Geoff Tate

Geoff Tate (born Jeffrey Wayne Tate, January 14, 1959; he later changed his first name to Geoffery or Geoffrey) is an American singer and songwriter. He rose to fame with the progressive metal band Queensrÿche, who had commercial success with their 1988 album Operation: Mindcrime and 1990 album Empire. Tate is ranked fourteenth on Hit Parader's list of the 100 Greatest Metal Vocalists of All Time. He was voted No. 2 on That Metal Show's top 5 hard rock vocalists of the 1980s. In 2012, he won the Vegas Rocks! Magazine Music Award for "Voice in Progressive Heavy Metal". In 2015, he placed ninth on OC Weekly's list of the 10 Best High-Pitched Metal Singers. After his farewell tour as Queensrÿche, he renamed his band Operation: Mindcrime, after the Queensrÿche album of the same name.

Tate was born in Stuttgart, which was then part of West Germany, to American parents. His mother's side of the family is from New Orleans. Shortly after his birth, his family relocated to Tacoma, Washington. Tate had an interest in music from an early age. He was especially interested in symphonic works. Tate wanted to be a football player until a knee injury put an end to his dream. He enrolled in Tacoma Community College after graduating High School in 1977. He dropped out after a year.

Queensryche (1982 - 2012)

Frequency Unknown and Operation: Mindcrime (2013 - 2017)

Solo Work (1985 - present)  In 1985, Tate participated in the famine relief collaboration Hear 'n Aid. In 2002, Tate released an eponymous solo album on Sanctuary Records. Around this time, he had shaven his long hair, in solidarity with a close family member who was battling cancer until her death. On November 6, 2012, Tate released his second solo record on InsideOut Music, entitled Kings and Thieves.

Other Activities: Tate stars as the narrator and killer in the found footage horror movie The Burningmoore Incident. It was released direct-to-video on March 4, 2013. Tate is scheduled to score the music to the in-production crime movie Fallen Moon.

Tate is a wine enthusiast. He started making wine at age 14, explaining: "I was a boy scout, and you could get a merit badge if you created a beverage or a food product and I made dandelion wine, which wasn't very good but definitely sparked my interest and got me started on that passion." The passion for wine further developed when Tate was in Queensrÿche: "I have been collecting wine seriously since the band first got signed back in 1983, and we were touring the world. I'd make special arrangements to leave at certain point of the tour and take off and head into the wine regions. I started to become even more interested in how it was made and how grapes were grown, and which grapes grew best where and that type of thing." Tate has given several interviews to the magazine Wine Spectator. In 2010, Geoff and Susan Tate launched their own brand of wine, "Insania."

Subject ID: 126483