Raw #86 12/21/91 "Scene of the ‘Crime!" by Phil Alexander

This year has seen the coming of age of Queensryche. Chart success on both sides of the Atlantic and an appearance at Donington lifted the group into the public eye and this year’s UK tour saw them return to their watershed album Operation: Mindcrime for a new extravagant live show incoporating film and special lighting effects. Not only that but they’ve just released a live video and CD box set of the Mindcrime concept. Titled Operation: LIVEcrime it shows the band embracing technology and sees them expanding their unique sense of vision through the use of a gigantic, ground-breaking computerised show. Phil Alexander catches up with ‘Ryche vocalist Geoff Tate and the band’s lighting man Howard Ungerleider to lay bare the complexities behind the performance and ends up reminiscing about the band’s formative years...

THE IMPACT

At the time it seemed like an implausibility. A concept album in the late ‘80s! Strewth!

To skeptics it was a source of endless guffaws. An excuse to make a few pointed jibes involving at least one gratuitous mention of Yes' horrifically self-indulgent ‘70s concept disaster Tales From Topographic Oceans.

The album in question, of course, was Queensryche’s Operation: Mindcrime. An album which was not only signaled the realisation of the Seattle quintet’s musical potential, but also emerged as a landmark release that genuinely re-stated the case for the importance of content over style.

Boasting a high-tech sheen courtesy of producer Peter Collins, Mindcrime came on like the most significant slab of cinematographic-styled vinyl since Pink Floyd’s The Wall. While The Wall without the visuals was a little indulgent, Mindcrime was a taut display of razor-sharp songwriting placed in the context of an absorbing storyline from which mental rather than physical images spun off.

THE CONCEPT

Ideologically stimulating and technically intriguing, Mindcrime is a tale akin to that of George Orwell’s 1984. There’s a futuristic element to the whole concept although the timeless quality of the story revolves around the protagonist Nikki and the notion of institutionalised oppression portrayed by a nurse, Sister Mary, and the malevolent surgeon Doctor X. Simple in essence, the album’s complexities are up to individual perception although the five piece- comprising of vocalist Geoff Tate, guitarists Chris De Garmo and Michael Wilton, bass player Eddie Jackson and drummer Scott Rockenfield- are the first to admit at back in ’88 the album as a whole went over the heads of most Metallers whose pre-occupations at the time lay either with the tinsel-town tangle of Glam Rock or the hyperseed of Thrash.

The resurrection of the album some three years after its release as the focal point of Queensryche’s current US live show is a rather bitter irony. Nevertheless, the band have capitalised on the depth which their ’88 meisterwerk offers. Rather than whinge at the adversity they had to face when Mindcrime surfaced, there’s an air of relief that eventually both the album in question and its successor, Empire, have finally elevated the Seattle quintet into the stadium super-league, allowing them to perform the concept in its entire glory, thanks to the use of what can only be termed awesome technology and a performance of epic proportions.

TECHNO TALK

Captured on the stunning new video Operation: LIVEcrime, which was shot during three nights in Madison, Wisconsin, and reviewed in the last issue of RAW, Queensryche’s live presentation of the Mindcrime concept simply leaves the competition standing.

While most combos rely on a backdrop of Marshall stacks packed ceiling-high, the Seattle outfit have plumped for something far more grandiose. Gone are the days where they relied on sheer musical mastery. The live show is now enhanced to take in elements such as film and breath-taking lighting as well as a large amount of split-second choreography, all of which conspire to create a performance of jaw-dropping intensity.

Essentially, the larger-than-life, high-tech production is due to the band’s collaboration with their lighting director/designer Howard Ungerleider. A veteran in the lighting and multi-media stage design field (his previous work includes a 17 year stint with Rush and key involvement with Def Leppard’s last worldbeating tour), Ungerleider began working with the Seattle outfit some two years ago just as the Empire tour kicked off in Dublin.

"When they started doing Mindcrime on that tour, it was on a very small scale. There wasn’t that much of a real show so we started formulating the whole set for the US tour including all the lighting from there," comments Ungerleider. "What it was, was just these brainstorming sessions on the road. We were expanding on the ideas that the band had already used in some of their videos for the album and elaborating on some of the ideas they’d already used in a short video, Video: Mindcrime, which was a few tracks which told some of the story but which hadn’t quite told, captured, what they wanted. What I wanted to do was design a show that’s three dimensional. To achieve this we erected two screens which are about 20 feet behind the band. They’re 18 feet high and 24 feet wide and the whole thing gives you a field of depth to work with," continues Ungerleider, getting technical.

Augmented by 35mm movie-quality film projected against these screens, the scenes depicted musically on the album unfold, playing on the visual quality of Mindcrime.

"The fact that Operation: Mindcrime sounds like a motion picture soundtrack in the first place really allows us to enhance it perfectly," adds Ungerleider. "It allows us to build a real multi-media show with interactive parts which involve synching a computer show to music while triggering the effects manually so that it still has a human quality. It’s rare that you can do that and that does add a lot of pressure to what the band have to do when they’re actually into the Mindcrime segment of the show."

