Geoff Tate is performing the classic Queensrÿche album “Operation: Mindcrime” in its entirety for the final time as part of his current tour.
Released in 1988, the LP was the third full-length release from the band, which Tate fronted from its 1982 inception until his departure in 2012.
The group, which had been branded as a hard rock outfit, proved itself to be an outlier within that genre. Eschewing lyrics that focused on typical rock ‘n’ roll fare, Queensrÿche material explored humankind’s relationship with technology, and the social and moral ramifications inherent to world sliding toward post-human existence.
The 1986 album “Rage For Order” explored these realities; not only the lyrical front but with music that frequently emulated the machinelike nature of such a world. Queensrÿche had also delivered an LP that could appeal as much to fans of The Cure and Prince as it could fans of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden.
It was after the recording and touring for that album that Tate stumbled upon the concept for “Operation: Mindcrime.” He was living in Quebec and found himself frequenting the same drinking establishment as a group of political radicals seeking sovereignty from the Canadian government.
If the late British novelist Graham Greene (“The Third Man”) had been born in the age of Pop Art and at the precipice of cyberpunk, he may have written a work along the line of “Mindcrime”: A young man, frustrated with the unjust nature of the world and seeking a better one, falls in with a radical group, falls in love with a nun, spirals into addiction and is faced with an unspeakable task.
And it all unfolds in just under an hour.
Along with the aforementioned “Rage For Order” and 1990’s “Empire,” “Mindcrime” solidified Queensrÿche’s reputation as a premiere rock band and increased the group’s commercial fortunes. It stands as one of the cornerstones of the genre that emerged and continues to attract new audiences. That’s no doubt in part because the themes it explores -- from income inequality to political corruption and alienation to the ways in which power structures often prey upon and then discard youth -- remain relevant.
Tate’s current tour marks the last time he will perform the “Mindcrime” LP in full, though he’s not done with the story. He’s working on the third installment (Queensrÿche released “Operation: Mindcrime II” in 2006), which he’ll release song-by-song until the full story is revealed.
Speaking from Germany a few weeks before his Wichita performance, Tate reflected on the process of the upcoming project, saying that fans shouldn’t expect the project to be completed particularly quickly.
“I tour so much that it takes roughly two-and-a-half [to] three years to get everywhere,” he says. “Releasing a song every quarter actually makes a lot of sense to me. We’re all set up for starting sometime in the spring [to start] releasing things. It’s definitely “Mindcrime III” material, and the storyline is taken from the perspective of Dr. X rather than the perspective of Nikki. It’s kind of (an) answer to some of the questions that people were maybe wondering about as they listened to the first two albums.”
The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.
“Operation: Mindcrime” started when you were living in Montreal and encountered some separatists.
There was a little neighborhood drinking establishment that was frequented by people who had extreme political views for the time. I didn’t know [about them being there at first], but I found myself there because I knew a couple people who hung out there, and they invited me to come by. I found it to be a pretty inspiring situation to be in. I’d just come off touring for the “Rage For Order” album and had some time off and had no idea what I was going to write about. I couldn’t even access what was in my own head.
While I was in Montreal, all that stuff kind of came out. The whole story for “Operation: Mindcrime” played out in my imagination based upon a lot of the characters I met in my stay in Montreal and also through traveling [elsewhere]. The story was written quickly. I think within two days I had the story completed, and I had begun working on music for the album.
I flew home to attend [guitarist] Michael [Wilton’s] wedding and during that time that I was back home, I started talking about this idea with [guitarist] Chris [DeGarmo], my writing partner in the band. He got very excited about the idea. We’d been talking about perhaps doing a concept album for a couple of years, actually since the inception of our band, really. It was something that was on our musical bucket list.
[Chris and I] had both grown up inspired by some of the great concept records of our youth, The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s,” Yes’s “Close To The Edge,” Genesis’ “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.” These were big albums for he and I. To do our own was something that we had kind of set our sights on, and finally we had a chance to do it. We had a story. So, we jumped into it and started feverishly working on it, and I think six months later we had a record.
This story that you’re telling about being at the bar I think demonstrates something about artistic inclinations. Other people might have found themselves around a group of separatists, political radicals, and said, “OK, I’m going to go to a different pub.”
[Laughs.]
But artists will say, “Tell me more!”
