Daily Boom Lost Hit: Queensryche- 'The Killing Words' Live

Daily Boom 90's Nostalgia: Queensryche - 'Jet City Woman'

"Wonder where I'd be, you're the air to me."

Why crawl into Friday morning when you can kick it off with a great rock track from Queensryche? "Jet City Woman" was the fourth single off of the progressive metal bands' 1990 album, Empire. It was a top ten mainstream rock track and the song that prompted me to buy the album. Pulling the trigger and doing that was a real investment back then. I think that I had really liked the other singles up until this point and so when "Jet City Woman" dropped it was just obvious that I needed a copy of Empire.

The thing was, once I bought it I realized I was absolutely in love with Geoff Tate's voice and so the album was played nonstop for months by me. The band has been around since 1981 and continues to tour but not without a bit of drama. Tate was fired from Queensryche back in 2012 after some questionable clashes with group members. Things got all kinds of ugly before they improved and a court battle left the current roster of Queensryche owning the rights to use the band's name for professional use. Tate now tours with his band under the name Operation: Mindcrime (after Queensryche's popular 1988 release) and sounds really fantastic. 

Both groups do a version of that great catalog you'll no doubt remember so well. Check out "Jet City Woman" below!

Exclusive Interview: Queensryche's Michael Wilton is 'Beyond Words' Over Reaction to New Music from 'The Verdict'

(Official Queensryche Promo Shot)

Since Covid-19 has brought gigs to a screeching halt we are flashing back to some of the best of the best content here at DailyBOOM.

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Queensryche's latest release, "Dark Reverie", off of their forthcoming album The Verdict (out March 1) has the band's longtime fans dying to hear more. The buzz on this effort is nothing but positive and the guys are counting down the days until they get to hit the road to support their newest "baby". Steve and I had a chance to chat with Queensryche founder Michael Wilton this week and his excitement is more than a little infectious!

DailyBOOM: The last time we spoke you were finishing up work on the new Queensryche album and you were dying for everyone to hear it. You now have two singles out, "Man The Machine" and "Dark Reverie" and they are just beyond fantastic. How are you feeling now that we're actually hearing the new music?

Michael Wilton: My expectations have been flooded. The response is way more than I could have ever anticipated and it has taken off so much better than I could have ever hoped for. We knew we had something special and it becomes your baby, you just never know how people are going to actually perceive it. So it was released to the press and all of the interviews that I've done have just been filled with positive vibrations, which is just incredible. I'm just beyond words.

DailyBOOM: You said that you guys knew that you had something special, so take us back to the studio. How did this one come together differently?

MW: The whole beginning process was an arduous task because when we started pre-production with our producer Zeus there were only a couple of songs that were in demo form and near completion. Everything else was in scattered bits and pieces of riffs and everything so that in itself was a big challenge. It was also one of the most gratifying experiences that I've had since the early '80s. Going through each song, just pulling the deepest and most creative elements out of each individual and building each song with lots of thought. Getting it to the point where everybody was happy with the sound took probably the first two weeks of pre-production and then the next two weeks were spent learning the songs before finally recording the songs. It was quite a task.

Making things more challenging was the fact that Scott (Rockenfield) couldn't play on this album so we had to get a drummer. Todd LaTorre had to get the rust off his drumsticks and he had to write the album on the drums as well as the lyrics. You can imagine the organizational nightmare (laughing) but you know, we believed in it. Zeus was the guy kind of orchestrating everything and we had to get a midi drum kit into the studio so Todd could play along and learn or write the parts. It was just mind-blowing but during this whole process, the ideas and energy were fantastic. It was all of us at the top of our game just devoting so much of our own creative elements to this album. You don't realize until after you're done that these songs are turning into monsters. We're just so proud of them.

(Official Queensryche Promo Shot)

DailyBOOM: It sounds like Todd has really stepped up his musical game this time out.

