Geoff Tate On Queensryche and His New Project

Geoff Tate, formerly of the band Queensrÿche, finally gave the name up to the other members and is calling his new project Operation: Mindcrime.

Tate was recently interviewed on San Antonio’s Daytime @ Nine lifestyle program, an interview that Blabbermouth partially transcribed. The new name for Tate’s band comes from Queensrÿche’s 1988 concept album, Operation: Mindcrime.

We’re calling the new band Operation: Mindcrime. And it’s kind of similar to the situation that the guys in Black Sabbath went through when they couldn’t use the name, so they used the name of one of their more popular records, ‘Heaven And Hell’, and went out and made new music and toured with that name.

Tate also acknowledged the issues with Queensrÿche and the claims to the name, which led to the new project name.

Well, it’s a farewell for me to the name QUEENSRŸCHE. We finally settled our differences with the former band. And they get to keep the name and I get to keep the large amount of money they paid me for it. Which is nice, so that’s why I’m taking a year off. [Laughs]

And what will Tate be doing with his time off?

I’m gonna make a new record. I’m going in the studio in the winter to record a trilogy project, which is three records, all at the same time, and then we’ll release them over time. But it’s a very involved story, in conceptual format, which is what I like to do.

Watch the full interview below.