Breaking the Silence

"When I write, I go for the monster riff," says Queensrche's Michael Wilton. About five seconds into "Open," thousands of Queensrche fans will know he isn't kidding. Wilton's guitar melts away the years on the opening track of Tribe (Sanctuary), the Eastside-based band's new release. "Geoff [Tate] puts on the awesome hooky chorus, you get the rhythm section behind it, and boomit's a Queensrche song."

Just don't go expecting a reprise of Empire, the band's 3-million-selling 1990 disc, whose hit single, "Silent Lucidity," briefly put the band at the top of the pop heap. Instead, Tribe finds Queensrche playing to their strengthscomplex, idea-filled, heavily conceptual art-rock with a metallic wallopand to their core audience. This is a band that has always kept moving forward in its musical evolution and which prides itself on doing things its own wayeven when that's meant doing things the hard way. And even in the face of a rotating guitar chair. The core band is Wilton, singer Tate, drummer Scott Rockenfield, and bassist Eddie Jackson. Chris DeGarmo left the group in 1997, came back for the new disc, and left again before their current tour, which hits the Paramount Theatre this Saturday.

WHEN QUEENSRCHE formed in 1982, every heavy-metal dude with a Les Paul and a Marshall stack to his name was seeking to build a band around the perfect singera tall, good-looking guy with incredible vocal range and power to spare. Somebody like Geoff Tate.

The young members of Queensrchethen a cover band known as the Mobhad caught Tate's performances on the Eastside battle-of-the-bands circuit and began pursuing him. But Tate wanted a recording contract, and he spurned the Mob for a band with original songs. A couple of weeks later, DeGarmo and Rockenfield showed up on Tate's doorstep with a tape of three new songs the band had written.

Call it beginners' luck, but the group's first songwriting efforts were good enough to lure Tate into the studio to record what would become the four-song Queensrche EP (their new band name was taken from a track titled "Queen of the Reich"). The resulting demo got the attention of Kim and Diana Harris, who would become the band's managers.

The Harris battle plan was an unusual one: Let the tapes do the talking. Queensrche boycotted battles of the bands and off-night bar gigs in favor of releasing their own independent EP in 1982. Good buzz in metal circles and rave reviews from the U.S. and European metal press combined to move 60,000 copiesastronomical numbers at the time for an independent release. Getting big in Europe also made them legends in their hometown without playing a note. The band soon inked a deal with EMI.

The resulting album, The Warning (1984), was a feast of Maiden/Priest-style metal with hints of the band's progressive leanings. In 1986, Rage for Order featured more personal lyrics and a new glammed-out visual image. Soon, the band was playing opening sets for major touring acts such as Bon Jovi and Metallica. This was no time for a risky movebut you can't tell that to Tate. The singer decided to push Queensrche to the next level by releasingdrumroll, pleasea concept album.

Once an idea works, it's hard to find anyone who will admit to having been a doubter. But that isn't a problem here, says Tate, because everybody had misgivings about the projectincluding his fellow band members. "Nobody was very enthusiastic about it at firstI really had to sell it to them," recalls Tate. "But once I had Chris on board, things really started happening quickly."

Operation: Mindcrime (1988) is now recognized as one of the classics of its genre. There's a lot of credit to hand out: Peter Collins' meaty production provides a larger-than-life stage for the group's heavily theatrical performance. The interludes between sections are well thought-out. The musicianship is first-rate. The varied group of songs keeps the listener on an emotional roller coaster for a full hour. Seattle singer Pamela Moore, whose greatest success to that point was her stirring performance of the Guitars, Etc. radio jingle, contributes a career- making guest appearance. And Tate sings the hell out of all the songs.

It's also a cool story, rendered with disarming simplicity (the teenage-runaway-turned-nun is named Mary; the evil villain is Dr. X) and reminiscent of then- ascendant hard-boiled graphic novels like Frank Miller and Bill Sinkiewicz's Elektra: Assassin. Operation: Mindcrime concerns a drug-addict-turned-political-assassin. It's straightforward in places, shadowy in othersleaving questions that just might be answered with one more listen. "Even today, you still get these fans reaching for these things that they want to know about Mindcrime," says Jackson. "These kids are so a part of this record. It's amazing how it's connected to so many people."