In a recent interview with The Metal Voice, Todd La Torre addressed the Queensrÿche fans who criticize him more than ten years after he took over as the lead singer from original frontman Geoff Tate.
“I’m never gonna be the original guy, and that’s okay,” he said. “I told that to Geoff when I saw him in Spain [in 2017 when Tate had a chance encounter with his former bandmates at a festival]. We talked, and I told him what I told him. I said, ‘Yeah, I can hit the high notes, but you’re the original guy. You recorded some of the best records ever. I don’t care if you ever sing another high note again. You don’t have anything to prove as far as I’m concerned.'”
“But it’s everybody else that tries to compare and pit people against each other,” he said of the fans. “And he said I sounded amazing. So to the people that wanna say I don’t, your boy is saying I sound really good. And at the end of the day, man, I know when I sing well, and I know when I have a bad night or an off night.”
It has been 12 years since Torre joined the band. Still, Tate thinks it was weird seeing the recent frontman perform with the band. “I was actually at the show performing,” Tate said of watching his old band’s show with a new singer. “I played with a band called Avantasia. So, Avantasia was headlining the Barcelona festival. And I went out early that day to the venue, ’cause I wanted to see Queensrÿche play. I hadn’t seen them perform before without me. I think they were playing at, like, three o’clock in the afternoon, and there was hardly anybody there, but it was really interesting to see them play.”
“And their singer, God, he sounds just like me. It was very odd. But I’m glad I [saw them]. I got to say hi to all the guys — except Scott [Rockenfield, drums]; he wasn’t in the band anymore, I guess, at that time. But I got to say hi to Michael [Wilton, guitar] and Eddie [Jackson, bass] at least,” the former singer added.
La Torre stepped in as the new lead singer for Queensrÿche after Tate was let go in 2012. This led to a two-year legal fight, where Tate sued for the rights to the Queensrÿche name. Wilton, Rockenfield, and Jackson responded with a countersuit. They eventually reached a settlement: Wilton, Rockenfield, and Jackson continued as Queensrÿche, while Tate retained the exclusive right to perform ‘Operation: Mindcrime’ and ‘Operation: Mindcrime II.’
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