Queensryche Singer: Music is a Personal Journey

As a working musician, if one spent the amount of time it would take to think and listen to what every fan thought of their music, they would never write any music.

That is the opinion of Geoff Tate, lead singer of progressive metal band Queensryche, which will be performing in Morristown on Aug. 3 at The Community Theatre, as part of the Seattle-based band's tour in support of "Dedicated to Chaos," its 12th studio album.

Since the band donned wild, mid-80s hairstyles during their 1986 release Rage for Order; to their breakout 1988 concept album, Operation: Mindcrime; to the multi-platinum commercial success of Empire in 1990; to today, Tate says the band has always taken a "here and now" approach to their music. "We have never collectively been a band that looks back," said Tate who, along with guitarist Michael Wilton, bassist Eddie Jackson and drummer Scott Rockenfield, have been with the band since its founding in 1981. "We’re pretty planted in the now. It’s always been the way we’ve been."

That may be a difficult approach, considering the intense fan support for Operation: Mindcrime, and the commercial success of Empire, which spawned such hits as "Jet City Woman" and "Silent Lucidity."

The band did, in fact, return to the "Mindcrime" well in a way, when they released Operation: Mindcrime II in 2006. Tate said that had been a long time in the making–ever since the early 1990s.

"The Empire album changed us in a lot of ways," Tate said. "It was financially successful.It kind of set us back a bit. We became very conscious of where we were at that point.

After touring for Empire, Tate said the band–which at the time still included guitarist and primary songwriter Chris DeGarmo–decided to stop playing music for a couple years. "None of us were really interested in working at that point for a while," he said. "It took a lot to get us back into creating again. When we got back together, no one wanted to work on the 'Mindcrime II' thing again, so we worked on Promised Land (released in 1994)."

What followed was a period of declining popularity. Empire had been a dramatic success, the likes of which the band would not see again. DeGarmo left the band following 1997's "Hear in the Now Frontier," which had featured a far more stripped down sound that many longtime fans rejected.

Again, Tate points to a musician's need to not listen to what is being said of his music. "I don’t know how you could listen to everybody else and compose," he said. "I just know us, we have always counted on our collective opinions as to what we want to do. It’s what motivates the band and gets us to function. We get interested in a subject or direction and pursue that with a vengeance."

Which brought them back round to the idea of finishing the "Operation: Mindcrime" story.

"I'm not sure how it all came together," Tate said. "It was something we had been working on here and there and we finally got on a musical roll with it."

Fans and critics alike gave Mindcrime: II high marks, and the band toured both it and the original. "It was good, a really good tour," Tate said. "It was really nice to finish that."

But, that was 2006. "American Soldier" followed in 2009, but even that–even the newest album, released in June–are ancient history. "We're already working on the new album right now," Tate said. "It's not difficult to follow our muse."

Still, the singer offers up some insight into Dedicated to Chaos. "We wanted to take a break from writing conceptual pieces," he said. "We concentrated on writing a collection of songs. We wanted to try focusing on the rhythm section of the band and construction of music around bass and drums. We really tried a different approach to writing; we try to do that on each record."

That, and the band's entire back catalog, will be sampled throughout this tour, in the band's 30th year. "It's a visual show that goes all over the place," Tate said. "That’s one of the things we realy enjoy doing, making it interesting for the audience."

After 30 years amidst the whims of a fickle music-buying public, Tate still considers music a personal journey, "not just for musician but for the listener. What we’ve always done is experimental. What we really try to do is experiment with the chemistry. It’s always challenging. We’re always growing and changing.

"We still find inspiration with each other," Tate said. "We’re the same four people, although we are very different. We’ve all changed quite a bit."

Queensryche will perform at 8 p.m. Aug. 3, at in Morristown.