Queensrÿche – Empire - 20th Anniversary Edition

Amps: I understand you used a lot of gear from the Mindcrime/Empire-era for recording. How was it going back to that, and did it have any impact on your writing mindset for this record?

Michael: Yeah, I still have all my old amps and guitars. We recorded the guitar parts for the album at my place, Watershed Studio where I have my arsenal of Marshall amplifiers, the JCM 800s that were used on Mindcrime, and for the tried and true lead sound we used the Roland JC-120. You know, (former guitarist) Chris DeGarmo and I have used that amp on so many different songs. It’s one of those things that just works great, and I hope they still make them!

Michael posted to his Instagram a collection of amps and the albums he used them to record. You can see the Silver Jubilee clearly shown as used on the Empire album.

Eddie Jackson used 2 Spector NS-2s to record Operation Mindcrime and Empire. The white one was in drop D and the black one was in standard tuning.

In this advertisement from GK, you can see a photo of Ed resting his chin on a GK 800RB. Thought to be the amplifier used on Operation Mindcrime and Empire.

Some extra info for you tone-seekers. Ed recorded some of the bass for Mindcrime in an Airplane hangar.