“Lamont & Tonelli” of San Francisco radio station 107.7 The Bone recently conducted an interview with QUEENSRŸCHE vocalist Todd La Torre. You can listen to the full chat below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):
On his musical influences:
Todd: “I grew up in the ’70s and ’80s, so STEELY DAN, FLEETWOOD MAC, HEART… The ’70s singer/songwriter era was one of my favorites, Tom Petty, that kind of stuff… Then in my early teens is when I started to get into more hard rock, so I was listening to DOKKEN, RATT and TESLA… Then I got into the heavier stuff, like SLAYER and PANTERA and whatnot. But IRON MAIDEN, QUEENSRŸCHE, DIO, STRYPER, those were kind of my favorite bands. I started playing drums at 13, so once I heard that kind of operatic power metal vocal styling, I knew that that was kind of the path musically that I felt so attracted to.”
On what songs he remembers covering in his first bands:
Todd: “We used to play ‘Don’t Talk To Strangers’ from DIO. That was always a fun one. Back in the day, XYZ had a big hit on the radio, so we used to play that. Some VAN HALEN… It’s hard to say what the best cover was, because there was kind of a nice variety, but during the mid-to-late ’80s, we were playing just a lot of the big, popular, some of the obscure stuff… in fact, we did play ‘I Don’t Believe In Love’ and ‘Eyes Of A Stranger’ from QUEENSRŸCHE when I was, like, 15 years old. I was drumming back then, so I wasn’t even singing. I never sang in a band until I joined CRIMSON GLORY until 2010 or 2011.”
QUEENSRŸCHE has released two albums thus far with La Torre on vocals: 2013’s “Queensrÿche” and 2015’s “Condition Hüman”.
The band is scheduled to enter the studio in September to begin recording its next disc for an early 2018 release.
QUEENSRŸCHE Vocalist TODD LA TORRE Recalls Covering ‘Operation: Mindcrime’ Classics As Teenage Drummer
QUEENSRŸCHE Vocalist TODD LA TORRE Recalls Covering ‘Operation: Mindcrime’ Classics As Teenage Drummer
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