Progressive metal legends QUEENSR\u0178CHE will head back to Europe this summer, starting on June 6 in K\u00f6ln, Germany and ending on July 5 in Cartagena, Spain. Dates include a mix of headlining shows with RIVERS OF NIHIL opening, as well as festival appearances.<\/p>\n
Tour dates:<\/p>\n
With special guest RIVERS OF NIHIL:<\/p>\n
June 12 – Germany, K\u00f6ln – Essigfabrik
June 16 – Germany, Hamburg – Markthalle
June 17 – Germany, Frankfurt – Batschkapp
June 22 – UK, Manchester – Club Academy
June 23 – UK, London – Islington Assembly Hall
June 30 – Sweden, Lund – Mejeriet SE
July 01 – Germany, Hannover – Pavillon
July 02 – Germany, Lindau – Club Vaudeville<\/p>\n
Festival appearances:<\/p>\n
June 13 \u2013 Leeuwarden, Netherlands – Into The Grave
June 14 – Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic – Rock For People
June 19 – Clisson, France – Hellfest
June 20 – Dessel, Belgium – Graspop Metal Meeting
June 25 – Copenhagen, Denmark – Copenhell
June 26 – Oslo, Norway – Tons Of Rock
June 28 – Helsinki, Finland – Tuska
July 03 – Colombier-Saugnieu, France – Plane’R Fest
July 05 – Parque El Batel Cartagena, Spain – Rock Imperium Festival<\/p>\n
In a recent interview with the “Iron City Rocks” podcast, QUEENSR\u0178CHE guitarist Michael Wilton spoke about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band’s upcoming follow-up to 2022’s “Digital Noise Alliance” album. He said: “Yeah, we’ve started the writing process. We’ve got a good bunch of songs. And it’s doing this in pockets of time. All bands are touring, so you find a week where you can go record. And producers are [now becoming] used to this. Long gone are the days where a band has three months to record an album.”<\/p>\n
Asked if he and his QUEENSR\u0178CHE bandmates are once again working with Chris “Zeuss” Harris, who previously worked with the group on 2015’s “Condition H\u00fcman”, 2019’s “The Verdict” and “Digital Noise Alliance” LPs, Wilton said: “Oh, yeah. We’re already working with him. We built such a relationship, and when he hears my ideas and my riffs and everything, he knows, and I trust him with his decisions. And we just have a great relationship with Zeuss.”<\/p>\n
Last November, QUEENSR\u0178CHE bassist Eddie Jackson told J.J. Caithcart of Different Stages Radio<\/a> that he and his bandmates were “still in the writing process” for the upcoming LP. “We actually started it last January, beginning of this year, before we embarked on a month tour over in Europe,” he explained. “And then last summer we got together again. And we’re just continuing to write now that we have [fall 2025 North American] tour with ACCEPT. We won’t be able to get together as a band in one location. We will be on tour, but it’s not like a studio. But we still kind of bring our little recording devices with us to come up with more ideas.”<\/p>\n Jackson added: “We’re hoping to get in the studio sometime, maybe beginning of spring next year, and hopefully we’ll have a late fall release. And that would be nice.”<\/p>\n Eddie also talked about QUEENSR\u0178CHE’s relationship with Zeuss, saying: “Yeah, he’s just awesome. He’s great to work with and bounce ideas with. He’s a great guy, and he’s actually a good musician too; he plays guitar and all that. But if it’s still working, why not continue working with him?”<\/p>\n Last April, QUEENSR\u0178CHE singer Todd La Torre was asked by Brazil’s Monsters Of Rock<\/a> which “unexplored musical directions” he would like to see the band go in on its next LP. He said: “[We’re] kind of [doing] the same thing as what we’ve been doing. I mean, we don’t go in writing a record with a preconceived idea. We just get in a room and [go], ‘Hey, show me your guitar parts. What do you have in your mind?’ And we kind of all get together in a room and just see what happens in real time. So as far as unexplored musical directions\u2026 Personally, I’d love to hear more clean guitar on the next record, maybe some more spacious stuff, some more clean guitar. Orchestration is always fun to work with. It’s very huge and cinematic sounding. So those are fun things to play with. Maybe some different percussion things would be interesting to play around with again.<\/p>\n “But, gosh, after 40-plus years, I think without completely changing the band, the band’s style of music, I don’t know that there’s really any too much unexplored musical directions,” he continued. “I mean, QUEENSR\u0178CHE’s kind of done a lot within the large space that QUEENSR\u0178CHE has to run around in. I mean, if we were to do something \u2014 we wouldn’t write a hip-hop song, we wouldn’t write a death metal song. So within the confines of what QUEENSR\u0178CHE kind of is, as diverse as it as it is, I don’t know what kind of unexplored musical directions there would be. On the next one, I mean, I would love to, like I say, play around with some other clean guitar sounds, maybe some more interesting percussion things \u2014 like the song ‘I Am I’ had some really neat percussion things going on.”<\/p>\n Guitarist Mike Stone, who rejoined QUEENSR\u0178CHE in 2021, contributed guitar solos to the band’s latest studio album.<\/p>\n Since late May 2021, Stone has been handling second-guitar duties in QUEENSR\u0178CHE, which announced in July 2021 that longtime guitarist Parker Lundgren was exiting the group to focus on “other business ventures.”