Official Queensryche thread: Kickstart the next album

[Glasser]

I dont have a delete button?? Mod can delete please

Here you go.

[EPICVIEW]

I dont have a delete button?? Mod can delete please

Here you go.

Thank you!!!

[ZirconBlue]

I dont have a delete button?? Mod can delete please

Here you go.

Nothing says "I'm totally sane and rational!" like random use of quotation marks and ellipses.

[Setzer]

His posts come across as ramblings of a man losing his marbles

[EPICVIEW]

I can only chuckle   IMO  the drama and nonsense is better than any music post Tate for Tate or Toddryche  but the drama and this sorta stuff makes them super interesting IMO   again MY OPINION ONLY

https://loudwire.com/queensryche-fans-surprised-2023-silent-lucidity-digital-single-release/

[Kwyjibo]

Seems like some record label did something on it's own. If the QR guys didn't know about it beforehand, they are hardly to blame imo.

As it seems to be (at least in part) the Geoff version, maybe he can shed some light?

[EPICVIEW]

Seems like some record label did something on it's own. If the QR guys didn't know about it beforehand, they are hardly to blame imo.

As it seems to be (at least in part) the Geoff version, maybe he can shed some light?

its odd for sure   LOL

[Mebert78]

The acapella version is cringy.  Geoff is a little pitchy in spots.  Obviously, this is from the F.U. sessions when he recorded some QR covers, I believe.

[EPICVIEW]

The acapella version is cringy.  Geoff is a little pitchy in spots.  Obviously, this is from the F.U. sessions when he recorded some QR covers, I believe.

I think the acapella  is just an isolated vocal track.  not sure if its the FU sessions, did sound like Chris on guitar but IDK : )  but that would make sense IMO

[Samsara]

The acapella version is cringy.  Geoff is a little pitchy in spots.  Obviously, this is from the F.U. sessions when he recorded some QR covers, I believe.

This. People quickly forgot that Cleopatra signed him for F.U., and one of the things he was required to do was re-record a handful of QR hits for them. Here we are, 10 years later, and BOOM, these come out again. A little cash cow for Cleopatra, because people will just buy it because it says "Queensryche."

Absolute trash re-recordings. Cleopatra knew EXACTLY what they were doing back in 2013.

[Samsara]

So, this is cool. Queensryche is doing a set of old school material (just the EP and The Warning) at Hell's Heroes VI in Houston on March 21-24, 2024.

See flyer here: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=760162836110703&set=a.521632406630415

VERY cool. Love the fact they used the old school EP QR logo for promotion. TBH, Queensryche would be dumb not to play The Warning in its entirety at various points throughout 2024. it's the album's 40th anniversary. I'd actually go to this if it were local for me. Forbidden is doing a set (they are back together), and some great bands on that bill.

[Grappler]

I like that they're doing a special set.  They need to do those types of special shows more often. 

[ReaperKK]

Just finished reading Building An Empire and I really enjoyed the book. The trajectory of the band was wild and it seems like they are times were their own worst enemy coupled with bad luck. The book left curious what would've happened had Chris DeGarmo stayed in the band.

[WardySI]

Whenever peeps say QR went to shit while Chris was still in the band with Hear In The Now Frontier anyway I've always said all the big name bands bounced back after releasing subpar albums. I don't see why QR would've been any different if Chris had stayed or remained after Tribe.

Am confident QR would've righted their own ship eventually had Chris somehow managed to stay (hypothetically in a perfect world and all that  )

[TAC]

Whenever peeps say QR went to shit while Chris was still in the band with Hear In The Now Frontier anyway I've always said all the big name bands bounced back after releasing subpar albums. I don't see why QR would've been any different if Chris had stayed or remained after Tribe.

Am confident QR would've righted their own ship eventually had Chris somehow managed to stay (hypothetically in a perfect world and all that  )

Sure, I guess we could go with that but are you honestly confident in that hypothetical? It doesn't take into account the splintering relationships in the rest of the band or Geoff's diminished vocals.

[KevShmev]

Sure, I guess we could go with that but are you honestly confident in that hypothetical? It doesn't take into account the splintering relationships in the rest of the band or Geoff's diminished vocals.

Tate's singing was still really good, though, even though he wasn't up there in the stratosphere like he had been in the 80s. I like to think that Queensryche was more in their prime than just a bunch of average songwriters that Tate somehow saved with his all-world singing.

[jammindude]

I've said it a few times before, but it bears repeating here.

QR in their prime was the result of a unique blend of Melody, Metal, and Madness.

DeGarmo was the Melody
Wilton was the Metal
Tate was the Madness

Once DeGarmo left, Tate just managed to mostly cut Wilton out of the picture and we were just left with the lunatics running the asylum.

