德国女皇

Queensrÿche () is an American progressive metal band. It formed in 1980 in Bellevue, Washington, and first went by Cross+Fire and then by the Mob before settling on its current name in 1982. The band has released 16 studio albums, one EP, and several DVDs, and continues to tour and record. The original lineup consisted of guitarists Michael Wilton and Chris DeGarmo, drummer Scott Rockenfield and bassist Eddie Jackson. Lead vocalist Geoff Tate was recruited in 1982 to round out the band.

Queensrÿche has sold more than 20 million albums worldwide, including more than six million in the United States. A leader of the progressive metal scene of the mid-to-late 1980s, the band is often referred to as one of the genre's "Big Three", along with Dream Theater and Fates Warning. The band has received three Grammy Award nominations for songs from the albums. In 1998, drummer Rockenfield received an individual Grammy nomination. In 2016, the staff of Loudwire named them the 28th-best metal band of all time.

Queensrÿche self-released its eponymous EP in 1982, and it earned them a following outside of their home state of Washington, as well as a record deal with EMI Records, who reissued the EP the following year. Queensrÿche's popularity grew through the 1980s with their first three studio albums, The Warning (1984), Rage for Order (1986) and Operation: Mindcrime (1988), the last of which is widely considered among the greatest heavy metal concept albums. Their fourth album, Empire (1990), was also very successful and included one of the band's biggest hits "Silent Lucidity". That album, along with Operation: Mindcrime, cemented Queensrÿche's status as one of the most successful American heavy metal bands. After some turmoil between its band members in the 1990s, DeGarmo left the band in 1998 for personal reasons, returning briefly to write and record their eighth studio album Tribe (2003). Over the years, his replacements have been Kelly Gray, Mike Stone, and Parker Lundgren.

Tate was fired from the band after a highly publicized backstage altercation before a show in São Paulo, Brazil, in April 2012. He was replaced with then–Crimson Glory singer Todd La Torre. Tate and his wife Susan (who served as the band's manager from 2005 to 2012) filed a lawsuit in a Washington court, claiming that he was wrongfully terminated. The ruling in the preliminary injunction was that both parties were allowed to use the name Queensrÿche until a court ruling or a settlement decided who would get to use the name. A settlement was reached on April 17, 2014, in which founding members Wilton, Rockenfield and Jackson received the rights to the band trademark. They have continued to perform, adding lead vocalist La Torre and guitarist Lundgren to the lineup.

During the time both parties could use the name Queensrÿche, Tate created his own lineup featuring former rhythm guitarist Gray and musicians from bands including Blue Öyster Cult, Ozzy Osbourne, Whitesnake, Dio, AC/DC and Quiet Riot. This version of Queensrÿche with Tate released the album Frequency Unknown on April 23, 2013, while Queensrÿche (with La Torre replacing Tate) released their eponymous album two months later. Both bands toured in 2013 and 2014, after which Tate changed the name of his version of Queensrÿche to Operation: Mindcrime. The La Torre-fronted Queensrÿche has since recorded three more albums with him: Condition Hüman (2015), The Verdict (2019) and their newest release Digital Noise Alliance (2022).

History

1980–1983: From the Mob to Queensrÿche

The foundations for Queensrÿche began in the late 1970s, when guitarist Michael Wilton started the band Joker with friends in 1978, and they were joined by guitarist Chris DeGarmo in 1979. In 1980, Wilton met drummer Scott Rockenfield at Easy Street Records in Seattle, and they formed the band Cross+Fire together on July 18 that year. They covered songs from popular heavy metal bands such as Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, and practiced in the garage of Rockenfield's parents which they called "The Dungeon" and fitted with egg cartons as acoustic cladding. Before long, DeGarmo and bassist Eddie Jackson joined Cross+Fire, and the band name was changed to the Mob, after the Black Sabbath song "The Mob Rules". In need of a singer for a one-off performance at a local rock festival, they recruited Babylon frontman Geoff Tate. After Babylon broke up, Tate performed a few shows with the Mob, but left because he was not interested in performing heavy metal covers.