30 years of Operation: Mindcrime – Geoff Tate has been celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the iconic record this summer by taking it to the road and performing the album live from start to finish. When he and his current band lineup made a stop at the Revolution in NY, I sat down with him for an interview on the latest in the world of Geoff Tate, where we discussed the anniversary celebration, Geoff’s recent activities with bands like Avantasia and Angra, his daughter Emily’s involvement in music and the current tour, the Insania Wines brand, and more. 

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So just to get started off, the focus of the night would definitely be 30 years of Operation: Mindcrime. It’s not the first time you’ve performed the album start to finish live, you did it for the 25th Anniversary as well, but how does it feel for you to say “30 years of Operation: Mindcrime” and still be celebrating this iconic and well-loved work of yours?

It really is an album that I’ve appreciated more and more the more I’ve performed it. I really wasn’t planning on doing a 30-year anniversary, but I got so many requests from different promoters around the world, and they said, you know, “Let’s do it!”, so I thought, “Well, 30 years is a good time to do it because I don’t know if I’m going to be able to sing it when it’s the 40 year Anniversary”. I hope so, but I’ll be well into my seventies by then, and I’m thinking “Jeez, I don’t know”. It’s pretty strenuous music to do when you’re in your seventies, but we’ll see. Hopefully I’ll still be able to belt it out.

I think you’ll still be rocking it.

I hope so. But I thought, “Well, you know, I want to do it well one more time”. So this is the 30 year anniversary and it’s great, and I’ve got this great young band of very enthusiastic young musicians who are incredible players who grew up on the music, and it’s really a treat for them to play it. So that’s kind of infectious, that kind of excitement, I feel it from them, their enthusiasm, it affects me and makes me enthusiastic, you know? It’s like that chain reaction, so we’ve been having a good time. We’ve been on tour since January, and we started in Europe and now we’re in the States and so it’s been a unique experience, I’m really happy that I did it. Very happy with this group of people and really happy with the reaction from the fans, and all the memories that people have associated with the music. It’s wonderful to hear their stories every night at the meet and greets, and hear how the music has affected people. 

Definitely a lot of enthusiasm coming from the crowds. I know there’s a line wrapped around the venue right now, people just waiting to get in, so they’re definitely excited about this.

Phew! Good. *laughs*

*laughs* And, talking about the touring band, I believe one of your daughters is involved with the band as well?

Emily, my youngest daughter, is a singer, a fantastic singer. And she has a band called Til Death Do Us Part, and they have a new album out, and they’re touring with us, opening up. And we thought, wow, it’d be great, since Emily’s out here…so she’s singing the part of Sister Mary on stage with me, which is great. A fantastic experience for me and her, and the last time we did something together like this was the American Soldier tour, and she was like nine years old, something like that, and she sang with me on a song that we had recorded on the album, called “Home Again”. And now, years later, she’s grown up now, so it’s kind of a neat thing to see her progression, and it’s also kind of fun hearing the reaction from the fans who haven’t seen her or heard from her since the American Soldier tour, and here she is as a grown up woman now, you know? *laughs* They still think of her as being this little nine-year-old girl. 

*laughs* That’s definitely great, getting the family involved! Are any of your other daughters involved with music?

No, she’s the only one that really…it caught her, you know? I was kind of always hoping that some of them or one of them might have followed in their father’s footsteps, so to speak…I’m lucky to have one, you know. I’ve got five girls, so at least one of them following in the music, I’m happy about that. 

It had to catch on with at least one. I did want to talk to you about, well, we’ve spoken a couple of times before, over the phone, for interviews during the time of the album trilogy of Operation: Mindcrime…

Yeah.

…So, now that project is all complete, how is it for you now, kind of stepping back and looking back on the whole project?

Well, I’m really not one to look back. This 30 year anniversary of Operation: Mindcrime is as much of a look back as I go. *laughs* And that’s looking way back. I’m kind of a guy that is always looking at the next thing that I’m doing, so I’m happy to get the last of the trilogy albums finished, I’m glad that it’s out now and people can enjoy it and find all the mysteries that are associated with the story. I’m glad it’s out and done, it was a wonderful experience being part of that whole presentation…but a lot of work. Two years, three albums, that’s a lot of work to do. So now I need a break, so now I’m touring. *laughs*

Taking a break but still out on the road!

I’m relaxing now.

During the Operation: Mindcrime project, it was kind of a rotating lineup from stage to studio and back again, so is that still the plan moving forward now that the albums are complete?

Yeah, I like a rotating project of different people coming in and out, I like to work with a lot of people. Just before I started this tour, I was in Germany singing tracks for the new Avantasia album, I’ll be touring with them next year starting in March. I’m kind of going from one big project to another big project, you know, so it’s kind of fun. *laughs* But yeah, I like to keep changing it up. I’m working with another European band, called Bonfire, in the fall, I’m doing a special guest appearance with them. I’m doing some dates in Brazil with a band called Angra…yeah, I just kind of try a lot of different things, you know? Things that are interesting to me. 

That’s great, and yeah, I’m definitely familiar with Angra, how did that connection with them come about? 

