“It was quite interesting. I actually went front row at their show and was hanging out on the barricade. And it was quite an interesting experience.”
— Geoff Tate on attending a Queensrÿche show
SIRIUS XM RADIO — In a new interview with Eddie Trunk, former Queensrÿche singer Geoff Tate spoke candidly about his replacement Todd La Torre.
Tate had some very nice things to say about the guy who took over after he and his long-time band-mates split back in June of 2012.
Now, more than a decade after the parties settled their differences in a court-room, Tate has shared some tidbits about his communication with his former band-mates when Trunk asked if he had been in contact with his former group.
Blabbermouth reported on the Trunk interview and shared the following: “No, I haven’t had any contact, no. I went and saw QUEENSRŸCHE play in Copenhagen last year,” apparently referring to early February 2025 when both QUEENSRŸCHE and Tate happened to play Gothenburg, Sweden one day apart. “That was interesting to see, ’cause I’d never seen them live before — without me,” Geoff said, forgetting the fact that he watched QUEENSRŸCHE‘s concert from sidestage when QUEENSRŸCHE and Tate performed — separately — at the Rock Fest Barcelona festival in June 2017 in Barcelona, Spain, where Geoff appeared as the special guest of AVANTASIA. “It was quite interesting. I actually went front row at their show and was hanging out on the barricade. And it was quite an interesting experience.”
Geoff continued: “I know there’s a lot of weird press about myself and [current QUEENSRŸCHE singer] Todd La Torre, but I have to say mass respect for the guy for stepping into my shoes, for one. And when I went to Copenhagen, I’m standing on the barricade there. And the first thing he did when he came out was straddle the barricade and fistbump me, acknowledging that I was there. And he said, ‘Hey, good to see you, man. Stick around. I’m gonna blow you away.’ [Laughs] And he did. He was great. He was wonderful being on the stage that night. It was just really a treat seeing him play.”
Asked if the QUEENSRŸCHE guys knew that he was coming to see them in Gothenburg or if he just bought a ticket and went up to the front row, Geoff said: “No, we just showed up. We happened to be in the same city. And we had the night off, and so a bunch of us in the band went to see ’em play and check ’em out.”
As for whether the fans noticed him and saw him in the crowd, Geoff said: “Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. I spent the entire time getting photos and signing autographs.”
Elaborating on the experience of watching his former band perform without him, Tate said: “It’s so weird. Yeah. It’s so weird. For one, it’s my music [laughs], and so [Todd is] singing me. So, yeah, it’s strange. And he’s a really wonderful singer, he’s really good, very technically adept, so he does a really good job of being me. But he’s also, over the years, he’s kind of, I guess, worked in his own personality. And they have music that they’ve written together, and they have their own thing as well. But when the band and he play my music, it’s just — I don’t know. I can’t even describe it. It’s just like an otherworldly experience [laughs], ’cause he sounds a lot like me. So I’m hearing me, kind of, through him playing my stuff, and it’s just —I don’t know. It’s weird. I can’t quite put my finger on how to describe it.”
Read the full article at Blabbermouth.
Stay tuned to Metal Sludge for more Breaking News, Updates and Features along with both New Interviews and Classic 20 Questions
