Todd La Torre Doubts Classic Queensryche Reunion – ‘What’s the Point?’

Todd La Torre joined Queensryche as the replacement for Geoff Tate in 2012 and after nearly a decade in the band, he has cast doubt on the likelihood the band will ever reunite with their classic members, wondering aloud, “What’s the point?”

The group’s acrimonious split with Tate was well-documented and Queensryche have since released three full length albums with La Torre up front, the last of which, 2019’s The Verdict, also featured the singer pulling double duty as the studio drummer.

La Torre, who dropped his debut solo album, Rejoice in the Suffering, earlier this year, was a recent guest on the “Platrocast With Darren Paltrowitz” podcast and discussed how well he’s been embraced by the Queensryche fanbase as Tate’s successor.

“It’s funny. I always hear, ‘There’ll definitely be an all-original lineup reunion. Every band does it.’ And I’m thinking, if you knew what I know, I don’t think that’s gonna happen,” commented La Torre (transcribed by Blabbermouth) on the reunion notion.

He continued, “And other than the optics of it, why? What’s the point? We saw for 15 years what it sounded like. And I think when I came in, I said, ‘Hey, let’s play in standard tuning. I have homework to do. If I’m struggling, let me work on coming up to you instead of you coming down to me.'”

It was also acknowledged that if La Torre is unable to sing in the original tuning the songs were written in, Queensryche will downtune and he “will do it gracefully, but I’m not going to bullshit my way about it” if he can’t sing as high as the song demands anymore. “I’m not gonna make some B.S. reason why we do it,” he reiterated.

Appreciative of the reception he has received since joining the band, La Torre noted that not all bands can successfully replace an iconic singer and likened it to “catching lightning in a bottle” and that even if the replacement is a great singer, there needs to be an “X factor” in order for it to work out in the long term.

“I feel fortunate that I think the majority of people, if they put their biases aside, go, ‘You know, this sounds pretty legit,’ and they feel like they have their band back,” said the Queensryche frontman, who also expressed joy that he was not just a replacement for one album. La Torre also confirmed a fourth album with him as the band’s singer was in the works and that the band is under contract for two additional albums in all, bringing his era to five records before that contract expires.

La Torre also took note that eventually he will have been in the band longer than original guitarist Chris DeGarmo, who co-founded the group in 1982 and left in 1997, rejoining in 2003 before exiting again that same year. Seemingly on the idea of still being ‘the new guy,’ he rhetorically asked, “I’m not the original guy, but after nine years, 10 years, 15 years, or the guy’s been in [the band] almost 20 years, am I in the fucking band?”

Todd La Torre With Darren Paltrowitz