CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE ADDER, Iraq— Service members were treated to the music of the progressive, heavy-metal rock band Queensrÿche at a concert, Oct. 4, near Memorial Hall at Contingency Operating Base Adder, Iraq.
The event gave service members a chance to have fun, enjoy themselves and take a break from their daily activities.
“The concert was great,” said Maj. Armando Corral, contracting officer with the 224th Sustainment Brigade, 103rd Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), and a Whittier, Calif., native. “I had seen them 26 years ago. They sounded just as good as back then. I thought it was important that he [Geoff Tate, band member] talked about the significance of the album and the personal meaning for soldiers and airmen behind the songs they played. ”
Corral compared the importance of Queensrÿche playing at COB Adder as opposed to other bands.
“It was more significant because I grew up listening to this band and already had a history with them,” said Corral. “I think it was outstanding that they performed for an hour and 45 minutes, which meant that they enjoyed the crowd here at COB Adder.”
Queensrÿche features Geoff Tate on lead vocals and saxophone, Michael Wilton on lead and rhythm guitar and backing vocals, Parker Lundgren on lead and rhythm guitar and backing vocals, Eddie Jackson on bass guitar, and Scott Rockenfield on drums and percussion. All band members are from Seattle.
Tate explained what inspired the band to perform for service members in Iraq.
“We’d been trying to get here for three years with all sorts of problems and obstacles and cancellations,” said Tate. “In fact, we weren’t even expecting to come here this year. We were working on a new record. Jeff Thornton [a music promoter] from Lone Wolf [Entertainment] called us out of the blue and said, ‘I’m taking many bands and artists into Iraq. Would you guys be interested in going?’ And we said, ‘Absolutely. Just tell us where and when and we’ll be there.’ He put the whole thing together in a month. I think it’s important to support the troops whenever you can.
“We play a lot of military bases in the States and Europe. We want soldiers who are serving overseas to know that people at home care about them and what they’re doing, to give them a break from the monotony of their day, to put a smile on their face, maybe make them think about the first time they heard one of our songs way back in the day. It’s a little bit of home that we like to offer.”
Tate described how he first became interested in writing an album about American soldiers.
“My dad was career military,” said Tate. “He served in Korea and Vietnam. I’d always asked him about his experiences in war all through my years growing up, and he never really talked about it. So there were these unanswered questions in my mind growing up. Right around 2006, I was visiting him in Pomona [Calif.], where he lives now. We were sitting on the back porch drinking some iced tea and we kind of started talking about Korea in the mid-50s, and I stopped him and I said, ‘Dad, I’ve been waiting all my life and I’d really like to videotape this.’ And he said, ‘Oh, yeah grab your video recorder.’ So we sat out there for a few hours that day and he told me about all his experiences in Korea and Vietnam. So I taped the whole thing.”
Tate described how he collected interviews from soldiers for Queensrÿche’s album, “American Soldiers” (2009).
“A couple of weeks later I was home and I was playing the tape back for my kids,” Tate added. “My wife was the one that suggested it. She said, ‘You should write a song about your dad. It would be really interesting.’ My wife was in the Army, the military police, so she sort of had an affinity for the Armed Forces as well. The more I thought about it I thought, ‘What an interesting song it would be.’ Well, it turned out to be an entire album. Having listened to my dad’s stories and talking with my brother-in-law who also served in Vietnam, I got kind of curious about what it would be like to talk to soldiers from other conflicts. Would there be any similarities in their stories?”
After that, Tate said he started talking to other people he knew, which led to more stories from more soldiers. He started videotaping the soldiers’ stories so that the band could compile them into a record.
Tate described how Queensrÿche composed the album.
“We started composing music to the actual story we were told,” said Tate. “It ended up being an album of collected stories from soldiers. It looks at war through the soldier’s eyes, rather than a Hollywood version, which tends to glamorize things and make things not so real. We wanted to stay away from any kind of political angle with the album. So we wanted to tell the story from the soldiers’ perspective. None of us had ever served, so we couldn’t really say anything about it. We’d be speculating from a platform of complete ignorance. So we figured the best way would be to let the soldiers do the talking, so that’s what we did.”
Queesrÿche’s next studio album is tentatively scheduled to be released in Spring 2011.
| Date Taken: | 10.04.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 10.18.2010 11:17 |
| Story ID: | 58320 |
| Location: | CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE ADDER, IQ |
| Web Views: | 56 |
| Downloads: | 3 |
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