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“When Chris left the band I was sort of all the sudden shocked, and my world
changed quite a bit. I’d been in kind of musical bliss working with him for
years. We just had a great camaraderie and musically we were very close and
saw things very similarly.
When he left, I was so suddenly faced with not having that partner -- that
sounding board -- anymore and I had to start looking elsewhere for that. So
it kind of led me to doing my own record and working with different people,
and that’s something that honestly I wish I would have done earlier in my
career, cause I really enjoy the collaboration effort with different
people.”
Tate saw
his solo album as an opportunity to work with writers and performers that
he’d admired. Those performers included musician/songwriter Jeff Carrell,
who Tate says he really connected with in the R&B department. He also chose
Howard Chillcott on keyboards, because of his varied musical background, and
because he wanted to work someone who could test limitless possibilities of
a keyboard’s ‘music palette’. Additional contributors included Evan
Schiller, who Tate refers to as the loop master, drummer, and programmer.
“I was looking to musically go in the direction of music that I like. I
have kind of a wide or varied musical talent, so working within the confines
of Queensryche it is kind of difficult to stretch out musically for me, and
so, I wanted to kind of experiment with different kinds of music. Things
I’ve always liked a lot and tried to write songs within that kind of
direction.”
And fortunately, everyone who contributed to the album will be available to
tour this summer. Tate says that they will perform the eleven tracks in
their entirety and that they will also be pulling out some rarely heard
Queensryche tunes that fans are sure to enjoy.
“Actually, I have all the players that played on my record coming on the road
with me. Yeah, it’s great. They all managed to free up their schedules,
they all had such a great time making this record that they all wanted to
continue working on the road, so we managed to make it all happen.”
Tate's varied musical
talents and desire to stretch his wings and tests his limits stems from a
history of diverse musical influences, which interestingly began with the
sounds of Motown.
“My dad was a jazz fan and soul
r&b fan,
and he played trumpet so he used to play a lot of those kinds of records. I
remember hearing the Supremes and thinking ‘Oh my God, what great music’.
(They were) really classic songs, great melodies, great arrangements and all
that stuff.
And then, when I was
about nine years old, I got a transistor radio and all the sudden, wow, I
had discovered FM. I heard Jefferson Airplane do ‘Somebody to Love’
and that just got me. I was a rock fan then.”
As Tate’s tastes changed from r&b and jazz to rock, he simply became a fan
of music. He says that he enjoys all different kinds of music and lists
favorites like Hall & Oates, Prince, and Massive Attack, and is impressed
with vocalists like George Michael, Seal and Sting.
“Sting is amazing as well. He’s kind of like my hero in a sense because he
plays a lot of jazz influenced material and r&b soaked up stuff as well and
gives it a modern twist. And that’s kind of what I tried to do with my
record too, is bring in all those styles of music that I love and just kind
of tweak them out with modern sounds and a real modern arrangement which is
you know, sparse playing and letting the vocal take front stage.”
Tate says that when it came to making his own music, he wanted to do
something that was very different from Queensryche, but since most of the
people who like Queensryche's music are very open minded they are likely to
enjoy his solo work as well.
“I don’t really explain it. I think people who like what I’ve done in the
past are probably going to like this record as well. And that’s pretty much
all the thought I gave to it really. I’ve always approached music as being
sort of a selfish thing. It’s all about pleasing myself really. It has
always been that way, and I look for music and inspiration in music and it’s
really all about me when it comes to writing songs. When I’ve written them
and then I make a record, then they belong to everybody else too.
People interpret them in different ways that are so far off from what I had
envisioned that I gave up a long time ago trying to explain everything. I
really like hearing what people think of it all. I don’t get upset if they
don’t get it the same way I got it, because music is kind of like that, it
speaks to different people in different ways.”
Fans can make their own interpretations of Geoff Tate's self-titled album,
which hits stores on June 25, or catch him on his live club tour, which
kicks of later this month. For more information about Tate visit his
official Web site at
www.geofftate.com. |
