best New Female Artist" award. Other artists appearing and participating include Geoff Tate (QUEENSRŸCHE), Rudy Sarzo (DIO,QUIET RIOT, OZZY OSBOURNE), Simon Wright (AC/DC), James Kottak (SCORPIONS), Mark Kendall and Michael
QUEENSRYCHE: No “Mindcrime” Sequel
Kim Monroe of the Rock 98.9 radio station conducted an interview with QUEENSRŸCHE guitarist Michael Wilton...