MW: Yes! As a musician, he's growing like you would not even believe. He's more comfortable and it shows. Todd has definitely stepped up his game obviously because he had to write drum parts now too. He gets to really let loose (laughing). The writing process with everybody is amazing. I think the band as a whole believes in our own creativity and so we're really giving our all. It's crazy but when all is said and done we can sit back and say, 'Wow! We created that!'

DailyBOOM: Do you foresee Scott returning to the band?

MW: We don't know. He is on a different path right now and raising a child so we'll wait and see. The door is always open. People change and they want to do different things so they need some time and their privacy. Casey Grillo has been on tour with us for the last two years and he actually played drums on two of the extra songs included on our bonus cd. We did acoustic versions of "I Dream in Infrared" and "Open Road" and he did all of the percussion on both those. He's a great drummer, really well-rounded and he has a wide palette in his musical style. He's filling big shoes and he's doing a great job. The fans really love him and he is scheduled to be on the road with us again this year.

DailyBOOM: I have to say, "Dark Reverie" has us really excited. It just seems like every note is so perfectly placed and balanced.

MW: It's the same with everyone that I talk to! I've heard that the flow of the album is great and that listeners can really tell that each song has so much thought that has been put into it. So many different positive comments and it's just mind-blowing to think that we've actually accomplished exactly what we set out to capture with this. I think that on March first when The Verdict is released, it's really going to impact the fans just as it did us last year.

Check out Queensryche's official site for tickets, merch & more!

Daily Boom Lost Hit: Queensryche - 'Eyes Of A Stranger'

Exclusive Interview: Stryper's Michael Sweet Details Solo Project with Joel Hoekstra, Todd LaTorre, a New Documentary & More

ICYMI

When you say the name Michael Sweet in rock circles it's always met with positivity. Some people may choose to hate on Stryper, the band that he co-founded way back in 1983, but they adore the frontman and with good reason. He's calm, gracious and as connected to himself as he is to those around him. Sweet's fellow musicians gush about his talent while hoping for an opportunity to work with him somewhere along the way, which says a lot about the kind of man that he is. 

I was fortunate enough to catch up with Sweet recently and he was excited to spill details on his new solo project, a Stryper documentary, and more!

Cate Meighan: It has been a while since we last spoke. How are you doing?

Michael Sweet:  I'm good! I've been busy, traveling a lot so I'm just trying to catch my breath now, but life is good.

CM: I read recently that you're back in the studio working on a new solo album. How's that going?

MS:  Well,  I went in about a month ago and I was there for about ten days. Then we did three local shows and I left for Japan with Stryper. Then, I went back into the studio for another four days when I returned. I'm a little tired but I prefer to stay busy and to do what I can when I can, because that day may come when I can't do these things. Whether it's voice loss or something physical or whatever.  The project that I do next could tank, I mean who knows (laughing). I just don't want to take what I do for granted and so I try to do as much as I can when I can. We don't know what tomorrow will bring so if I have opportunities that I feel good about to go and sing, record, or perform then I'm going to take them.

CM: How's the new album coming along?

MS:  It's really great. I always go into a project with expectations and sometimes I meet or surpass them, but sometimes I don't. Sometimes a song might be a little bit of a letdown and not what I had hoped for but with this album so far, everything is as I've expected and then some. Now granted, I don't have the lead vocals done yet so the pressure is on me. (laughing) I hope the lead vocals turn out how I hear them in my head and how I would like them to be, but you never know. You just don't know until you get in there and you start singing and you get it done.

So far though the songs all have incredible energy. I've got Will Hunt playing drums on it and John O'Boyle is playing bass. The rhythm section is phenomenal and the guitar tones are great. I'm going to have a different guest guitar player on every song, with a solo of course.  I've got Todd LaTorre of Queensryche joining me on a song and it's just turning out to be a really cool album. I think that it's going to surpass my last solo album and that did really well, but I think this one is going to be even better.

CM:  Todd really seems to be at the top of his game right now. The new Queensryche music is just fantastic.