<\/p>\n Stone originally joined QUEENSR\u0178CHE for the 2003 album “Tribe” and stayed with the band for six years before leaving the group.<\/p>\n For the past nine years, drummer Casey Grillo has been filling in for original QUEENSR\u0178CHE drummer Scott Rockenfield, who stepped away from the band’s touring activities in early 2017 to spend time with his young son.<\/p>\n In October 2021, Rockenfield filed a lawsuit against Wilton and Jackson, alleging, among other things, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and wrongful discharge. A few months later, Jackson and Wilton filed a countersuit against Rockenfield, accusing him of abandoning his position as a member of the band and misappropriating the group’s assets to his own personal benefit. That dispute has since been settled out of court.<\/p>\n In a recent interview with The Joel Martin Mastery Podcast<\/a>, Wilton stated about QUEENSR\u0178CHE’s next studio album: “We do have one record left with our contract with Century Media and Sony. And yeah, we’re putting together demos right now. So, when will it get done? I don’t know. QUEENSR\u0178CHE has a lot of touring to do, and you’ve gotta schedule with your producer. But yeah, we’ve started writing demos, and we’ve got a good bunch of tunes.”<\/p>\n Wilton also talked about the QUEENSR\u0178CHE songwriting process, explaining: “Well, the last few albums we’ve kind of wanted to write fresh, so kind of on the spot. So I’m not looking at anything I’ve done in the past. I’m looking at just the inspiration of the day and getting something recorded and live with it for a couple of days and then come back and go, ‘Okay, yeah, this is pretty cool,’ or, ‘Nah, I’m gonna delete this.’ But I think it’s something that is special to a group of guys that everything that you create is new or kind of new. We’re probably ripping ourselves off blind with all the riffs and melodies, but that seems to be the fresh approach. I mean, the stuff that goes by the wayside, that’s stuff that goes on solo albums. [Laughs]”<\/p>\n Wilton previously discussed the progress of the songwriting sessions for the follow-up to “Digital Noise Alliance” in February 2025 in an interview with Marko Syrjala of Metal-Rules.com<\/a>. Michael said at the time: “We’re currently working on demos for the next album, which is really important for us.<\/p>\n “The thing is, to do a proper QUEENSR\u0178CHE album, we need about six weeks of uninterrupted time,” he added. “But it’s harder now because we have to juggle these gigs \u2014 weekends here and there \u2014 before coming back to focus. Zeuss has had to adapt; he’s very mobile now. He’s learned to be because we\u2019re not the only band that does this; all bands do. He works with Rob Zombie \u2014 ‘Hey, come on over for the weekend. Let’s work on some stuff.’ Or with SHADOWS FALL \u2014 ‘Let’s work on some stuff.’ So, he’s used to it. It’s just a matter of someone organizing it all.”<\/p>\n Wilton went on to say that he and his QUEENSR\u0178CHE bandmates are “following the same process” this time around as they did for “Digital Noise Alliance”. “With [‘Digital Noise Alliance’], the recording and writing sessions were meant to feel fresh \u2014 nothing was e-mailed back and forth,” he said. “Everything was built during the writing process. In that sense, it was about going back to the days when we’d be in a room writing the [debut QUEENSR\u0178CHE] EP in the morning. Back then, we didn’t have technology like we do now. No cell phones, no computers \u2014 maybe, if you were lucky, you had a four-track recorder. The way we worked was simple: ‘Hey, Chris [DeGarmo], you got a riff?’ And I’d say, ‘Okay, I like that. Let me add something to it.’ It was a real band effort because everyone was in the room, giving input. That’s exactly what we did with [‘Digital Noise Alliance’]. Everyone was involved \u2014 ‘Oh, I like that,’ ‘Oh, I don’t like that’ \u2014 and the songs evolved a little more each day. Some songs we dissected and reworked completely. Take ‘Tormentum’, for example \u2014 that’s like four songs merged into one! [Laughs]”<\/p>\n Asked if it’s “correct to say” that recording the “Digital Noise Alliance” album was “a fresh start” for QUEENSR\u0178CHE, with Grillo becoming a permanent bandmember and Stone returning to the fold for the studio sessions, Michael said: “Yeah, I think so. This next one will be even better because, with [‘Digital Noise Alliance’], Mike didn’t come in until the end of the process. But now, he’s here from the beginning of the process. He’s writing with me, and I’m writing with him, so it should be a bit more cohesive, I think\u2026 He knows the ways of the R\u0178CHE. He knows the guitar style and how to stay within that area. But, like I said, the stuff we’ve written so far sounds pretty cool.”<\/p>\n \ud83d\udce2 Announcement for our Euro friends!! Queensr\u00ffche will be heading back to Europe this summer, starting on June 6th in…<\/p>\n Posted by Queensr\u00ffche<\/a> on\u00a0Wednesday, January 21, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Progressive metal legends QUEENSR\u0178CHE will head back to Europe this summer, starting on June 6 in K\u00f6ln, Germany…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":["post-424082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}