Former Queensrÿche vocalist Geoff Tate performed “The Answer,” a track from his newly released Operation: Mindcrime III, during his headlining show Tuesday night (May 5) at the Bourbon Theatre in Lincoln, Nebraska. Fan-filmed footage of the performance is available below.
Just days earlier, Tate debuted “Power,” the lead single from Operation: Mindcrime III, live for the first time at his May 1 headlining concert at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
“Power” was co-written by Tate and guitarist/producer Kieran Robertson. The track features Tate on vocals, Rich Baur on drums, John Moyer (of Disturbed) on bass and as co-producer of the album, guitars by Dario Parente and Amaury Altmayer, and synths and strings by Tate and Robertson. The song was mixed and mastered by Juan Urteaga at Trident Studios in Pacheco, California.
During a recent appearance on the “Let There Be Talk” podcast hosted by comedian Dean Delray, Tate said:
“It’s a cool track. ‘Power‘ is the first — I don’t know — we call ’em singles nowadays. It’s the first release on the album. And, yeah, it’s a really cool song — very, very energetic, very up, and kind of says a lot in a very short time, which I like.”
Addressing Dean Delray‘s observation that the new single heavily echoes the classic Queensrÿche sound, the singer confirmed it was entirely intentional:
“Yeah. Well, part of the whole writing process was keeping the music in the universe of Mindcrime, writing within that style, I guess you’d say.”
When discussing the complex creative process behind concluding a trilogy that began with 1988’s Operation: Mindcrime and continued with 2006’s Operation: Mindcrime II, the vocalist explained the meticulous narrative planning involved:
“I think you use whatever sort of way you can in order to get what you want. And, for me, I sort of look at it as a story, and I write the story out first of what is happening, and then I kind of dissect it and create chapters, and those chapters turn into songs. And then I kind of work to link them all together and follow a storyline that makes sense. And then you gotta kind of factor in musically how you’re gonna tie it together. Does it make sense musically and melodically to put this song before this song, before this song, before this song? ‘Cause that’s a big thing too, is making it flow, so it doesn’t seem obtrusive and people don’t have to turn the page back to find out what happened, and they’re kind of following along in a chronological order.”
Geoff noted that the 13-track record was assembled unconventionally while the band relentlessly toured the globe, utilizing unique architectural spaces to capture the album’s sound.
“There’s 13 songs on the record, and it was recorded all over the world. And the beauty of modern recording is that if you have the right equipment, the quality gear, we just take it with us wherever we go. And we set up in hotel rooms backstage at shows, venues. I think one track was recorded in a church. Just wherever we have the right kind of room for the sound, we can record there,” he revealed.
Geoff continued: “We recorded one of the songs, parts of it, in this castle in Italy. Do you remember that character Casanova? Well, he was imprisoned in this castle way back when. And the place is just an amazing ruin, of course, but it had this one room that was just incredible. It [had] big, high ceilings, open environment, big stone walls and that kind of thing. But it added a really unique sound to the song. So anyway, we just kind of took advantage of that wherever we could and wrote the album as we were touring around the world, really. And I wrote music for the album and lyrics for the album. And Kieran Robertson, my writing partner for this project, contributed so much to this record, playing guitar and also writing music and lyrics too.”
The new record continues the dark narrative of Nikki, the recovering addict manipulated into carrying out political assassinations. However, this third chapter flips the script entirely, exploring the lore strictly through the eyes of the sinister antagonist, Dr. X.
Earlier in January, while speaking to “Meltdown” of Detroit’s WRIF radio station, Tate explained that this shift will result in a much darker, more assertive record.
“And Dr. X‘s perspective is completely different, ’cause he’s not the victim at all. So it’s very aggressive, and, yeah, I’m looking forward for people to hear it,” Tate told at the time.
“[It will tell the tale from] the perspective of Dr. X, how the story happened from his point of view. Which is kind of interesting, I think, because we’ve only heard it from Nikki‘s point of view, and he’s been sort of this victim throughout the whole story.”
When asked if the new material serves as a throwback to the complex, heavy style of early Queensrÿche, Tate agreed, promising a sound that diehard fans will recognize.
“Yeah, I guess so. It’s got some complex arrangements, which Queensrÿche was pretty into during our writing. It’s just very aggressive sound-wise. And stylistically, I would say, it’s very Queensrÿche.”
He clarified that the expansion into a trilogy wasn’t always the master plan, but rather a natural evolution of his curiosity about human behavior.
“No, it’s kind of an ongoing story. I am fascinated by social science — why human beings do what we do, and groups of people that seem to have patterns over time, following in the footsteps of their generation. That kind of stuff just is fascinating to me. And so that was the basis for the story of Operation: Mindcrime. And so I just kind of explored that — human nature and what happens to a guy who gets convicted of murder and sent to an insane asylum and then graduates to a prison and then finally gets out after 20 years in prison. Does he still have the motivation for revenge against the people that put him there? That’s kind of the focus of Mindcrime II, the revenge aspect of it.”
Operation: Mindcrime III Official Tracklist:
- “The Scene Of The Crime”
- “You Know My F**king Name”
- “The Answer”
- “Vulnerable”
- “I’ll Eat Your Heart Out”
- “Do You Still Believe?”
- “The Devil’s Breath”
- “Ascension”
- “Set You Free”
- “Descension”
- “Power”
- “You Can’t Walk Away Now”
- “A Monster Like Me”