Now Wilton pretty much runs the show with TLT and they've made a halfway decent "Metal" band under the QR moniker, but it will never again have the original and unique blend that it once did.

It's still really good. Just the hooks aren't quite as good as when CDG was there, and the "weirdness" factor that Tate brought to the table is gone.

[WardySI]

Whenever peeps say QR went to shit while Chris was still in the band with Hear In The Now Frontier anyway I've always said all the big name bands bounced back after releasing subpar albums. I don't see why QR would've been any different if Chris had stayed or remained after Tribe.

Am confident QR would've righted their own ship eventually had Chris somehow managed to stay (hypothetically in a perfect world and all that  )

Sure, I guess we could go with that but are you honestly confident in that hypothetical? It doesn't take into account the splintering relationships in the rest of the band or Geoff's diminished vocals.

Yes. Hypothetically am confident they would've eventually landed where they needed. 

It may have taken a few more releases it may have nosedived further too but like jammindude and Kev said, with the sum of their parts and Tate still sounding good enough (in much the same way Alder has with Fates recently), eventually yes absolutely 

[Dream Team]

I've said it a few times before, but it bears repeating here.

QR in their prime was the result of a unique blend of Melody, Metal, and Madness.

DeGarmo was the Melody
Wilton was the Metal
Tate was the Madness

Once DeGarmo left, Tate just managed to mostly cut Wilton out of the picture and we were just left with the lunatics running the asylum.

Now Wilton pretty much runs the show with TLT and they've made a halfway decent "Metal" band under the QR moniker, but it will never again have the original and unique blend that it once did.

It's still really good. Just the hooks aren't quite as good as when CDG was there, and the "weirdness" factor that Tate brought to the table is gone.

This is a cool breakdown. But I still REALLY like Digital Noise Alliance, one of my favorite metal records of the last few years.

[WardySI]

I've said it a few times before, but it bears repeating here.

QR in their prime was the result of a unique blend of Melody, Metal, and Madness.

DeGarmo was the Melody
Wilton was the Metal
Tate was the Madness

Once DeGarmo left, Tate just managed to mostly cut Wilton out of the picture and we were just left with the lunatics running the asylum.

Now Wilton pretty much runs the show with TLT and they've made a halfway decent "Metal" band under the QR moniker, but it will never again have the original and unique blend that it once did.

It's still really good. Just the hooks aren't quite as good as when CDG was there, and the "weirdness" factor that Tate brought to the table is gone.

This is a cool breakdown. But I still REALLY like Digital Noise Alliance, one of my favorite metal records of the last few years.

Great breakdown and Oh yeah absolutely!

While happily accept the original era of Queensryche through to Promised Land is untouchable, for my money, song for song, DNA is well up there. Front to back fantastic and probably the best thing to bear the Queensryche name since IMO \m/

[Samsara]

Just finished reading Building An Empire and I really enjoyed the book. The trajectory of the band was wild and it seems like they are times were their own worst enemy coupled with bad luck. The book left curious what would've happened had Chris DeGarmo stayed in the band.

Thank you for reading it. The bolded is true, particularly after DeGarmo left. Some very bad decisions, IMO.

As for the bio itself, the writing broke down as follows:

Beach wrote the first draft of the narrative. I went through it, re-wrote sections (for example, the ending of the main narrative - the last several paragraphs - is something I wrote) and in some cases, whole chapters (the F.U. chapter is one I remember re-writing entirely). I added a lot of the detail nuggets about songs, things done live, etc., that you see throughout the book. When it gets very specific, or tells things more in-depth, most likely that is me telling those things and writing those paragraphs. The "cutaway" or "sidebar" sections are authored as we had in the bylines. Generally speaking, Naron was the main researcher on the book (finding things we needed), and wrote little bits here and there. It was a fun project that was both difficult and rewarding at the same time. I'm proud to have worked on it. I actually worked on it much more than I thought I would. Initially, I was just going to write an Afterword and do some minor contributions. But I felt like I needed to step in and take on a bigger role, writing-wise, to get it to a place where I thought it was as accurate and detail-filled as it could be. Really appreciate Beach and Naron giving me that opportunity.

The one thing (only thing, really) we ever disagreed on was the beginning. Ha! I felt like it took way, way too long to get to "The Mob" and "Queensryche." I wanted the detail about all the Northwest metal bands, but there were a lot of long passages that I would have personally cut out (and did, on my initial edit/re-write), but I got outvoted on those changes. It seems like folks are split a bit on the opening. Some very much enjoy the granular detail about the connections between bands of that era in the local scene with the QR guys, and other people feel like it went too in-depth on them, and delayed getting to the "story." But it is what it is, and the three of us are immensely proud of the work we did.