I met them on my travels, and Felipe Andreoli is a guy that I really connected with, great bass player, and he introduced me to his band and that just kind of started our relationship, and since then, we’ve done a couple of different touring projects together. Felipe put together a wonderful band of fantastic Brazilian musicians to support me in Brazil for some shows I did there last year, where I met Bruno Sa, my keyboard player now, who came and started touring with me, so…it’s all kind of incestuous, I know. *laughs*

*laughs* Just all connected in some way.

We’re all connected by six degrees of madness, I think. 

There you go, the best kind of connection. I also wanted to ask you about your wine brand, the latest news with Insania Wines, you have some that just became available in the US, I believe. Can you tell me a little more about the wine brand, what got you started with that whole scene?

Yeah, well I’ve been making wine since 2007, and that’s my first vintage. And it’s a passion I’ve had, I love wine. I love all kinds of different wines, I love to travel, and I love to try wines from different places I go, and so I’ve had a lot of experience…drinking? That doesn’t sound right! *laughs* 

*laughs*

You know what I mean! 

Yeah, you know, a…specialist? In wine, however you want to say it. 

I like to think of myself as a connoisseur of wine, but…

Connoisseur, there it is.

But not really a connoisseur…you can appreciate wine from a number of different vendors and winemakers, and there’s some fantastic wine-growing regions around the world, and I try to travel through them and experience them, and decided to make my own. So now I make Insania, which is my brand, and we make a Pinot Noir, a red wine, and a Pinot Grigio, which is a white wine. And they’re grown at a wonderful vineyard in the Alsace region, which kind of straddles the border of Germany and France. And it’s a wonderful area, fantastic grapes, and a centuries old tradition of wine-making there. My wine maker Friedhelm Rinklin is a fourth generation wine maker, he’s fantastic. And his family has been farming this particular piece of land for four hundred years. Isn’t that something?

Wow, that’s definitely something.

It’s something. So, they kind of know what they’re doing. 

I would hope so, after four hundred years.

Yeah. And it’s all organic grapes, which I love, I’m a big supporter of the organic movement. So anyway, that’s a little bit about the wine, and now it’s available in the United States for the first time, we’ve had our first shipment coming to the United States in March, so now people can find it here. It’s easier to buy it online now, we ship it to you, and in some states we have distribution, you can find it in wine shops, Whole Foods, places like that. 

Very cool, good for you. And you were mentioning your Pinot Noir, Pinot Grigio…when it came to selecting the styles and types of wines, how did you go about making those choices?

Well, I love Pinot Noir. I love Pinor Noir that’s grown in France, I love it in Southern California…there’s some wonderful areas in the world where it grows. A certain strand of it grows well in Germany, too, and France. But I wanted it to be bigger and more full bodied than the German style normally is, so Friedhelm and I worked for six years to develop a great variety that would work really well in our area. So we did that and I’m very happy with it. It’s a big, bold Pinot Noir. A lot of times, Pinot Noir are kind of touchy and maybe more of a medium body wine, but this one’s big and bold and it has a lot of personality. It’s really great with food. So that’s kind of why I chose it, just because I like it. 

It’s a good reason. So now, getting back to the musical side of things, something else I wanted to ask you about, late last year you collaborated with the organization MercyWatch, had that charity auction and concert, so how did you get involved with that?

I met a very inspirational man named Dennis Kelly, he is a real powerhouse of a personality who believes in humanity and helping people. And he started this project that’s called MercyWatch, and they are just like on the ground, in the trenches, working with people who are experiencing homelessness and have drug addiction issues and mental illness. And he put together this fantastic group of doctors, and therapists, and counselors, and psychologists, professionals in the medical field who volunteer their time, their energies, and their money, to help people. And he asked me if I was interested in that kind of thing, I said I was, and he said, “I thought you were because of your music, I’ve read and listened to your music over the years, and I’ve seen some examples of your humanity in your music”. So anyway, we got into a conversation that led me to be interested in what he was doing, and since then, I’ve done two charity shows for him, and I’m just about to put out a song for sale that the proceeds go to MercyWatch too. Just haven’t finished it yet because I’m touring. *laughs*

Well, little hard to do that from right here in the bus, right? *laughs* But still, that’s great. It sounds like you’ve got a lot of great things going on. 

I do! I’ve got a lot of stuff going on, I was going to try to slow down a little bit, but it seems like when you try to slow down, you get more opportunities that come up. So I’m lucky that I get to pick and choose now, kind of, what I want to do, but…there’s just a lot of things I want to do! *laughs* 

Nothing wrong with that at all! But it looks like there’s mostly touring on the horizon…

Yeah, I love touring. I love traveling, I love touring, I love seeing old friends, and seeing what’s going on. It’s cool to go to places over and over again, because you’re not there every day, you come maybe once or twice in a year, and you notice the changes, I think. I love this area around here, Amityville and Long Island, I’ve got a lot of great memories from growing up in the rock and roll world, traveling through here playing clubs, and big places and meeting some real exciting people that have been part of my life in the industry all these years. It’s just wonderful looking back at all the memories, all the experiences, it’s countless. 

That’s awesome, and as a native Long Islander, I’m happy to hear that you like the area, and we like having you here as well. So to wrap things up here, why don’t you just give a little message to the fans who are just as excited as you are for the show tonight?

I want to say thanks for listening all these years, and I hope to keep making music. 

Thanks so much for sitting down and talking with me, this has been great. 

Thank you.