MS:  Todd is a brilliant singer and he is really finding his place in that group. He stepped into a situation that would be high pressure for anyone and he is coming to the table and then some. I think that he is finding himself and becoming more comfortable in that situation and so he's just killing it, plus he's drumming as well! He's a great guy and such a hard worker that he deserves every bit of the success that he's finding. They don't make em' like that, guys like Todd are few and far between.

CM: The last time we spoke you were working on a project with Joel Hoekstra (Whitesnake). Is that still in the works?

MS:  We were originally trying to put together a Michael Sweet/Joel Hoekstra album with a real classic rock kind of vibe to it. We were ready to move forward and had some meetings about it and to be honest we just weren't able to come to terms with a record company to release it. It's tricky when you need a certain amount of money to do what you need to do. There's a fine line because a lot of musicians go into it with the idea of going and making a record to just have fun. Now that I've got kids and grandkids and a mortgage to pay, I have to be a little more cautious with what I take on. This is what I do for a living, I don't work a 9 to 5 job, so it has to make sense financially and for Joel too because he is in a similar situation. So it's hard when the things that you creatively want to do just don't work out from a business standpoint. What I did was have Joel write a couple tracks that I'm writing lyrics for and those co-written songs will be on my new album. He'll be playing the guitar on those and they're basically all done. One is called "When Love is Hated" and the other is called "Never Alone" and they're killer tracks.

CM: Is there a tentative release date yet?

MS:  I'm still not sure. It's definitely going to be this year. We're talking about a summer release and I'm turning it all in by the end of April and so we're probably looking at a July or August release. It depends on how much set up we need with licensing deals worldwide and those kinds of things, but I would say hopefully July/August.

CM: The business has changed so much over the years and the way that artists make their money just isn't like it used to be. The money's not in record sales at all so you've got to be smart and strategic in order to keep working.

MS: Absolutely. I mean, there are things that I've done for free and I'll do more of those things when I have the time. There are times when I'm offered money to sing a song and then I'll have my agent calling with potential shows where I'll make double that and I'm looking at my bills and I have to choose wisely. It's really hard because you don't ever want the business to outweigh the love of what you do but at the same time, you have to think about the business as well because you've gotta pay your bills.

CM: It almost feels like you have to be very cut and dry with it.

MS:  You do, no question about it. I really try very hard to balance it and not let the money take my love for what I do, because man, I just really love doing it. If I was 18 years old I'd just go and do 100 projects for nothing because I love it so much.

CM: Where does your writing inspiration come from?

MS:  I've got something built inside of me that makes me always want to inspire people. Am I a guy that has it all together or that has all the answers (laughing)? Gosh no. I've got my issues and problems. I've got things that I have to work on and overcome, but I still can make someone smile or give them hope and encourage them. That's something that's built within me and I view it as a waste of time and effort for me to release an album that doesn't have that. What's the point? If people are going to be listening to this stuff for years to come then why not inspire them with a song rather than just singing about sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll?

That's just how I feel and so I get inspiration from life, I get it from the bible, my family and friends. There are so many things that inspire me and so with every album, I just want to help and encourage other people too. It's an important thing, it's every bit as important as the music itself and it's always the message behind the music. It's why we've (Stryper) been throwing out bibles forever. We never start preaching to people and telling them what they should or should not do. We just toss them out with the hopes that maybe they'll check it out. We try to steer people in a good direction, that's what it comes down to and at the end of the day, it's all about love. We're trying to give them hope, grace, and love, instead of hate and despair. If we can play a small little part in giving people what the world needs more of- and that's love, then we've done our jobs.

CM: Do those same gifts then flow back to you?

MS: Oh yeah, we see the stories and it's the old thing of you reap what you sow. We've sown a lot and we continue to reap a lot. We've seen how the lives of some people have been affected by what we do. We've met people who were suicidal or addicts and they've turned their lives around in a positive way. It's so awesome to hear that we've played even a small part in helping them and that lives on far beyond the music. The music is fun and amazing but the message is what changes and transforms lives.

CM: You're always so busy. How is the rest of this year shaping up for you?

