In a brand new interview with KNAC.com, QUEENSRŸCHE bassist Eddie Jackson spoke about the band’s two-year legal battle with the group’s former singer, Geoff Tate, over the rights to the QUEENSRŸCHE name.
“I don’t know if I ‘wish’ [things had been done differently], you know?” he said. “It happened. It wasn’t something that you would expect but we just had to power through it. We persevered and you can’t look at the past, you know that you’ve got many years ahead of you to continue to do what you enjoy doing.
“We just wish Geoff the best,” he continued, “He was a major part of this band for quite a few years. We wish him the best. I can’t sit back and reflect on ‘what if this’ or ‘what if that’, you know? It happened and a decision was made.”
Eddie was also asked if QUEENSRŸCHE have made the singer change sooner had they known back when they started to become unhappy in the band situation that they would continue to enjoy success without Geoff fronting the band. He responded: “Oh, boy. I don’t know. That’s a great question. You’re always thinking that things could change, hope, you know? It just got to a certain situation where, like I said before, a decision had to be made.”
He added: “I hate answering questions like this, but listen, the decision was made. Whether it should have been made several years before or several years after, it was made, and that was the time for it to be made. And the rest is history.”
QUEENSRŸCHE hired Todd La Torre to replace Tate in 2012 and has released two albums with the ex-CRIMSON GLORY frontman: 2013’s “Queensrÿche” and 2015’s “Condition Hüman”.
QUEENSRŸCHE guitarist Michael Wilton recently told The Glendale Star that the band is stronger than ever after parting ways with Tate and replacing him with La Torre.
“We went through a lot of drama over the past few years and we have been focused on rebuilding this band,” Wilton said. “We are the original members and it was important for us to gain control of the name of the band. It was a chance meeting with [La Torre] that brought this together and it is working out great.”
He added: “For the past ten years, this band has been more of a dictatorship. Now, with the influence of [La Torre], we have great chemistry and we are now a complete democracy, not a dictatorship.”
Source: Blabbermouth
