Queensryche Tried To Get Rid Of Tate For A Year
Geoff Tate has claimed that Queensryche bandmates tried to get rid of him for at least a year.
Singer Geoff Tate wants a judge to deny his former bandmates’ request to keep him from using the Queensryche name until their dispute is resolved.
Tate, who was fired from Queensryche in June after fronting the group for three decades, recently sought to prevent his former bandmates from touring and operating under the Queensryche name without him. While ruling against Tate, the presiding judge determined that there was no legal hurdle in Tate also using the name with an all-new lineup of musicians. “I don’t see any reason that Mr. Tate can’t have the benefit, if he gets other members, of whatever name he uses of using the brand,” Superior Court Judge Carol A. Schapira said during the July 13 court hearing. “I think [doing that would be] inherently confusing, although I’m sure the market can get these things sorted out,” she added.
On September 2, Tate announced that he was launching his own version of Queensryche with Ratt drummer Bobby Blotzer, former Quiet Riot, Ozzy Osbourne and Whitesnake bassist Rudy Sarzo and former Megadeth and King Diamond guitarist Glen Drover.
In a motion for partial summary judgment filed September 21 in Washington state’s King County Superior Court, guitarist Michael Wilton, drummer Scott Rockenfield and bassist Eddie Jackson asked that the court declare that Tate “has no right to the Queensryche band name, marks and media assets since he has no grant of authority from the Tri-Ryche Corporation [which controls all Queensryche name and trademark rights] that owns them, unless and until he is able to succeed on his claims to dissolve the Queensryche corporations, and to enter a permanent injunction to the same.”
In a response in opposition to defendants’ motion for partial summary judgment filed October 8 (see document below; courtesy of The Breakdown Room), Tate and his wife, Susan, Queensryche’s former manager, wrote: “Defendants have failed to submit any admissible evidence establishing a sense of urgency or impending harm warranting summary judgment at this time, which would only be proper as a motion for an injunction, not a motion for summary judgment.”