And...watch this space in a couple weeks for a related announcement. I have something to share with folks. Something that many of you will be interested in, if you dug the bio. And that's all I am allowed to say at the moment. 

re: original lineup, etc.

JD sums it up nicely, as he always tends to on that description. But in this newer era of QR, Eddie Jackson has very much stepped to the forefront, creatively. So while Wilton and TLT do some steering, a lot of it is built on Eddie's ideas.

As for classic, original lineup QR, yeah, there was a special chemistry between all of them. I felt that the Tribe material that had all five of them involved (Open, Desert Dance, Falling Behind, Doin' Fine, The Art of Life, and Justified) really showed a continuation of the evolution from HITNF, and going in a more "earthy," organic direction. Whereas Q2k and Mindcrime II, AS, DTC, etc., all really feel like "one offs" because of the way the songs were written. There was a very logical evolution and flow while Chris was in the band, that wasn't there at all when he left.

I've seen QR with TLT many times now, including the first two shows as Rising West. They are a solid metal band. Do justice to the catalog. But the band is very, very different than what the original lineup was together. Tate's solo band is also decent and he is sounding okay these days, despite dropping the key significantly. And for me personally, that's all okay. That original lineup of Queensryche is very much on a pedestal as my favorite act of all time. And even HITNF, which many are critical of, is absolutely a Queensryche record, through and through, filled with tons of their sonic hallmarks.

I did a podcast on it with the guys from Focus on Metal last year for HITNF's 25th anniversary, if you're interested in hearing me badly babble and "um" a lot: https://focusonmetalpod.com/queensryche-biographer-brian-heaton-debates-the-merits-of-hear-in-the-now-frontier-on-this-weeks-focus-on-metal/

I make the case why HITNF is a quintessential Queensryche album that folks need to appreciate more. The host, Ritchie, disagrees, and it made for a fun discussion.

Anyway, always happy to see QR discussion here. Thanks again, Reaper, for reading our biography. And like I said, announcement coming in two weeks about something else folks who dug the bio will really (I hope) be excited for. 

[jammindude]

That's a great point about EJ's involvement. And I hope DNA reflects that (even though I'm deep diving into one or two other things at the moment, my attention to music in general has taken a huge back seat to family drama for the last year, so I haven't picked it up yet)     ...but I do seem to remember that Eye9 was EJ's baby and was an immediate standout of all the new material because it seemed to be attempting to recapture that "weirdness" factor that made QR stand out from other metal bands. So it seems like EJ "gets" that the strangeness is important to their sound and tries to incorporate that. I hope he has continued to bring that to the table moving forward.

[Samsara]

One week from today...

[Schurftkut]

a new lawsuit?

[Samsara]

a new lawsuit?

Sadly, I wouldn't put it past 'em at this point. Hopefully something much more celebratory and enjoyable though.

[ReaperKK]

a new lawsuit?

[Samsara]

>>>Well, here's the announcement. Hope any QR fans here will check it out.

B

July 18, 2023

Contact:

Brian J. Heaton – brianheaton444@gmail.com
James R. Beach – nwmetalworxmusic@gmail.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

"Roads to Madness: The Touring History of Queensrÿche (1981-1997)" Due in March 2024

LONGVIEW, Wash. – NW Metalworx Music will release Roads to Madness: The Touring History of Queensrÿche (1981-1997) in March 2024. The book is a deep dive into all the concert dates featuring Queensrÿche's original lineup of Chris DeGarmo, Eddie Jackson, Scott Rockenfield, Geoff Tate, and Michael Wilton.

Authored by Queensrÿche biographer Brian J. Heaton, with northwest metal historian Brian L. Naron, Roads to Madness spans over 400 pages, featuring concert dates, verified setlists, tour history essays, fan commentary on shows, stage banter, live photos, show memorabilia imagery, and much more. The book also includes a foreword from Fates Warning biographer Jeff Wagner.

"Roads to Madness is a love letter to the majesty and power of Queensrÿche's live performances in the 1980s and 1990s," Heaton said. "It documents the band's touring history through the eyes and ears of the audience, providing an authentic look at how Queensrÿche grew into one of the most respected live acts in heavy metal and hard rock."

Heaton continues:

"It was important to me to focus solely on Queensrÿche's first 16 years, when the original lineup of the band was intact. Queensrÿche's albums during this period receive a lot of accolades, but that's just half the story. A large part of Queensrÿche's success was built on the group's ability to expertly replicate its dramatic music on stage, enabling them to progress from cult status to arena headliners. Roads to Madness is a celebration of Queensrÿche's extensive tours, a memento for people who saw the band in its formative and prime years, and a history lesson for the fans who missed out."

Roads to Madness will be available in two formats: an oversized deluxe paperback, and a hardcover limited edition. Pre-orders will begin in late fall 2023. For more information on the book, and to connect and share your Queensrÿche concert experiences, visit facebook.com/roadstomadnessbook.