MS:  I'll be splitting my time a lot but this summer I'm mostly on the road with Stryper. I think we start rehearsals May 2nd in Nashville and then we'll be touring into late-June. I'll be home for part of July and prepping for another project that I can't talk about (laughing). But I'll be recording vocals for that (laughing), it's just nuts. There's always something to do and if something falls through then I'll try and get some solo shows booked. I'm in that place, thank god, where I'm able to work and stay busy. So many of my peers are brilliant musicians, so successful and they just can't get anything going. Every project falls through and I've been there. I went through that from 1996-2000 where nothing seemed to work out and all I heard was 'no'. Then finally the doors started opening up again, Stryper started touring again and the last fourteen years have been a blur. I don't know where the years have gone.

CM: Do you have any regrets about that 'blur'?

MS:  My biggest regrets would be passing up opportunities with my family and friends. My attitude with the music is that I need to do it while I can, but that does come at a price sometimes. That's the stuff that I may look back on someday and be really brokenhearted about and regret. My son's birthday just passed and I was in Japan at the time. We're going to celebrate and make up for it, but those are the moments that can be a little hard to take. Then at the same time, there were years that I did have at home when I could or should have been out on the road. I left Stryper from 1992-2000 and I did some touring then but I got to spend a lot of time with my kids too. There are always pros and cons and I think it always comes with some built-in regret.

CM: Any other musical tricks up your sleeve right now?

MS: Well (laughing), we're doing a documentary that's not going to be so much about the band, but it's going to be about the people that the band has affected. It's really incredible and I think that it's going to be pretty powerful. We've already started work on that but we've got a long way to go with it. Then we're also going to start work on a new Stryper album at the end of this year into early next year. So there are plenty of things on the horizon and in the near future. It's going to be a great year.

Check out Michael's official site for updates on new music and dates. You can head over to Stryper's official site as well for tour dates, merch & more!

Currently Booming: NEW Queensryche- The Verdict (Listen)

Currently Booming: NEW Queensryche- 'Blood of the Levant'

Currently Booming: NEW Queensryche- 'Dark Reverie'

Exclusive Interview: Queensrÿche's Founder Michael Wilton on Performing and That Much-Anticipated New Album

( Queensrÿche Official Promo Shot)

ICYMI-

The name Queensrÿche is instantly familiar to any true heavy metal fan out there. The band has been around since 1982 and it has worked hard to cultivate a progressive sound like no other. They've sold more than 20 million albums worldwide and have spent a good chunk of this year hard at work on their 16th full studio release. Summer also means a full roster of tour dates and on any given weekend you'll be able to catch Queensrÿche performing beside other rock heavyweights like Scorpions, Foreigner, Skid Row, Great White, Lynch Mob and more.

If you haven't caught a live gig in awhile then you need to check out an upcoming show because Queensrÿche seems to be playing tighter than they have in years (at least based on their M3 Rock Festival appearance last May). I was lucky enough to steal a few minutes of founder/guitarist Michael Wilton's time yesterday and he happy to discuss the current batch of live shows and how the recording process has completely changed since the early days of the Ryche.

(Photo Credit: Christopher Carroll)

Cate Meighan: How is your summer on the road so far?

Michael Wilton: I'm enjoying the summer. Some of the shows that we've done in the midwest have been blazing hot so it's nice to be back in Seattle for a little break. We have a lot of fun performing and so we're always chasing opportunities. Each one of us has made the choice to keep the band going successfully, and the fans are along for the ride with us. This is my choice as a career and so I've honed in on it. I look inside myself to find the hidden talent and just go with it. Playing is something that I do because I love and cherish it. It's like a candle, you have to keep the flame burning and so I do that because I believe that this is what I'm meant to be doing with my life.

CM:  Is that love the thing that still keeps you out there?

MW:  I just keep going like a freight train (laughing). It's truly just a burning desire, I have a love for music and a love for performing.  I've been doing this for so long that it's ingrained in my DNA that I'm a road dog, so I don't mind all of the travel. Although it does wear you down after awhile, I'm up for the challenge. As long as the fans want to keep supporting  Queensrÿche, I'll keep doing it.

