Last week I was talking on the air about Geoff Tate being ousted from Queensryche by the rest of the guys. They had formed a side band called Rising West with Todd La Torre from Crimson Glory and had done some shows. There were a lot of rumors flying around that Geoff was going to be out, and that he'd pulled a knife on Scott Rockenfield! What the heck is going on with Queensryche?

Apparently, the rest of the band began firing off Geoff's family members, who had assumed jobs with the band's organization (manager, office assistant and guitar tech) and Geoff began to hear rumors that he was out. Right before a show in Sao Paolo, they had a meeting where he asked them what was going on and they gave him no answer. But right before they walked on stage, Rockenfield (allegedly) smirked at Geoff and said, "We just fired your whole family, and you're next." That's when Geoffie tried to hit him and knocked over Michael Wilton. No knife was involved, since "you can't get knives into foreign countries".

When asked about the other guys' comment that the split was over "musical differences", Geoff wasn't particularly flattering in his response:

But to have creative differences, you have to have two entities or more offering up creative ideas. And that just wasn't the case. QUEENSRŸCHE has always been my idea, starting from the first record.

Via Rolling Stone

Don't worry, in case you were wondering if that was is for drama, it's not. There's definitely a lawsuit in progress right now over the whole ownership of the name, and all that sort of thing. It wouldn't be rock and roll without a lawsuit, right?

[I was fired] by a legal letter from their attorney to mine. . . We're in a lawsuit right now and it's probably gonna get ugly. I filed a claim a couple of days ago. So it's all going to the legal system now to sort out who is what, and who owns what, and that stuff. . .

Via Rolling Stone

They came out and rocked Streetfest last year, and I hope you went, since this looks like the last time we'll see the band together with Geoff for quite a while.

Thinking about it, this kind of calls into question everything Geoff said about "Dedicated to Chaos", which wasn't particularly adored by...well, anyone...or that Cabaret tour thing they did. He said it was a mutual decision, and wasn't necessarily his decision. But if the other guys let him direct everything, then those missteps WERE his fault, weren't they?

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