Hear in the Now Frontier (1997)
Lineup:
Geoff Tate – Lead vocals
Chris DeGarmo – Lead & rhythm guitars/vocals
Michael Wilton – Lead & rhythm guitars
Eddie Jackson – Bass/vocals
Scott Rockenfield – Drums/percussion
Overview
1996 was a huge turning point for Queensryche. Fresh off of what was likely considered their first commercial “flop” of a record, Queensryche was under pressure to regain a foothold in modern hard rock music. The problem? Allegedly, the band was not motivated to start work on a new album. Tate and Rockenfield had remarried and were focused on the home front. So, when EMI started to push Queensryche for music, it was DeGarmo who once again attempted to rally the band together and get on the same page.
This time around, however, instead of looking inward for inspiration, Queensryche looked at the success bands in their neighborhood (Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Pearl Jam) had experienced over the past few years, and began experimenting. The result was
Hear in the Now Frontier. The 14-track effort was released on March 25, 1997, on the strength of the lead single, “Sign of the Times.” From a sonic perspective, the album was unlike anything Queensryche had ever attempted. The production was very dry, and the songs were stripped of the expansive atmosphere fans had come to expect with Queensryche.
In short,
Hear in the Now Frontier was Queensryche's attempt to capture the essence of grunge and alternative rock in an effort to get back on mainstream rock fans' radars, and recapture some momentum.
“Sign of the Times” initially did very well for the band on rock radio, as did the follow-up single, “You.” But the success was short-lived, as EMI Records went bankrupt and closed its doors less than a month after
Hear in the Now Frontier was released. When that happened, radio station programmers were no longer lobbied to play Queensryche, and both songs subsequently dropped off of playlists. As a result,
Hear in the Now Frontier quickly disappeared from the charts, and while the band followed through on a summer tour in America to support the record, they had no record label to financially back them. Adding insult to injury, their longtime management team, Q-Prime, also bailed on them.
So, instead of a long album campaign, Queensryche played to half-filled venues with the remnants of a not completed marketing campaign and found themselves (at the conclusion of the tour) in search of a new label, management, and direction.
The SongsQueensryche decided to bring in a new voice behind the glass to helm the
Hear in the Now Frontier sessions, going with Toby Wright (Alice in Chains) instead of James “Jimbo” Barton. Wright was an A-list engineer and mixer at the time, having been at the forefront of mid-1990s hard rock. As mentioned earlier, Queensryche was focused on a more stripped down, bare bones approach, and felt Wright was the perfect choice to capture what the band was going for.
From a writing standpoint, Queensryche had always been a band that did extensive pre-production, working over songs a great deal before going in to record them properly. DeGarmo and the band elected to take a different route with
Hear in the Now Frontier. Most of the songs were demoed, and then recorded without much re-working. The idea was not only to work faster, but to embrace a looser, more natural feel. At the time, it was completely opposite of how Queensryche operated.
The results were at best, mixed. The rawer sound never really appealed to Queensryche's core fanbase. In addition, while past records from the band had a filler track or two,
Hear in the Now Frontier was bloated, with good musical ideas never seemingly fleshed-out properly. Quite simply, Queensryche stripped away the elements of what made them distinct as a band. It was, unfortunately, a huge mistake and one the group ultimately never recovered from.
To be fair, however, there were some bright spots on
Hear in the Now Frontier. Lyrically, the record was arguably one of Queensryche's finest, with the usual balance of social commentary and personal issues combined with alternating direct and vague styles. And some songs have really stood the test of time.
For example, “spOOL” is regularly touted as the best song from the record. The appreciation for it is not surprising, as it harkens back to the darker, more layered approach the band Queensryche used in the past, and likely would be right at home on
Promised Land or
Empire. The uplifting ballad, “Some People Fly,” also maintains some popularity among fans, as does the hard rocking “Hit the Black.”
Taking a deeper dive into the performances on
Hear in the Now Frontier, the intricate guitar work is a clear standout. Make no mistake – despite the style of the songs embracing a more alternative and grunge meets hard rock direction, DeGarmo's lead work is distinct and noteworthy. For example, the outro solo in the creepy “Hero” could be one of his finest recorded moments. The harmonized solo with Wilton in “You,” lifts an otherwise repetitive song to new heights. In addition, DeGarmo's slide guitar in the uplifting “The Voice Inside” is captivating.
