Wait, is Keri Kelli Seriously Joining Queensrÿche???
Three caveats before we even begin this discussion:
- This is a rumor and should be treated as such until further noted.
- It’s a rumor I may have accidentally started.
- It’s possible we’re just being trolled.
Okay, so with that out of the way, let’s talk about the state of Geoff Tate’s nu-Queensrÿche.
Last month, guitarist Glen Drover (ex-Megadeth) quit the band before they’d even played a single show or done anything other than announce their existence. And I, as a joke, suggested that Tate hire Kerri Kelli as Drover’s replacement. Kelli, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the man, is a Los Angeles-based guitarist who, over the course of the last decade or so, has played with half of all hair metal bands in L.A. Here’s his resumé to date, in alphabetical order:
Adler’s Appetite
Alice Cooper
Vince Neil
Pretty Boy Floyd
Skid Row
Slash’s Snakepit
Ratt
Warrant
So, basically, if you play cock rock and you need a guitar player, Keri Kelli is on your shortlist of dudes to call.
Now, Queensrÿche isn’t exactly cock rock, but according to Metal Sludge, Kelli is, in fact, rumored to be Drover’s replacement in Tate’s new incarnation of the band.
Now, like I said, it’s possible that Metal Sludge is just trolling us. I guess it’s also possible that I’m psychic. It’s also also possible that what we have here is a case not dissimilar from what happened in 2007, when I suggested that Anthrax hire Ugly Kid Joe’s Whitfield Crane as their new vocalist, and this somehow turned into a rumor that he was being considered for the job, and he even started to get asked about it in interviews. And if that’s the case, I am both flattered and horrified that such a thing has happened twice now.
Presumably, we’ll know the answer soon enough — Tatesrÿche have begun to schedule tour dates for 2013, so we can assume that they’ll announce their new guitarist in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, here’s video of Kelli covering Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak” a couple of years ago:
