Scott Rockenfeld and Geoff Tate Photo: Andy Laudano

The idea for the album came from a conversation between vocalist/songwriter Geoff Tate and his father, a Korea and Vietnam War veteran. “All my life, Dad never talked about any of his war experiences,” Tate recalls. “Then one day we’re sitting on his back porch and he starts talking about Korea. I grabbed my video camera and taped the conversation. Weeks later I was home, playing the tape for my wife and kids and my wife says, “You’ve got to write a song about your Dad.”

The more Tate thought about it, the more he realized there was an even bigger story to tell. “It got me thinking about other people’s experiences as well,” Geoff reveals. “What is it all about being a soldier? I don’t know. Anything I could say about it would be speculation. I’ve never been in a battle or had a gun pointed in my face. So I started talking with different soldiers and recording the conversations. That led to filming formalized interviews.”

Tate interviewed soldiers who had served in various conflicts from World War II to Iraq and used their firsthand experiences as the basis for American Soldier. In an effort to let the soldiers tell their stories in their own words, quotes from those interviews can be heard throughout the album. A few were even invited into the studio to record vocals. This really is an album about soldiers, for soldiers as told by the soldiers themselves.

Another special guest is Tate’s ten-year old daughter, Emily, who sings a duet with her father about the heartache of leaving your child behind. “I’d just finished writing the song, “Home Again,” when Emily came home from school and asked me what I was doing,” Geoff explains. “I said, “I have this new song. You want to hear it?” So I played it for her and when it was done, she had tears rolling down her cheek. I asked her, “What are you crying for?” She says, “I’m so happy you wrote a song about me.” She really “got it” and could relate to the song, so I asked her if she wanted to sing it with me. She said “Sure.” I think we did it in three takes, and she just nailed it. She had the emotion and an innocence to her voice that captured the story so well.”

Doing the interviews and telling the soldiers stories were a touching experience for Tate. “I feel very honored to act as a biographer, telling their stories in a musical form,” Geoff relates. “I hope people will listen to the album and walk in the soldiers boots for a while. I think that, unless you’re in the military, it’s something we all have a tendency to take for granted. Especially in the United States where there’s no mandatory military service. We all get to pursue our goals and our dreams. We don’t have to worry about an occupying force kicking in our door at night and selling our children into slavery. There are no bombs going off around us all day long. That’s because somebody else is watching our back.”