For decades we’ve heard the story of OPERATION MINDCRIME through the chaos, the victims, and the consequences. But what happens when the villain finally gets the microphone? On the new chapter, OPERATION MINDCRIME III, the narrative flips completely, this time the world is seen through the cold, calculating eyes of Dr. X himself. the manipulator, the man pulling the puppet strings behind the entire Mindcrime universe. And when the villain finally explains his motives, the story becomes darker, deeper, and far more unsettling than ever before, and now we get the first taste of this next chapter with the release of “Power” (METAL TEMPLE review March 20, 2026) the single off the highly anticipated album scheduled for self-release on May 3, 2026, by the voice that made the legendary masterpiece come alive Geoff Tate who sat down with METAL TEMPLE writer Fred Bonanno (on the YouTube Podcast that he co-hosts CREATIVITY TALKIN) with his thoughts on the new album.

Welcome Geoff, thank you for taking some time out of your busy schedule to chat about the creative process for the upcoming album OPERATION MINDCRIME III, how you doing?

Always a pleasure Fred, I'm doing great, thank you my friend.

Let’s get right to it, Operation Mindcrime III continues the epic story, every heavy metal fan…no every music fan knows the absolute masterpiece of the original album, and now you’ve taken on the monumental task of continuing the saga, but this time through the eyes of Dr. X, from his point of view….why?

Well….it started I think back in 2020, I started writing for the album then and I thought it would be an interesting take on the MINDCRIME story veering from the first two albums. You know we sort of got to know Nikki really well and everything's been written from his point of view, his issues, you know his challenges, and we never really knew much about Dr. X, and he's such a huge figure in the story, How did he get to where he is? Who is he? What made him the kind of person he is? And these are the things I wanted to write about, you know, for this album. I really wanted to explore the man and see if I could define, you know, the kind of persona he is. And so the album is really Dr. X's perspective of what is happening with the story that we know.

So writing from Dr. X’s perspective on this album. Did you find that maybe he's even darker than you had originally written on the first two because you're writing it from his camera view?

Um well….you'll have to see for yourself, Fred (laughing). It's difficult for me to comment about that. It has some dark moments, I'll have to say, some very dark moments. And basically once it's released, it's the world's art to interpret it however they experience, exactly how they listen to it, it'll be different to everyone, just like always with your music and every time you listen to it you find something else even if you've heard it a thousand times. You know there's always been certain people who dominate over other people. There's always been people in power, who you know take their power from other people and manipulate people to get to where they want to go, there's always been, you know the winners, the losers. There's always been the victim and the opposite of that, which the word is escaping me right now, but you know what I'm saying? It's these are classic themes really. It's a great tragedy, and MINDCRIME is that very thing. It's a play on the classic themes, good against evil, winner against loser, that kind of thing. And maybe that's what makes it, you know, so timeless, you know, it just fits. And humanity, we don't change a lot, even though we invent these amazing things and we have technology that we've put into place now to change our lives and make our lives better. The basic human being is still an animal, you know, it's still us and them. It's a predator and victim. And I don't know if that's ever going to change. Are we ever going to be enlightened, as a total humanity thing? Are we ever going to get to a point where we are able to be empathetic with each other and forgiving each other and that kind of thing? I don't know. I haven't seen it in my lifetime, right? I'm like, 67 years old now, that I keep hearing the same thing. Oh, you know, things are just so crazy now. You know, it's a crazy world out there. They've been saying it all my life.

Now when writing for OPERATION MINDCRIME III, were there certain things that when you kicked over a rock, you were like, "Oh, I didn't expect to find that there."

HA….Kicked over a rock….I like that…..well, you always find things like that really when you're exploring a subject and right, you know, you uncover things that you didn't think of before, you know. and that's one of the things I love about creating a concept album or creating music that follows a storyline is you do exactly like that. You kick over so many rocks and you find so many things that you didn't really plan on. So yeah, it's an exploration really.

One of the cool things about the original OPERATION MINDCRIME is what we’re not being told, what the listener will interpret or translate on his own, creating a unique connection to the story, and that's part of the mystic, especially when you're immersed in headphones and you got your eyes closed.

Exactly. That's it's a really good headphone album of course. On OPERATION MINDCRIME III we really spent a lot of time focusing on that and perhaps it's because so much of it was written and recorded on headphones because we recorded this in kind of a non-usual way. You know we recorded where we were in different hotel rooms and backstage dressing rooms and part of it was recorded in a castle in France when we were there. It's recorded in Germany, Brazil, gosh, so many different places in Europe and Ireland as well. So, it has probably a real international feel to it and somehow subconsciously that kind of thing works its way into your writing, you know. And also, you spend so much time on headphones, you sort of want to create what you're imagining in your head. You want to create that what you know in your headphone experience.

