Geoff Tate says that he doesn’t really have an interest in a reunion of QUEENSRŸCHE‘s classic lineup.
In April 2014, Tate and QUEENSRŸCHE announced that a settlement had been reached after a nearly two-year legal battle where the singer sued over the rights to the QUEENSRŸCHE name after being fired in 2012. Fellow original QUEENSRŸCHE members Michael Wilton (guitar), Scott Rockenfield (drums) and Eddie Jackson (bass) responded with a countersuit. The settlement included an agreement that Wilton, Rockenfield and Jackson would continue as QUEENSRŸCHE, while Tate would have the sole right to perform the albums “Operation: Mindcrime” and “Operation: Mindcrime II” in their entirety live.
Speaking to 80’s Glam Metalcast in a recent interview, Tate was asked if the thought of a QUEENSRŸCHE reunion ever crosses his mind. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I’m very happy the way things are. I spent 30-plus years making music with those guys, and I’m very proud of our legacy and what we achieved and the albums we made, songs we wrote. And I don’t feel the need to go back in time and resurrect that. I’m fine with where I’m at now and what I’m doing. And I love my touring that I’m doing. And I have a fantastic band of musicians that are incredible to play with. So I don’t really feel a need to go backwards — in that respect.”
Asked if he would consider one final tour with QUEENSRŸCHE, similar to the way bands like KISS and MÖTLEY CRÜE have staged original-lineup “farewell” tours in recent decades, Tate said: “Usually they do those kind of tours because the money is so good. And it’s hard to walk away from that kind of money often. But I don’t know. I don’t really need the money. So I’m pretty happy [laughs] right now.”
Tate has gone back and forth on the subject of a possible reunion with QUEENSRŸCHE, telling The Rock Vault in November 2019 about the prospect of rejoining his former bandmates: “I think that would be something that makes sense, and I think it would be an interesting thing to do, if everybody could get in the same room and actually talk to each other.” However, just eight months earlier, he dismissed the possibility of a QUEENSRŸCHE reunion, telling Greece’s “TV War” that he had “no interest in that. No. Not at all. [I have] absolutely no reason to,” he said. “I don’t need the money. That’d be the only reason to do it. Maybe if they paid me, like, 10 million dollars or something like that. [Laughs]”
He continued: “It was a good thing for a long time, and then it went really bad. And I just don’t want that kind of negativity in my life. My life is so good, and I have such great friends and family. I travel the world and sing songs for a living. I mean, it’s lovely. I have wonderful, positive people in my life, and to go back and be in that negative land again… aargh, I just couldn’t do it. It’s not worth it.”
Tate previously described his time in QUEENSRŸCHE as “a strange, strange sort of relationship.” He told The Metal Gods Meltdown: “We weren’t really friends, you know — we were business associates. We had a wonderful entity that we shared called QUEENSRŸCHE, but it wasn’t an equal sort of partnership as far as involvement goes. You know, so there wasn’t a real camaraderie amongst everybody in the band… From my perspective and my involvement, it wasn’t an emotional sort of brotherhood kind of thing that some people might think existed. That wasn’t my reality with them.”
Last week, current QUEENSRŸCHE singer Todd La Torre told “Paltrocast With Darren Paltrowitz” about the chances of Tate‘s return to QUEENSRŸCHE: “It’s funny. I always hear, ‘There’ll definitely be an all-original lineup reunion. Every band does it.’ And I’m thinking, if you knew what I know, I don’t think that’s gonna happen. And other than the optics of it, why? What’s the point? We saw for 15 years what it sounded like.”
