Back in 1988, Mike Stone was in Southern California’s Orange County, another kid fresh from the American heartland seeking his fortune as a musician. He carved out a place for himself as a multi-instrumentalist, solo artist and session player, probably because of the business savvy he demonstrated once his feet crossed the city limits of Los Angeles when he first arrived in California.
“I didn’t go out there with any guitars or anything,” he explains. “I got there and realized that there’s a billion guitar players but no one could sing, so I just started auditioning for things as a singer and within like a week I had a gig.”
Stone became a member of an established local band called Eden. One day, when the group was rehearsing, a friend dropped by. She worked at seminal rock outlet KNAC (which was a physical radio station back in those days), and she had an advance copy of an album by a band Stone was vaguely familiar with. His friend called it “a concept record.”
“I wasn’t really sure what that meant at the time,” Stone says. “She said, ‘It like tells a whole story.’ So we sat in the car, me and some other guys in the band, she played it for us, and I was like, ‘Wow, that’s really awesome.’ ”
It was one of those moments whose significance you can’t possibly realize at the time of occurrence. During an era when keeping an album under wraps was a hell of a lot easier before digital technology crashed the party, Stone was one of the few people outside of the music industry who chanced to hear Operation: Mindcrime months before it went public. The album had found its way to the man who would one day step into member Chris DeGarmo’s slot as a guitarist and help write the sequel.
“It really made an impression on me as far as Queensr˙che stuff goes,” Stone says. “There’s a few things before I was ever in Queensr˙che that made me notice Queensr˙che. One was I saw the video of ‘Gonna Get Close To You’ [from 1986’s Rage For Order album], and I just thought that was really cool and really creative and still ahead of its time in a way.”
He laughs, noting, “It’s funny, because after Mindcrime I didn’t listen to much Queensr˙che. Rage and Mindcrime were my two favorite records. If I did listen to them, it was usually those.”
What’s even funnier is that the record left a firm musical impression on him. “I thought the whole idea of telling a story with your album, actually, that stuck with me ever since. In weird sorts of ways, ever since then, on different records I’ve made, they’ve all had a weird semi-theme regardless. It just kind of became something I built into things . . .
“I remember, it was probably four or five of us in this car, listening on the stereo, and I remember one or two people going, ‘It’s kind of weird,’ and not really getting it,’ ” he continues. “And then other people, myself included, a couple of the other ones, thought it was really neat . . . That record didn’t really catch on for like a year after it was released. I guess people did dig it, but it took ’em a while to figure it out.”
Stone wouldn’t actually meet Queensr˙che until almost 15 years later. Once again, his involvement felt like cosmic timing. QR crew member and mutual friend Lars Sorensen had put him in contact the band to do some writing with the outfit before 2003 album Tribe. DeGarmo, who had left in 1998, reunited with the group, but then unexpectedly departed, so Stone was asked at the 11th hour to fill in at an Alaska show. The last-minute gig was his inadvertent audition to join the band, with Mindcrime II following a few years later. (To read Blistering’s 2006 story on Stone entering the Queensr˙che fold and recording the sequel, click here.
“I’ve said this before: To me, it’s just been a huge honor to be invited to be involved in making Mindcrime II, considering the history and the legacy attached to Mindcrime I,” Stone says of his membership with the band and contributing to its music. “Part of that, to me, is just one of my proudest accomplishments, and more than anything else, I’m just grateful for the opportunity that I can be part of it.”
Blistering.com: What about Mindcrime made it different from other music at the time besides it being a concept album?
Mike Stone: Obviously the main thing was it told a story, and I thought that was the coolest part. As far as the style, Queensr˙che has always had this distinct thing that I’ve always appreciated at times when I was listening to the band or not, and that has always [defined] the band to a degree.
Blistering.com: You said it took about a year for the album to catch on. Did you think it would become as big as it did?
Stone: My initial reaction, probably no, just because I figured people wouldn’t understand it. I wouldn’t say there was one thing that made me [like it]; it was the whole package. I try to listen to Mindcrime as one whole song.
Blistering.com: Do you have a favorite song on the album?
Stone: Everything works where it should. As far as playing it, they’re all fun to play. I really like “Mission”; what’s another one? Man, it’s really hard to pick favorites. [laughs] It was fun, because when I first started playing with them and started to break out Mindcrime stuff it was always my favorite stuff, just ’cause I really dug the record.
Blistering.com: What was it like when you learned they were bringing it back out to pre-empt the sequel?
Stone: I was siked. [laughs] I was really looking forward to it. We’d come close to playing the whole album top to bottom at a few shows where we went, “Hey, man, we almost did all of Mindcrime with me, and we’d pull out most of it, and I’m like, “Whoa, this is awesome,” so when we decided to do the whole thing soup to nuts, I was very excited about it.
Blistering.com: What was it like learning that material?
Stone: I’d say it’s about the same as other Queensr˙che in the sense that there’s certain guitar things you gotta sit down with and get ’em together. It’s different than picking out different bands. Queensr˙che is like no other band, guitar-wise, I’ve ever worked with. The biggest difference, honestly, probably was I was the most familiar with the material, which makes a big difference while you’re learning and how you deliver it. I would say that’s the biggest difference in Mindcrime, from just the sheer learning perspective. I was familiar with the songs, where a lot of the catalog, when it comes to other Queensr˙che stuff, I wasn’t as familiar with. Neither one is good or bad, it’s just a different perspective.
