Former QUEENSRŸCHE singer Geoff Tate recently recorded a brand new song in support of charity. All proceeds from the track, which is titled "The Way The Wind Blows", will benefit MercyWatch, a nonprofit focused on outreach to the homeless community in Snohomish County, located in the U.S. state of Washington, where Tate lives with his family. During a brand new interview with Totally Driven Radio, Tate called MercyWatch an "incredible project" which enables "doctors and health-care professionals and counselors [to] actually go out and do street work and find homeless people and counsel with them and try to help them become part of the capitalistic system." Pointing out that "a lot of people choose that life" while many others don't, Tate said that "what I've found, dealing with MercyWatch, is that it seems to be about 50-50 — mental illness and addiction are the two problems, specifically, with people. They just get to a point where they can't function and they have to do something, and the only thing they can do is hit the street. It's a sad epidemic, and I use the word 'epidemic' on purpose, 'cause it's something that everyone in the country is experiencing, not just the people that are experiencing homelessness, but everybody else too, having to see [the homeless people] and deal with them and the feelings you have. 'What do I do? Do I give them change or is that adding to the problem?' And the constant daily struggle that we all face. And, 'Is that going to be me soon out there with them? Am I gonna end up in a tent somewhere, because I can't pay for the health care that I need?' Because, again, we live in this capitalistic society [where] people have gotta win and make money no matter what, and you can't win if you're giving away money to social welfare." According to Geoff, he was inspired to get involved after meeting and becoming friends with Dennis Kelly, who is "in charge of, and put together, MercyWatch. Talking about the issue and the problem and the challenges, I just found it to be a situation that needed to have something done," the singer said. "I live in a city, and I am faced with homelessness every day — massive homeless population in the city I live in. And it's just something that got to me," he added. After recently playing a concert that raised money for MercyWatch, Tate decided to donate a song to the organization. "It's close to being finished," he revealed. Tate said that the inspiration for "The Way The Wind Blows" came out of his "experience with observing and first-hand being affected by the homeless population" in his town. Which is not the first time I've done something like that," he noted. "I wrote a song years ago on [QUEENSRŸCHE's] 'Empire' album about a homeless woman that I knew who lived in the doorway of the builing next to me. Her name was Della Brown, and I wrote a song about her situation and my observation of her situation." The release of Tate's new song will come just weeks after the arrival of "A New Reality", the third and final of a concept album trilogy from his OPERATION: MINDCRIME project. Tate will spend at least part of 2018 touring in celebration of the 30th anniversary of his former band's "Operation: Mindcrime" album.
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