CM: You guys have gone through some changes in your lineup over the years, do you feel like the fans have really been along for the ride?

MW: This incantation of Queensrÿche, with Todd LaTorre on lead vocals, has really gelled as a band in the last six years. It's a natural progression and everyone is learning the elements of creativity that fuel the band Queensrÿche. If anything we're getting more polished as far as our sound because we have figured out exactly what everybody needs musically in each song. 

I think that there was obviously a period of confusion because our fans are so passionate about our music. I think that once they came to a live show and soaked up the performance, then they knew we were back. We're still playing tight and playing the songs that they want to hear. It has been a rebuilding process, but we've been touring solidly all over the world and we're still having fun. We also have lots of new fans that only know of us from the last two albums. People are still curious about  Queensrÿche and they want to come and see us and our style of music, which is great. We've stuck to our guns about who we are and the alchemy hasn't been lost.

CM: I know that you guys have a new album in the works. How has the process of creating new music changed for you over the years?

MW: This is really a great band effort and a great album and I'm head over heels on this one. I just can't wait for everyone to hear this. When you're creating something there's so much unknown, you really don't know how it's going to turn out. Musicians are all kind of junkies for the unknown and the tasty surprises that come from everyone putting their creativity into the music. That's one of the things that's great about being in a band.

The way that bands record now is totally different than the way that it used to be. It's not like the old days where you would block out six months to record an album. We're playing on weekends now. We're playing three shows in a row here and then four in a row somewhere else, so the producer working on the album has to be flexible. They are normally producing three acts at the same time and those acts are all playing shows all over the place, so you've got to be flexible. You do gigs and then come back and record, do a few more gigs and come back and record again. That's how albums get made these days and that's why it takes so long to put it all together. You've got to keep the machine going and food on the table in between recording.

(Photo Credit: Savoia Concert & Event Photography)

The key to making new music now is in the pre-production for us. Everyone throws their ideas out there and we see what we have to work with and build from. When it comes to recording everyone is involved but it has become more efficient to record our parts individually or with another person. That's how we do it, we might do the guitar parts one week, go and do some shows and then come back and record some bass. The set way of doing things has changed so much but at this point, this album, it's about 99% done.

Above and beyond that, the record company likes to put out a set of singles that are accompanied by videos, so I anticipate we'll have all of those things out before the actual release of the album. It really is all still to be determined. We don't have singles picked out or a treatment ready, it's all still a few months down the road for us and we anticipate that the album will then be released next year.

CM: Do you miss any of the old school ways of doing things?

MW: I definitely miss the old school way! We have had to rethink and find different ways of doing everything. It's just a different situation for music out there now. Multimedia is amazing because as soon as a video is made it can be uploaded and your fans can see it within 24 hours. That's crazy for us. In the old days, you had to wait three months before it was even edited so the invention of social media is one of the positive ways that things have changed for sure. You can get an instantaneous response and immediate gratification which is nice. Plus, all of these sites are data counters basically and it's almost like they keep things organized for us with their efficiency.

The times have really changed and so we have to figure out how people will want to buy their cd's or if they'd rather buy albums, and then how do we get them into their hands. So many of the brick and mortar shops have closed and it's harder to find physical copies of things now. That is just one reason why so many people prefer subscription services from streaming sites. It provides instant gratification for the fans but as artists, we make virtually nothing from those outlets. Back in the early 90's, the bands were important, the music was important and selling albums was the main thing for everyone. Now the music itself is kind of in the background and that makes it a bit challenging. You have to figure out your way of making it into the marketplace in order to survive.

We're a band that still puts out vinyl and so for this new album, we'll press some vinyl for sure. I'm a total vinyl head- I have a record player, I have a cassette machine and I even have a laser disk player (laughing). The musical connoisseurs really love the sound of the vinyl and record sales are making a comeback, but it's still not the kind of difference we can feel. I'm just going to have to deal with the streaming reality and take my royalty check to Starbucks so I can buy a coffee with it (laughing).

