Geoff Tate

Geoff Tate
Geoff Tate in Germany, Tribe Tour 2004.
Background information
Birth name	Jeffrey Wayne Tate
Born	(1959-01-14) January 14, 1959 (age 58) Stuttgart, West Germany
Genres	Heavy metal, progressive metal, hard rock
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, keyboards, saxophone
Years active	1981–present
Associated acts	Queensrÿche, Hear 'n Aid, Operation: Mindcrime
Website	Official website

Geoff Tate (born Jeffrey Wayne Tate, January 14, 1959; he later changed his first name to Geoffery or Geoffrey) is a German-born American singer and musician. He rose to fame with the progressive metal band Queensrÿche, who had commercial success with their 1988 album Operation: Mindcrime and 1990 album Empire. Tate is ranked fourteenth on Hit Parader's list of the 100 Greatest Metal Vocalists of All Time. He was voted No. 2 on That Metal Show's top 5 hard rock vocalists of the 1980s. In 2012, he won the Vegas Rocks! Magazine Music Award for "Voice in Progressive Heavy Metal". In 2015, he placed ninth on OC Weekly's list of the 10 Best High-Pitched Metal Singers. After his farewell tour as Queensrÿche, he renamed his band Operation: Mindcrime, after the Queensrÿche album of the same name.

Tate was born in Stuttgart, which was then part of West Germany, to German American parents. His mother's side of the family is from New Orleans. Shortly after his birth, his family relocated to Tacoma, Washington.

While Tate was in the band Babylon, he was asked to sing with the cover band The Mob (who would later start writing original material and become Queensrÿche) at a local rock festival. After Babylon broke up, Tate performed a few shows with The Mob, but left because he was not interested in performing heavy metal cover songs. Tate then joined the progressive metal band Myth as lead vocalist and keyboardist. Other band members of Myth included Kelly Gray, who was later one of the replacements for Queensrÿche guitarist Chris DeGarmo, and Randy Gane, both of whom joined Tate's version of Queensrÿche in 2012.