QUEENSRŸCHE's GEOFF TATE Talks 'Frequency Unknown' Album, 'Mindcrime' 25th-Anniversary Tour

Vicki L. Kroll of the Toledo Free Press recently conducted an interview with QUEENSRŸCHE vocalist Geoff Tate. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On the cover of the new album from his version of QUEENSRŸCHE, "Frequency Unknown", which features a fist brandishing three rings — one with an F, another with the QUEENSRŸCHE logo and one with a U:

Tate: "I had the idea for the album cover. I used my fist for a model. I don't have any hair on my knuckles, so I wanted it to be a little more masculine-looking fist, so [the artist] used a different hand model."

On the "Frequency Unknown" album title:

Tate: "Legend is that when you're creating music and you're putting a mix together and you're blasting in the studio, all these sounds are kind of disassociated until you dial in this certain frequency of equalization that brings all the notes and the whole mix together; it becomes incredibly focused at that point. It's this unknown frequency that you're always looking for, and nobody knows what it is. You just start fiddling with the dials until it sounds good to everybody."

On the legal dispute with his former bandmates over the rights to the QUEENSRŸCHE name:

Tate: "I filed an injunction against the other guys to get them to stop using the name [QUEENSRŸCHE], so both parties wouldn't use the name until we settled our dispute. But, unfortunately, that didn't work. The judge gave both parties permission to use the name for the year prior to the court ruling. I, for one, have just been going about doing what it is I do. I put together a band, made a record and put it out, and I'm touring with the name of my band and continuing on until November when, hopefully, this all will be settled."

On his current QUEENSRŸCHE tour, which celebrates the 25th anniversary of the band's "Operation: Mindcrime" album:

Tate: "It was a very good album, well done. It was an interesting blend of types of songs, catchy melodies, it had a very dark kind of sinister sort of feeling about a lot of the music. It had a story line; it had characters that people related to; it had a story that people related to once they realized it was a story.

"Looking back on 'Mindcrime', it had a $4 million promotional budget at that time. By today's standards, the new record ['Frequency Unknown'] has a $1,000 promotional budget. It's a whole different industry now than it was then."