Queensryche Offered ‘Obscene’ Money to Reunite With Geoff Tate
Geoff Tate said he's "not really expecting" a reunion with Queensryche, despite lucrative offers to do so.
In a Jan. 24 interview on SiriusXM's Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk (as transcribed by Blabbermouth) Tate revealed that the band's classic lineup had "been offered just obscene amounts of money to get back together and do one tour — one tour and we'd never have to tour again. And a couple of people in the band turned it down; they're not interested in doing it."
The former frontman further explained that "money is not the motivator" when it comes to reunion discussions. "Getting together for an artistic dream isn't a motivator either, so what do you have? You have nothing."
In 2012, Tate's former bandmates fired him and replaced him with new singer, Todd La Torre. Tate formed his own version of Queensryche, and for a while both bands released new albums and toured under the Queensryche name. A settlement was reached in 2014, giving drummer Scott Rockenfield, guitarist Michael Wilton and bassist Eddie Jackson control of the Queensryche brand, while Tate was allowed to form the band Operation: Mindcrime, named after the title of Queensryche's 1988 concept album.
"We weren't really friends, you know — we were business associates," Tate previously said of his former bandmates during an interview with The Metal Gods Meltdown. "From my perspective and my involvement, it wasn't an emotional sort of brotherhood kind of thing that some people might think existed. That wasn't my reality with them."
Queensryche sold more than 6 million albums in the U.S. alone between 1988-94, and have amassed sales of more than 20 million albums worldwide over the course of their career.
"We had our time, and I'll always be grateful for that time that we had," Tate explained during his recent interview with Trunk. "That was a time, and it doesn't mean that that time has to go on forever."