The vinyl is nostalgic for the fans because playing it is a process of putting it on the turntable, putting the needle on it and everything else. It's not a piece of plastic you shove into a computer, it's all purposeful. I remember back in the 70's buying albums for the cool artwork that was on them. Not knowing exactly what the album was going to be like and buying it anyway was such a cool feeling for me.

(Todd La Torre & Michael Wilton- Photo Credit: Savoia Concert & Event Photography)

CM: Looking beyond the new album, does Queensrÿche have any other plans in the works?

MW: We want to keep creating new music for people to hear and we've talked about putting out some live performances. That's on the bucket list, to get some live stuff properly produced for our fans. Being in a band is really a time-consuming job because there is so much that you have to do behind the scenes that most people don't realize. It has to be your passion if you're going to play in any band longterm and for us, it's a dream gig. So we're respecting it and taking care of this privilege for as long as we can. You have to keep yourself in check because it's easy to get lost in the details of being in a band. Through experience, we've learned the rules of the road and how to do things in the best way possible for all of us.

CM: What would you like all of the Queensrÿche fans out there to know?

MW: We're so grateful to the hardcore fans that support and believe in  Queensrÿche. The love is mutual and the fans are very dear to us. I can get lost in the art and sometimes I forget how old I really am. I love what I do and I still go for it. I may not be jumping off of drum stages anymore (laughing), but I'm still giving it my 100% and playing the songs as they were meant to be played. That's something that the fans can always count on.

Check out  Queensrÿche's official site for tour dates, updates on their new album and of course, grab some merch!

Currently Booming: New Queensryche - 'Man The Machine' (Lyric Video)

Daily Boom 90's Nostalgia: Queensryche - 'Jet City Woman'

"Wonder where I'd be, you're the air to me."

Why crawl into Monday morning when you can kick it off with a great rock track from Queensryche? "Jet City Woman" was the fourth single off of the progressive metal bands' 1990 album, Empire. It was a top ten mainstream rock track and the song that prompted me to buy the album. Pulling the trigger and doing that was a real investment back then. I think that I had really liked the other singles up until this point and so when "Jet City Woman" dropped it was just obvious that I needed a copy of Empire.

The thing was, once I bought it I realized I was absolutely in love with Geoff Tate's voice and so the album was played nonstop for months by me. The band has been around since 1981 and continues to tour but not without a bit of drama. Tate was fired from Queensryche back in 2012 after some questionable clashes with group members. Things got all kinds of ugly before they improved and a court battle left the current roster of Queensryche owning the rights to use the band's name for professional use. Tate now tours with his band under the name Operation: Mindcrime (after Queensryche's popular 1988 release) and sounds really fantastic. 

Both groups do a version of that great catalog you'll no doubt remember so well. Check out "Jet City Woman" below!

Daily Boom 90's Nostalgia: Queensryche - 'Jet City Woman'

"Wonder where I'd be, you're the air to me."

Why crawl into Monday morning when you can kick it off with a great rock track from Queensryche? "Jet City Woman" was the fourth single off of the progressive metal bands' 1990 album, Empire. It was a top ten mainstream rock track and the song that prompted me to buy the album. Pulling the trigger and doing that was a real investment back then. I think that I had really liked the other singles up until this point and so when "Jet City Woman" dropped it was just obvious that I needed a copy of Empire.

The thing was, once I bought it I realized I was absolutely in love with Geoff Tate's voice and so the album was played nonstop for months by me. The band has been around since 1981 and continues to tour but not without a bit of drama. Tate was fired from Queensryche back in 2012 after some questionable clashes with group members. Things got all kinds of ugly before they improved and a court battle left the current roster of Queensryche owning the rights to use the band's name for professional use. Tate now tours with his band under the name Operation: Mindcrime (after Queensryche's popular 1988 release) and sounds really fantastic. 

Both groups do a version of that great catalog you'll no doubt remember so well. Check out "Jet City Woman" below!