QUEENSRŸCHE guitarist Michael Wilton says that the addition of singer Todd La Torre to the band's lineup more than four years ago was "a shot of adrenaline" that "was needed in a stale situation." La Torre joined QUEENSRŸCHE as the replacement for the band's original lead singer Geoff Tate, who was fired in 2012. A two-year legal battle followed where Tate sued for the QUEENSRŸCHE name, only for his former bandmates Wilton, Scott Rockenfield and Eddie Jackson to respond with a countersuit. They eventually settled the dispute, with Wilton, Rockenfield and Jackson continuing as QUEENSRŸCHE, and Tate now having the sole right to perform the albums "Operation: Mindcrime" and "Operation: Mindcrime II" in their entirety live. Wilton tells the Charleston City Paper that the two albums that QUEENSRŸCHE has released thus far with the ex-CRIMSON GLORY frontman — 2013's "Queensrÿche" and 2015's "Condition Hüman" — represent "a hundred percent totally and completely a rebirth of QUEENSRŸCHE. And Todd's energy and his songwriting ability are a shot in the arm," he said. "He's a shot of adrenaline for the band; it's something that was needed in a stale situation." Wilton also stressed the importance of bandmates getting along offstage and how it plays into a successful career. "That's the other 50 percent of the game," he said. "People see you onstage having a fun time, but behind the scenes, everything has to be cohesive, the chemistry's got to be right. The bonding's got to be right, you have to be a brotherhood as well as shrewd businessmen and entertainers." Tate recently described his time in QUEENSRŸCHE as "a strange, strange sort of relationship." He told The Metal Gods Meltdown: "We weren't really friends, you know — we were business associates. We had a wonderful entity that we shared called QUEENSRŸCHE, but it wasn't an equal sort of partnership as far as involvement goes. You know, so there wasn't a real camaraderie amongst everybody in the band… From my perspective and my involvement, it wasn't an emotional sort of brotherhood kind of thing that some people might think existed. That wasn't my reality with them." QUEENSRŸCHE will enter the studio in January 2017 to begin work on the follow-up to "Condition Hüman", to be released via Century Media.
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