For every highlight, however, there were multiple duds. Songs such as “Anytime/Anywhere” and its sexually-charged lyrics were cringe-worthy. Also regrettable was “All I Want.” The song is an off-center love song of sorts (listen and you'll hear that it's not your standard ballad) with a Beatles-like vibe. If that wasn't different enough for Queensryche, DeGarmo took lead vocals on the track. While he does an admirable job, the moment Tate comes in to sing background, you can tell how much stronger Tate's voice is, which ultimately undermines the track.
In a nutshell,
Hear in the Now Frontier has way more half-baked ideas than gems, and is generally referred to by fans as one of Queensryche's worst efforts.
In addition to the two officially released singles, “The Voice Inside” and “spOOL” were promotional singles, and rumored to have been the next tunes released to radio...before EMI went belly-up. Check out some art here:
Song notes: David Ragsdale (of Kansas) plays violin on “Sign of the Times.” For more on that tune, and the meaning behind it, check out
www.anybodylistening.net/hearinthenowfrontier.html. In addition, the sound effect of someone taking a picture at the end of "Get a Life" was misplaced. It was supposed to be at the beginning of the song.
B-SidesThe list of true b-sides for
Hear in the Now Frontier is limited. Of note is the quite popular “Chasing Blue Sky,” which features a harmonica solo and is generally thought of as one of this album cycle's best tracks. It was also recorded by Rockenfield and his songwriting partner guitarist Paul Speer (using a different singer) for their side project record/soundtrack called
Televoid that was released later in 1997. The soundtrack would ultimately earn Rockenfield/Speer a Grammy nomination for best long-form video.
There was also a track titled “Tomorrow Begins Today,” which was initially written by Michael Wilton. Queensryche elected not to record the song, and Wilton ultimately gave it to a local artist by the name of Aury Moore (Pamela “Suite Sister Mary” Moore's sister), who re-rewrote and released the track as “Breakin' Me,” on a solo album. Wilton's demo version of the song has never been released or surfaced in any form.
Other b-sides from the record were live versions of songs performed on the MTV Unplugged sessions.
Pre-Tour AppearancesAlthough not discussed much in the
Promised Land write-up, Queensryche performed a handful of warm up promotional dates in Europe in the fall of 1994. They went over so well, that the band elected to do one stateside for
Hear in the Now Frontier. Dubbed “The VLA Show” by fans, Queensryche played a 90-minute gig on June 5, 1997, in Sorroco, New Mexico, right next to the very large array satellite dishes, “beaming” their show into both the “now” and “final” frontiers.
The show was dubbed a “dress rehearsal” for the tour, and fans who attended received special certificates signed by the band. See
https://www.anybodylistening.net/6-5-97.html for the setlist, photos, and an image of the certificate.
The VLA show (the first eight songs of it) was broadcasted live nationally in the United States, and a few bootlegs have surfaced over the years with the recording.
A much rarer recording took place two days earlier back in Washington state. When Queensryche appeared on KISW DJ Bob Rivers' “Bob's Garage” show, featuring an unplugged performance. The band performed “Bridge,” “Silent Lucidity,” and “Some People Fly” live. That set the stage for a number of acoustic radio show appearances throughout Queensryche's summer tour. The show was also a historic one for Queensryche, as it was engineered by former Tate MYTH bandmate Kelly Gray, who would ultimately fill a much bigger role for Queensryche in the not too distant future...
TouringThe Hear in the Now FronTOUR began in earnest on June 17, 1997, in Rapid City, S.D. It was the band's shortest headliner-level support tour (starting with the
Empire tour, not including the end of the
Operation: Mindcrime tour), clocking in at just two months on the road.The tour concluded on Aug. 17, in San Antonio, Texas. Staging included video screens and a giant inflatable ear. It was fairly stripped down given the preceding two tours, and for good reason – without a label, Queensryche (by itself) financed the entire two months on the road.
Note: Tate would generally acknowledge the weird ear on stage by calling it “something left over from the Mike Tyson fight,” referencing the championship bout that summer where Tyson bit off a piece of Evander Holyfield's ear in the ring.
Setlist-wise, Queensryche's normal set (they had two sets, with a shorter one used during the period of Geoff's illness. More on that later...) was generally 24 tracks in length, with a running time of just under two hours. The band made sure to play half of
Hear in the Now Frontier (seven tracks) live, along with a smattering of hits from every record in Queensryche's catalog...except for
Rage for Order. That record was ignored entirely, except for a show or two in August 1997, where they played “Walk in the Shadows.” Queensryche also played “The Killing Words” once acoustically on July 29, 1997 in Buffalo. If memory serves, this was apparently fulfilling a promise made to a fan at an in-store signing a day or two beforehand.
