Last week, former Queensryche vocalist Geoff Tate let the cat out of the bag via Queensryche’s website that he was now known as “Geoff Tate: The Voice of Queensryche.” If you haven’t been playing along at home, for the last year or so, an intense battle was being waged over rights to the name “Queensryche,” with Tate on one side and original band members Eddie Jackson, Scott Rockenfield and Michael Wilton on the other. While the other incarnation of Queensryche had intimated in an interview several days earlier that a press release would be coming, that press release was released earlier today and reads like this:
We wanted to let Queensryche fans around the world know that an amicable settlement has been reached between Eddie Jackson, Scott Rockenfield, Michael Wilton and Geoff Tate with regard to the future of the Queensryche name. According to the agreement, original Queensryche members Eddie Jackson, Scott Rockenfield and Michael Wilton along with recent members, Todd La Torre and Parker Lundgren, will now be the sole entity recording and touring as Queensryche, performing selections from their entire musical catalog that spans over 30 years of material. Original Queensryche lead singer Geoff Tate will continue to record, perform and pursue a variety of other creative endeavors and, as part of the agreement, will have the exclusive rights to perform ‘Operation: Mindcrime I’ and ‘II’ in their entirety as a unique performance. Both sides wish each other well and are excited about what the future holds. We want to thank the fans for standing beside us through this ordeal and look forward to sharing our music with you for years to come.
Well, that’s apparently as amicable as it gets. It’s not clear whether the non-Tate version of Queensryche will be allowed to perform Operation: Mindcrime I or Operation: Mindcrime II, and just not the two of them together. But let’s be honest, that’s one more Operation: Mindcrime than anyone else wants to hear.
[via]
