Breaking up is hard to do.
Just ask Queensrÿche founding guitarist Michael Wilton.
It took the Seattle hard rock band three years to find its groove after Wilton and fellow founding members Scott Rockenfield, the band’s drummer, and bassist Eddie Jackson decided to fire frontman Geoff Tate in spring 2012.
What followed was two years of legal arm-wrestling over who had the rights to the band’s name. Meanwhile, fans were rubbing their heads in confusion as Tate toured with his version of the band — including a “farewell” tour show at Rialto Theatre in 2014 — and Wilton, Rockenfield and Jackson, with new lead vocalist Todd La Torre, were recording and touring with their version.
In the end, Wilton’s side won and Tate renamed his band Operation: Mindcrime, taking the name of Queensrÿche’s 1998 album.
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Wilton brings the official Queensrÿche back to the Rialto on Sunday, Jan. 10, for its first Tucson headlining show in several years.
The Rialto is stop No. 4 on Queensrÿche’s five-week winter tour that kicks off Thursday, Jan. 7, in California. The band, which is hosting opening acts Meytal Cohen and Halcyon Way, comes here with its months-old album “Condition Human” — the second CD recorded with La Torre.
“The chemistry is there, and we are a band together,” Wilton said of La Torre. “It’s a democracy now, it’s not a dictatorship. … (La Torre) represents the songs amazingly and has his own personality, but treats the songs with the utmost respect. They are played the exact way they were released.”
“Condition Human” has shades of early Queensrÿche, with the same hard-rock edge of vintage songs like “Jet City Woman.”
“It has the edge and it has the early Queensrÿche because you have the three founding members,” Wilton explained. “So that’s obviously in our DNA … and the music just translates that.
“It really brings to the forefront all of our past and inspiration and music-writing as a band.”
But the album, released last September, takes the band one step beyond its 2013 eponymous release — the first CD featuring La Torre at the mic.
“It was time to evolve from the 2013 release, and we really thought, ‘Let’s do something that is really going to up the ante of the band and bring us back into the days when we were touring so much in the ‘80s and ‘90s,’” Wilton said.
The band’s shows also have evolved as La Torre and the rest of the members have settled into a comfortable rhythm.
“We’re going to cover a lot of the songs that you know and love, as well as a few of the songs from the last album (2013’s ‘Queensrÿche’), as well as from ‘Condition Human,’” Wilton said, ticking off vintage songs including “Child of Fire,” “Eyes of a Stranger,” “Silent Lucidity” and “Take Hold of the Flame.”
“It’s going to be real fun,” he said. “The band has rekindled the fire, and has awakened a lot of sleeping Queensrÿche fans that have missed us … .
“We have a following and where we fit in the world is great.“