The best example of interaction between sight and sound as evinced on LIVEcrime is the ‘Suite Sister Mary’ segment where Tate duets with Mary herself. The only snag being that Mary (played by actress Pamela Moore) is actually on film rather than in the flesh!

The room for error therefore is negligible with the band wearing headphones allowing them to hear exactly where they are at any one time. Thankfully, despite the incredible complexities of combining film, computer, and human elements, there hasn’t yet been any real disasters during the 160 US shows which have seen the Mindcrime story included in the band’s two hour set.

"All the errors that we made were early on in the tour," comments Tate. "It was just choreography problems where we were still learning out parts. There have been a few slip ups with the film though!" he chuckles.

"There was one night in Texas where Sister Mary was up on the screen and the way she’s filmed is that her hair’s blowing back. She’s a striking platinum blonde and the way it’s all shot it’s like she’s on fire. At one point during this show the film became too hot because of a combination of the heat in the building and our projectors not being set up quite right. The film just melted and then burst into flame. It was pretty spectacular ‘cos I was looking at Mary on the screen and there she was burning in front of me! The audience had no idea that anything was wrong. They just saw this woman going up in flames on the screen while the rest of us were just thinking, ‘Oh no, what next!?’ It was pretty funny."

THE ART OF CLIFF HANGING

With the current ‘Ryche show being relatively trouble-free, however, there is still the added pressure of having to deal with a show which, once up and running, offers few if any opportunities to stop.

"Well, the only real pressure is that it means with this show you have to be ‘on’ every night," adds Tate. "I guess that’s quite a bit of pressure ‘cos you can’t go out there and be blurry or have a hangover; you have to be sharp. It’s really like a genuine performance, like a play or a musical where you have to be in the right place at the right time every night ‘cos the lights are synched up to where you’re meant to be and the film rolls at specific points on the assumption that you are actually there. It requires a lot of exactness on our part but we’ve got to the point where it almost feels natural. I suppose, though, once you’re locked into Mindcrime, it’s just an exhausting experience but we like those sort of challenges!" he laughs.

Despite the pressures of the show Tate is quick to point out the flexibility of a show that is so multi-faceted as far as sheer entertainment is concerned. With the band’s development into using actual film and conjuring up haunting images on the big screens which form the backdrop of Mindcrime, what kind of inspiration have they drawn on? Is there any type of film that has been particularly influential to the band’s approach?

"No, I don’t think there’s been any one type of film," denies Tate. "The fact is that we’re all film fanatics and we like a lot of different film directors and photographers. When we approach our use of film though, all that it comes down to is the individual song and the type of image that we feel would best convey the message that we’re trying to get across.

"Take ‘Suite Sister Mary,’ for example. We decided that we wanted to try and get her singing on the screen but there were all kinds of different ways we could film her. We chose to have close-ups of her to really get that big look where you could really see her mouth moving even if you were in the 147th row in the house. That way it would still have impact. If you made her small then it wouldn’t have worked because the background would have overshadowed her.

"What was important to us was her facial expression, the look in her eyes and stuff like that, so that was the direction we chose. In other scenes, though, we wanted to depict the inside of a church ‘cos that’s where the scene was taking place. In that case the film was used more as a backdrop rather than something that grabs your attention. It’s sort of fun having that flexibility.

"Expanding on this idea, say the focus of the performance in a particular verse or song is on myself, then I would be lit in such a way that I would be very well seen standing in front of a screen. The screen might have the church with candles in it but that wouldn’t be the audience’s focus, their eyes would be on me. Then the scene changes and the lights go off me and move to the screen to focus on that. That means that you can really entertain the audience by switching between screen and live performance so that really keeps them on the edge of their seat."

SMALL SCREEN CAPERS

The grandiose, seat-edging antics displayed on Operation: LIVEcrime are a far cry from the recent video meanderings of the quintet. Having had to pray hard for the success of Mindcrime when it originally surfaced, with Empire the band’s musical approach has been simplified, something which has been mirrored by their recent MTV-friendly vids. Consequently, vids like ‘Silent Lucidity’ have plagued the hell out of all ‘n’ sundry, so how does Tate reconcile this commercial slant with the more elaborate adventures which the band have now clearly embarked on?

"Well, if you notice the songs that we chose from the Empire album as videos, they really aren’t on the cutting edge of Queensryche’s creativity," he answers honestly. "They’re good songs, I have to say that for ‘em. They’re melodious and I’m pretty proud of most of the lyrics on them, but they’re not real conceptual pieces or like ‘Neue Regel" from Rage For Order. Why that happens is because we came to this understanding that a video is really a commercial to sell your product. Our product is our album and so from an artistic standpoint it’s hard to accept that you have to do these things. But, in reality, that’s the way the business looks at it and I think that, as long as you become comfortable with the fact that what you’re doing is just making a commercial just like Heinz Ketchup is making a commercial to sell their food or McDonald’s are making a commercial to sell their restaurants, then that’s OK. With music, though, MTV is our network to sell our product. Once we came to accept that that was the way it worked, it changed the way we made videos for this album."