Brian J. Heaton co-wrote (with James R. Beach and Brian L. Naron), Building An Empire: The Story of Queensrÿche, the first biography of the band, which was published in 2021 by NW Metalworx Music.

NW Metalworx Music is owned by James R. Beach and Brian L. Naron. The company reissues and issues LPs and CDs of great Pacific Northwest heavy metal and hard rock bands from the 1970s-1990s, along with books that celebrate the history of the scene.

###

[ReaperKK]

Ooooo I love stuff like this!

[Grappler]

That's awesome!   I love the idea of a tourography book and can't wait to read it. 

[WilliamMunny]

Ooooo I love stuff like this!

Yep, me too.

Count me in as a first-day buyer (or pre-orderer as soon as a link appears )

[Samsara]

Thanks guys. A big part of this book are fan memories of gigs. While I'm basically finished with the text, there is enough time before the book goes into design and production to get additional memories and details added. So if you have anything you'd like to contribute, just shoot me over something via email about a specific show, and I'll edit it and send back for your approval. Once that works, I can add it.

Appreciate the support. This has been in the works for many years, and I'm glad to finally be getting it out there. 

[pg1067]

>>>Well, here's the announcement. Hope any QR fans here will check it out.

B

July 18, 2023

Contact:

Brian J. Heaton – brianheaton444@gmail.com
James R. Beach – nwmetalworxmusic@gmail.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

"Roads to Madness: The Touring History of Queensrÿche (1981-1997)" Due in March 2024

LONGVIEW, Wash. – NW Metalworx Music will release Roads to Madness: The Touring History of Queensrÿche (1981-1997) in March 2024. The book is a deep dive into all the concert dates featuring Queensrÿche's original lineup of Chris DeGarmo, Eddie Jackson, Scott Rockenfield, Geoff Tate, and Michael Wilton.

Looking forward to it, Brian!

[Samsara]

Thanks P. And appreciate your contributions to the project. 

[Samsara]

I know there are less and less QR fans here on DTF these days, but I'm truly interested in the negative opinions about Hear in the Now Frontier, and thought I'd bring it up for discussion.

Look, let's state the obvious, no, it is not as "good" (as objectively as possible) as the records that came before it. I think even the staunchest supporter of Hear in the Now Frontier is likely going to admit that. But what baffles me now, 26 years since it first hit my ears, is that so many deny all the great guitar work on the record, and all the sonic hallmarks that make it truly "Queensryche."

Every single QR album through HITNF sounded different, stylistically, from one another. That was very much on purpose. But you knew immediately it was Queensryche, and not just because of Tate's voice. From the harmony solo in "You," to the moody epic in "spOOL," all the elements that made Queensryche what it was, are present on HITNF. I appreciate it way more now than I did back then. I hear more redeeming qualities in it than I did back then. It'll never be one of my favorites, just because admittedly, it's the first QR record that I felt had too much filler. But some of these songs are absolutely great tracks.

Question: Do you think that the more "siloed" opinions on music (record labels really pushing the genre thing for marketing, etc.), driven by the upsurge in the internet back in the late-90s, caused people (maybe some of us) to dismiss HITNF? If you think about it, Soundgarden's Down on the Upside was essentially in the same vein as Hear in the Now Frontier. Down on the Upside was a big hit, and people love it. QR does a record in a similar vein, with all the band's signature hallmarks, and its deadpanned. That's strange.

Sure, the label going bankrupt didn't help. And frankly, that's why I think HITNF didn't get the love it normally would have. "Sign of the Times" and "You" were doing great at radio (way better than "I Am I" and "Bridge" did at radio on PL) before EMI went under. Had the label continued, the tour would have been longer and many more records would have sold. I think that's obvious. But here we sit, 26 years later, and people still just slag on HITNF. When I listen, I hear...Queensryche, doing what it had always done, going a different direction, with songs that still sounded like "them." Hell, the b-side from the record, "Chasing Blue Sky" should have been on the regular track list.

Again, NOT saying it is one of the original band's best records. For me, no way, not even close. But when I put it on, and listen front to back, other than a handful of songs, it's a really solid record with a couple of tunes that will always standout ("spOOL" in particular - just listen to that guitar solo at the end that unfortunately was mixed too low).

I just think Hear in the Now Frontier gets a very bad rap and it shouldn't.

[KevShmev]

I don't think the style or the band's playing was the problem; the problem was that the songwriting was far below their usual standard.  The dry mix sure didn't help either, as the music sounds flat and lifeless, by and large.  And I listened to this album more times than I can count in the later 90s as I wanted to love it, but I eventually came to the realization that it's just not very good, and it seems like most people came to that same conclusion (many probably quicker than me).