1982 was a crucial year for Heavy Rock, as it marked the emergence of many incredible bands and the release of some of their greatest albums. That year, for example, Iron Maiden released The Number of the Beast, their first album featuring Bruce Dickinson on vocals.
It was also the year that the American Progressive Metal band Queensrÿche was formed in Bellevue, Washington. In 1984, they released their debut album, The Warning, followed by Rage for Order (1986) and their most successful records, Operation: Mindcrime (1988) and Empire (1990). A few decades ago, Bruce Dickinson almost recorded with the band’s original vocalist, Geoff Tate.
But what does the Iron Maiden frontman think of Queensrÿche?
Bruce Dickinson’s opinion on Queensrÿche
The Iron Maiden vocalist is a big fan of the American group and his favorite album by them is “Operation: Mindcrime” (1988). He revealed that in an interview with Qobuz (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage) in 2024.
“Queensrÿche ‘Operation: Mindcrime’ (Mimics Geoff Tate’s vocals). For me, this was one of those records that is like unique. Other people have tried to do similar things but ‘Mindcrime’ is like, just perfect, so intelligent. The weird thing is, the guitar player, who wrote pretty much most of that record, I think he did one more album and then he just left and disappeared. He actually became a commercial pilot. So there you go (laughs)” Bruce Dickinson said.
Released in 1988, “Operation: Mindcrime” is the third studio album by Queensrÿche. The concept album/rock opera sold an estimated of more than 1 million copies only in the United States.
The guitarist mentioned by Dickinson was Christopher Lee DeGarmo. He was a member of the group from the early 80s until 1997. DeGarmo also was a backing vocalist and the primary songwriter. He briefly collaborated with the band again from 2003 to 2007. But since he decided to leave the band, he has made his living as a professional private jet pilot. Over the years he recorded with Alice In Chains, Jerry Cantrell and other artists.
Besides DeGarmo, at the time the band was also formed by Geoff Tate (Vocals), Michael Wilton (Guitar), Eddie Jackson (Bass) and Scott Rockenfield (Drums).
A Bruce Dickinson solo song was originally intended to be recorded with Geoff Tate
Curiously, back when the legendary Ronnie James Dio was still alive, they talked about creating a project called “The Three Tremors”. It would be like a Metal version of The Three Tenors, which was an operatic singing trio formed by Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingos and José Carreras.
But after Dio passed away, Dickinson revealed that it could happen with him, Rob Halford and Geoff Tate. In an interview with Wall of Sound in 2024 when he was promoting his new solo album “Mandrake Project”, he revealed there was one track which was originally written for the Three Tremors project.
“‘Shadow Of The Gods’ was written at the time of ‘Tyranny of Souls’ or shortly afterwards. Because Roy (‘Z’ Ramirez) and I were… There was an idea to do a project called The Three Tremors. (It) was gonna be me, Rob Halford and Ronnie James Dio doing an album together and then going out on tour. Well, that never happened ’cause Ronnie, unfortunately, passed away. The idea was maybe to get Geoff Tate involved and that kind of didn’t work out. But in the meantime, we were busy trying to write songs that would feature three singers. When the project didn’t happen, we’d done two of them. One of them was ‘Tyranny Of Souls’. If you notice, the opening lines to ‘Tyranny Of Souls’ is the ‘three witches’ speech from ‘Macbeth’.”
He continued:
“Of course, if there were three singers. You’d have them all on stage going, (singing) ‘When shall we three meet again?’ In fact, the first three lines would have been sung by me and then Rob and then Geoff Tate. So, on the demo version of it, you know, I was, like, ‘When shall we three meet again?’ Then I’ll do the Rob voice, (more aggressively) ‘In thunder, lightning, or in rain?'”
“Then you get, (singing in clean, high-pitched voice) ‘When the hurlyburly’s done?’ Then the chorus is all three of us, ‘A tyranny of souls.’ Anyway, that never happened. So I said, ‘Well, screw it. I’ll just do all the bits myself and make it more like my style of singing,'” Bruce Dickinson said.
Queensrÿche is still active and recording but had several line-up changes over the years. The only two remaining original members are Michael Wilton (Guitar) and Eddie Jackson (Bass). Nowadays they also have Mike Stone (Guitar), Todd La Torre (Vocals) and Casey Grillo (Drums).
The vocalist Geoff Tate was fired from the band in 2012 by Jackson and Wilton. After a lawsuit, they reached a settlement where Tate sold his share of the rights of the name Queensrÿche to them.
The agreement also said Tate would be the only one allowed to perform two albums entirely. They were: “Operation: Mindcrime” 1 and 2.