Was that a difficult thing to accept? It is after all, a very unfashionable thing to admit. "Yeah, it is and it took us years to realise it!" he laughs. "But if we’re honest, then that’s what Empire is. It’s a commercially- successful album which was written with that in mind. We wanted to concentrate on just songs with no fancy concept ideas. It was a case of solid songs and making all the right little moves."

Could that be a little note of cynicism creeping into things there?

"Oh, no. Yeah, I’m probably the most cynical guy you’ve talked to today!" he chuckles, dryly. "You know, if you do everything in this business in the right sort of way you can make a success of yourself. Follow all the little guidelines, grow your hair long, wear tight trousers, make a four minute commercial, not five minutes ‘cos they won’t play it—and there you go."

And yet, Tate and Queensryche’s cynicism is easy enough to understand. This, after all, is a band who made one of the all-time classic Metal albums only to find that, initially at least, no-one seemed to give a damn!

In retrospect, therefore, how does Tate feel about the whole Mindcrime LP going over people’s heads?

"I think that looking back, the album definitely did confuse a lot of people. Then again, that’s down to the way this business works," states Tate. "The record company have to be able to put you in a box to sell you to a given audience. If you refuse to live in this box, then they can’t categorise you and it makes the sale difficult. What we were doing at the time was that we weren’t happy in our box and we kept on jumping into other boxes. The company never quite knew which box we were in so it just became fairly frustrating for our company and us.

"The strange thing was that we always had good media support because the media always wanted to like us; they just wanted us to become a proper Metal band, that’s all," laughs the frontman. "When Empire came out it was like ‘At last they’ve got an album out with decent songs you can sing along to; they’ve got long hair, tight trousers and they’ve even got an umlaut over their name, so they’re alright with us!.’ That was Metal enough for everyone after a time when I’m sure some people wondered if we were Metal at all."

Surely the problem stems from the fact that in the early days, when the ‘Queen of the Reich EP’ came out, everyone was sure of the fact that Queensr˙che were a cast-iron Metal band. They did have the umlaut over their name, and they sang songs [that one could sing to. But then came a] horrible image change on Rage For Order, which had even the most ardent of fans wondering what the hell was going on!

"Yeah, I guess that’s true," agrees Tate. "But in the really early days we just sounded like Maiden! What’s really kind of upsetting about the whole image thing is that in this genre of music you can’t be a lot more experimental. If you don’t fit in with certain criteria then you’re not allowed in. It’s very tough, you know? You can’t wear different clothes or look a different way, otherwise people start saying, ‘Oh, that’s not Metal.’

"I think people are opening up a bit more, musically at least, but image-wise I think it’s still very closed down. Metal kids are very concerned about someone looking feminine. They don’t want a guitar hero who looks like a girl. They have a hard time with homophobia, too, I think. It’s funny, too, and I’m not sure whether this is coincidence or not, but as soon as I grew my hair out really long and started looking very much like a standard Rock ‘n’ Roller from the Metal standpoint, the band really became a lot more successful. I’m not sure if that’s a timing thing ‘cos Empire was a very successful album. I don’t know if the whole thing was working hand in hand, although it’s pretty interesting."

Looking back at that Rage For Order period, however, surely there must be a twinge of embarrassment about the make-up and the image?

"That was our Glam period!" chuckles Tate. "We were experimenting with different things and trying to convey a visual image of what we felt the music looked like. As with all experiments, some fail, some win. What we learned is that we didn’t need to do that. We should’ve just let the music do the talking. From there, image was just a thing that we decided not to spend too much time on. We look the way we look and we figure that that’s just the safe bet, you know?! Let the music be as weird as you want but don’t fuck with your face, that’s the moral of it!"

WHERE NEXT, COLUMBUS?

Having learnt their lessons over the last five years or so, Queensr˙che have finally found themselves accepted on their own terms. The Operation: LIVEcrime box set (which includes both a video, a CD and a lavish booklet which unravels the concept behind Mindcrime) is the ultimate proof, having entered the Billboard Top 50 in the US where it’s classed as an album and thereby joins Empire. Two platters at the same time, in the Top 50 marks yet another first for Queensryche. With the band breaking so much ground and expectations running high as far as future plans are concerned, the only real question that remains is exactly where the five-piece are headed next?

"Well, this tour ends on January 4 and then I guess we’ll be exhausted and we’ll take a break of a couple of months just to get away from each other," chuckles Tate. "Then, we’ll get down to the next record in the Summer and we hope to hit the road again by ’93. We’ve got plans for the next tour already in motion. Stage design and set design and the hardware for the film system are already being worked on. I really don’t like to talk about it too much, though, because it makes it public knowledge and the key to this business is to remain somewhat ahead so you can seem, at least in the public’s eye, to be somewhat unique! (laughs) I’ll just say that there’s so much you can do with this medium we’re working with and we’ve only just started to explore it. This tour, of course, has been a wonderful learning experience as far as the limitations of it are concerned. And apart from a few technical difficulties, the limitations really just depend on our imagination and how big your wallet is!"

Wad-handed and packing a vast mental panorama, you get the feeling that this could be just the beginning. A frightening thought indeed!