Geoff Tate (born Jeffrey Wayne Tate, January 14, 1959; he later changed his first name to Geoffery or Geoffrey) is an American singer and songwriter. He rose to fame with the progressive metal band Queensrÿche, who had commercial success with their 1988 album Operation: Mindcrime and 1990 album Empire. Tate is ranked fourteenth on Hit Parader's list of the 100 Greatest Metal Vocalists of All Time. He was voted No. 2 on That Metal Show's top 5 hard rock vocalists of the 1980s. In 2012, he won the Vegas Rocks! Magazine Music Award for "Voice in Progressive Heavy Metal". In 2015, he placed ninth on OC Weekly's list of the 10 Best High-Pitched Metal Singers. After his farewell tour as Queensrÿche, he renamed his band Operation: Mindcrime, after the Queensrÿche album of the same name.
Tate was born in Stuttgart, which was then part of West Germany, to American parents. His mother's side of the family is from New Orleans. Shortly after his birth, his family relocated to Tacoma, Washington. Tate had an interest in music from an early age. He was especially interested in symphonic works. Tate wanted to be a football player until he suffered a knee injury. He enrolled in Tacoma Community College after graduating High School in 1977. He dropped out after a year.
Tate first started out in the local cover band Tyrant, with Adam Bomb and future Culprit/TKO member Scott Earl. At the time, Tate was using the name "Jeff Waterfall" and performing Van Halen and Rainbow covers. After losing a local "Battle of the Bands" to a band that would later change its name to Fifth Angel, Tyrant split up and Tate moved on to progressive band Babylon. While Tate was in Babylon, he was asked to sing with the cover band The Mob (who would later start writing original material and become Queensrÿche) at a local rock festival. After Babylon broke up, Tate performed a few shows with The Mob, but left because he was not interested in performing heavy metal cover songs. Tate then joined the progressive metal band Myth as lead vocalist and keyboardist. Other band members of Myth included Kelly Gray, who was later one of the replacements for Queensrÿche guitarist Chris DeGarmo, and Randy Gane, both of whom joined Tate's version of Queensrÿche in 2012.

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