Original QUEENSRŸCHE Lineup Has Been Offered ‘Obscene’ Amount Of Money To Reunite For Tour, Says GEOFF TATE

sweet oblivion

During a recent appearance on SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk,” Geoff Tate was asked if he is hopeful that a QUEENSRŸCHE reunion will happen someday.

“I’m honestly not really expecting that to happen, basically because we’ve 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,” he responded. “And a couple of people in the band turned it down; they’re not interested in doing it. So that would really be, I think, the only motivation that would get everybody together was an obscene amount of money. But that didn’t work, so [laughs] there’s really no hope for it after that, I think…

“Money is not the motivator, and getting together for an artistic dream isn’t a motivator either, so what do you have? You have nothing. Obviously, both camps are happy in the position they’re at. I know for myself, I love my life — I love what I’m doing and I love traveling and playing music for people. And so far, I’m still kicking it at 63, still happy and healthy.”

“We did hold it together for years and years and years,” Tate continued. “It was a really, really tightly run ship and it was very lucrative and we had a lot of great records and did a lot of world touring and made a lot of friends and played a lot of music together. And we had our time, and I’ll aways be grateful for that time that we had. That was a time, and it doesn’t mean that that time has to go on forever. There’s new times to be had and there’s more music to be made, there’s more songs to be sung and more audiences to play music for.”

In 2014, Tate and QUEENSRŸCHE announced that a settlement had been reached after a nearly two-year legal battle where the singer sued over the rights to the QUEENSRŸCHE name after being fired in 2012. Fellow original QUEENSRŸCHE members Michael Wilton (guitar), Scott Rockenfield (drums) and Eddie Jackson (bass) responded with a countersuit. The settlement included an agreement that Wilton, Rockenfield and Jackson would continue as QUEENSRŸCHE, while Tate would have the sole right to perform the albums Operation: Mindcrime and Operation: Mindcrime II in their entirety live.