On July 19, 1997, however, the tour took a turn for the worse. Sitting backstage in Columbus, Ohio, Tate came down with a horrendous summer cold, blowing out his voice. Queensryche took the stage and got mid-way through “You” (the fifth song in the set) before Tate walked off the stage. The band stopped playing, and after a few minutes, DeGarmo came out and explained how sick Geoff was and apologized, but they'd be unable to continue.
For the first time (as far as anyone could remember in the band) in its career, Queensryche had to cancel two shows due to illness. Planned gigs in Dayton and Cleveland were cancelled. Tate got back on-stage for a second night booked in Cleveland (July 22 at the Blossom Music Center), but with a shortened setlist (they dropped four or five songs), and having swapped in “Della Brown” for “Hit the Black.”
It took over a week for Tate to recover enough to perform the band's usual setlist. They returned to it on July 30, 1997, when Queensryche performed at Jones Beach on Long Island.
After the North American tour concluded, Queensryche had a week's worth of South American dates to play in December 1997. Those dates marked the end of all support for
Hear in the Now Frontier, and marked another, more serious change in the band.
Chris DeGarmo's DepartureOnce the North American run in support of
Hear in the Now Frontier concluded, the band went its separate ways for a few months. It was during this time that Chris DeGarmo made the decision to leave the band. To be clear, DeGarmo has never publicly revealed his reasons for leaving Queensryche. What follows is speculation based on 20 years of fact-gathering and reports from those close to DeGarmo and the band...
DeGarmo had been having thoughts on leaving the band since the
Empire days (remember the “Dark Empire” article referenced in the
Empire discussion earlier). With all the changes Queensryche had endured since that time (e.g. the issues with Tate after
Empire, the new marriages and changing relationships in the band) things were beginning to take their toll on the guitarist. Making things worse was EMI Records folding and Q-Prime dumping Queensryche, which left the band completely on its own after two consecutive unsuccessful albums.
With Queensryche needing to begin anew in every regard, no one in the band (according to various people close to them) offered to help shoulder some of the load, either creatively or business-wise. They all allegedly just assumed that DeGarmo would handle it like he always did (he was president of the band's corporation). This added to the pressure already on Chris. Faced with that, and allegedly his disdain for how Tate's new wife (the current Susan) was (according to people with ties to the group) trying to needle her way into band operations (she took over for Michael Wilton's mother as head of the fan club in 1997) and the issues that may create with Tate moving forward, DeGarmo was clearly frustrated. Compounding everything was Chris' own family life. As mentioned earlier, DeGarmo's father left Chris, his brother, and his mother early in their life, and Chris did not want to be an absentee father and husband during his children's formative years.
So, instead of fighting with the band (and in some cases, their spouses) over Queensryche's business affairs and future, and having to do all the legwork in finding new management and a new label, DeGarmo decided to leave Queensryche. He allegedly told the band a couple months after the North American tour ended. Later on, Kelly Gray (mentioned earlier) recalled doing some wiring and home studio installation at DeGarmo's house at the time, under the premise that he (Gray) would be playing a production/engineering role on Queensryche's next record, and Gray said DeGarmo did not say a word regarding his intent to leave the band.
Once DeGarmo announced his intentions to the band, it likely made for an awkward trip to South America, where Queensryche was contractually obligated to play in December 1997. They fulfilled those dates, and then announced in early 1998 that DeGarmo had left the band. The announcement was made online and to various media outlets.
Queensryche, as many would soon find out, would never be the same...
Note: To repeat, the above is culled from generally what is known from the rumor mill and assorted musings from those close to DeGarmo and the band. I did my best to streamline it and leave out some of the more personal details that read more like tabloid fodder. DeGarmo, to his credit, has never publicly addressed his split with Queensryche, and always speaks of his former bandmates in the best light possible. The above is purely connecting the dots of various bits of information.
A quick word on DeGarmo, post-1997: DeGarmo served as Alice in Chains guitarist/singer Jerry Cantrell's second guitarist in Cantrell's solo band in 1998 (on a summer/fall tour supporting Cantrell's Boggy Depot album). During that time, Chris also earned higher instrument ratings that enabled him to become a full-time charter, pilot, and later, an airline (not commercial, think Fed Ex) pilot. It is rumored the latter is his current position.
This isn't the last word on DeGarmo, however. Stay tuned for more on Chris and his involvement with Queensryche as we move on in this discography discussion.
Samsara's top-three from HITNF: spOOL, Hit the Black, The Voice Inside
Next up: The Kelly Gray Era (1998-2001, featuring Q2k and Live Evolution)
Topic: The Queensr˙che Discography Thread (Read 108991 times)