I was intrigued. There were so many characters in that particular place. The character of Dr. X, the lead villain in the story, was a man who sat across the room from me and sort of dictated what was going on within the confines of the establishment. He seemed to never speak a word out loud but always to be whispering something to somebody and had people coming in and asking him questions. He would think about what they said and then put his hand up to his mouth so nobody could read his lips, I guess. He was very mysterious. There I am in the corner just writing away in my little notebook. There was so much going on there, the philosophy of the whole thing and the violence and the … I don’t know … the desperation of wanting to separate from this government that had been in place for a couple hundred years. I sort of got caught up in the drama of it all, I think.
For all this talk today about how people have never been so divided, and the times are so strange, the fact remains that when this record was coming together, we were living in a tumultuous time, too. There was Iran-Contra, the televangelists scandals, The Cold War.
I don’t think the times have really changed. Just the names have changed. [Laughs.] It’s the continuing struggle of the conservative versus the liberal viewpoint, which I suppose will keep continuing on and on and on. It doesn’t seem to be going away or coming to any sort of conclusion. Maybe that’s why the album resonates with people; it touches on classic themes of struggle. Power struggles, philosophical struggles.
There’s something in there too about the way that power structures prey on the young.
Oh yeah. Young people are the mark. If you look at the whole advertising structure in America, it’s all aimed at youth. If you go into any shopping mall in America, you see all of the shops, almost all of them, I would guess 90-odd-some percent of them are aimed at young people. They have young people’s clothes, things that are interesting to young people, not older people because, well, honestly, we’ve already seen it! [Laughs.] We’ve already been used up.
I think you can tell a lot about a culture based on the way it treats both its young and its elderly.
Especially in America. It’s a really interesting culture. It really is. It’s a great place to make money. It’s a great place to get ahead. There’s lots of opportunities there and lots of work. If you have any kind of strong work ethic and any sort of smarts you can get ahead and make your fortune. But you don’t want to grow old there. You want to get out at some point. We don’t take care of our old people. It’s a rough place to be if you’re an older person.
I spend a lot of time travelling and being in other parts of the world. People always ask me the same questions: “What’s going on in America? What’s with all the guns?” They can’t understand it. They can’t wrap their heads around it. … How could they? America, we’re filled with all these different people. It’s a melting pot of different cultures and, honestly, we don’t trust each other. We’re scared of each other, and we need protection, and the way we do that is we own guns. Everybody has guns and everybody has a lot of ‘em.
There is this thing about “Mindcrime” and when it emerged. The concept record wasn’t really in fashion. King Diamond had a couple of story albums around that time, but it was the previous generation that had the great concept records and then this album came along, and it felt like we had one of those for ourselves.
I’ve had a lot of people tell me that they have a personal connection with it. I’ve actually had a lot of people tell me that they didn’t realize it was a story until a few listens in, and they started to actually read the fine print of all the lyrics. I don’t know why we printed them so small. They were really tiny. I mean you needed a magnifying glass to read the lyrics to that album, I think. But then a lot of people realized, “Oh my gosh, there’s a story here, it’s talking to me.” That’s where it got interesting for a lot of people.
When people create albums or paintings or films, they hope it will have some kind of longevity. They’re lucky if they get one of those. You have more than one, but “Mindcrime” is right at the top.
You’re right. It’s a wonderous thing to have something like “Operation: Mindcrime,” something that means something to so many people. I am constantly humbled by that idea. Every day. I play a lot of shows, and I meet a lot of people, and I hear a lot of stories about the music and what it means to people, where they were the first time they heard it, what they were doing, what they experienced, how the songs or a song has got them through tough times in their life. They found wisdom, they found empathy in the song. They found something in it that grabbed them, or they could relate to. Isn’t that what we want, being human? We want to be able to relate to something that tells us, “Hey, it’s not just us alone here. Somebody else has felt this too and been through this.”
It's an amazing thing, and I try not to think about that too much, honestly, because it would kind of mess me up, I think. I try not to look back. I try to look forward all the time because looking back is … Oh my gosh… Especially when you get to my age and you start looking back and go, “Oh my God! It’s almost over!” [Laughs.]
I have less time left than I had starting out, looking from where “Mindcrime” started. It’s a humbling experience.
It has to be a hard thing to reconcile. “Yeah, I made that, but I still have to take the garbage out.”
[Laughs.] I always make jokes about that kind of thing. The menial stuff in life is actually where you get a lot of happiness. The chop wood, carry water concept. Every day over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been in northern Scandinavia playing shows and it’s so cold. It’s minus double digits. I’m getting ready for the show, and I’m putting my stage necklace on and it’s cold. I’m making noises because it’s so cold. My guitarist says, “Geoff, why don’t you just hire somebody to pre-warm your jewelry for you?”
[Laughs.]
[Laughs.] Yeah, that’ll be the day.