Absolutely. I mean, we grew up in a time when people made albums strictly for, you know the headphone experience, and there used to be a national radio show for headphones only because it is such a different involvement, and then hopefully this will spark people on to listening to full albums once everything comes out.

You know, it makes listening so much more enjoyable, so much more personal and you can listen while you're doing everything else you're supposed to be doing in your life. You know, you can immerse yourself in this headphone experience and still operate. You know, I  love listening to these things like because I travel a lot, so I'm in airports a lot and nothing is more boring than an airport. So, if you're traveling or walking or even out shopping, whatever you're doing, you're listening to the MINDCRIME record in your head. It's fantastic.

 So, when the listener puts on OPERATION MINDCRIME III and you put the headphones on, are you going to get more out of the album from the lyrics and the headphones or take the headphones off and crank it to 11, will the music create the experience?

Oh, I think so. Yeah, I think headphones gives you a full experience. Um, also they're making headphones so good now that, like they have a full frequency response in the bottom end you can feel you know the kick drum in your body now, you know right, so even at lower listening volumes you can still feel that thud in your chest you know which is very exciting and previously you didn't have that, they were more like mid-range high-end you know the mic speakers. And now they're really developed at body connection, I think.

You’ve always been a great storyteller with your lyrics, the way you paint a picture and it's always interesting to me how people interact with your music and interpret it through their own personal experiences, does your inspirations evolve from your own personal experiences or the world around you?

Well, it's always interesting to me how people interact with your music, you know, sometimes you have…well, sometimes, no, almost always you have an idea of what you're trying to say. Yeah. you know, you try your best to paint that picture lyrically and hardly anybody ever gets it really. They interpret it through their own personal experiences, their own filters, right? And so I kind of gave up in a sense trying to you know get my complete idea across and expect people to understand it you know or to relate to it. Well. I just sort of started writing for my own pleasure, really to satisfy myself and that started like around, I guess THE WARNING album I guess I started doing that. Okay. So I just wrote about stuff that I was thinking about….like stuff that was interesting to me. I probably was inspired a lot by writers that I grew up reading. you know a lot of science fiction writers, Azimoff and guys like that. yeah, just it kind of seeps into your subconscious and you sort of find yourself paraphrasing different, you know, authors here and there with some of their ideas. And I guess that's the way all art is, you know, we all all kind of take from each other and give it our own little interpretation and you know it's just the way it all works out.

And that’s what I always loved about your music… your lyrics, especially now in a time where people don't always think about the music. You know there's always something misinforming us through the story that they’re trying to tell, you know it more cerebral than other bands, and I'm not cutting down any other band. It's just you know, that's part of the reason why everyone loves your voice and your writing, and that’s what is so interesting about the new album is because it's written from the perspective of Dr. X, such a unique twist.

Some of the events that are happening in one (Operation Mindcrime I) and two (Operation Mindcrime II) are commented on by in album three (Operation Mindcrime III) from Dr. X’s perspective, you see. So, while it's happening in one (Operation Mindcrime I) he's commenting about the same situation from how he sees it, you know. So, I am particularly really excited for people to hear that and to see how they take that, you know, because, when you stop and think about it, everything is perspective, right? We all see something happening like if you ever played that silly game where you whisper something in somebody's ear and they pass it along and by the time it comes back to you it's all different. You know that's life….that we all see things differently and we all interpret things differently. So the way something is revealing itself to one person at one given time is revealing itself to another person differently you know, it's an interesting way to compare what was happening on one (Operation Mindcrime I) and two (Operation Mindcrime II) is now you can compare it through Dr. X's perspective and see how he interprets it.

OPERATION MINDCRIME III

Line up:

Geoff Tate – lead vocals

Kieran Robertson  – lead guitar, backing vocals

John Moyer – bass, backing vocals

Dario Parente – guitar

Amaury Altmayer – guitar

Rich Baur – drums

Clodagh McCarthy – support vocals

Co-writing by Geoff Tate and Kieran Robertson

Co-produced by John Moyer and Kieran Robertson

This is just a small part of the interview, to view the entire interview with Geoff Tate, go to CREATIVITY TALKIN on YouTube and search “Geoff Tate interview”

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