Brian: *trying to communicate with a rabid raccoon at 2am*
Roger: *filming*
Freddie: *eating popcorn and observing*
John: *holding the phone fully prepared to call 999*
“John had always been quite careful with his choice of cars, mostly settling for Volvos, but after Rio he decided to treat himself to a Porsche. Shortly after buying it he went to see Phil Collins at the Albert Hall, and joined him for a few drinks after the show. He was stopped for speeding later that night in The Mall, notorious for police vigilance and justifiably so as it is the ‘front drive’ for Buckingham Palace. He was breathalysed, failed, fined £150 and banned from driving for twelve months. Needless to say, he sold the Porsche.”
“Freddie was also a special guest at the Japanese opening of the musical Cats, but wasn’t actually told he was guest of honor. He turned up late to discover the whole performance had been held up for him. When asked, on his return, how the trip [to Japan after the magic tour] had been, Joe Fanelli said, ‘Shopping with Freddie is like hitting yourself on the head repeatedly with an ice pick. It feels so good when you stop.’”
“Freddie and his personal assistant, Joe Fanelli, went back to the Dominion that evening to watch a performance of the show [Time, a 1986 musical], arriving backstage early to have a chat with Cliff Richard. They watched the first half of the show from the wings. As it was coming to an end, Freddie decided he wanted to sell ice-creams during the interval. ‘I did try and point out it wasn’t one of his better ideas,’ says Joe. ‘Especially as he wouldn’t have a clue what a pound coin looked like, so how on earth was he going to make sure the people paid the right price and were given the correct change?’ Freddie’s solution was simple: ‘I bought the whole lot, so I wouldn’t have to charge anyone anything,’ he said. He donned a white coat, took his tray of ice-creams and walked out into the audience. At first no one had a clue who he was and he happily wandered around, handing out the ices. Then he got bored and began to throw them: ‘He was hurling ice lollies and tubs and Cornettos all over the place,’ continues Joe. ‘They were landing in people’s laps, on their heads, it was chaos. Some people even threw them back!’ Eventually, supplies exhausted, Freddie retired backstage, to thunderous applause, as by now almost everyone in the theatre had realized who he was.”
EXCLUSIVE: As they release a new version of their second album, Queen legends Brian May and Roger Taylor speak with Daily Express about thei
A few weeks ago, Queen fans were thrilled to discover an original song had quietly launched on the band's official YouTube channel. Featuring no footage, just a jet black background, the husky vocals of the band's drummer pulled no punches with his words: “A man of no morality of no real quality… We’re drowning in your lies”.
The individual Roger Taylor was referring to in his no-holds-barred lyrics from his new solo single, Chumps, is none other than US President Donald Trump.
“We get force-fed this orange maniac daily,” he says today in his smoky voice, speaking on the phone from his personal studio at his country pile. “Virtually everything he says is a lie, an untruth or an exaggeration, and he just seems to daily compound his maniacal monstrousness. I mean, he's just the most awful person.”
Now 76, Taylor has no qualms sharing his blunt views about the current occupier of the White House. “I’m just a musician, but you’ve got to say what you think sometimes,” he continues. “I just find it incredible that we're in the position of this man being the most powerful, deluded person in the entire world. It's weird, so I just wanted to say it. It just sort of came out. It was very quick. I can't even remember doing it, actually!”
His disdain for the 45th and 47th US president dates back as far as the 1980s when he was known simply as a brash businessman. Did the Queen ever meet Trump back then?
Roger baulks. “No, I always thought he was an awful, creepy man. He was horrible, even before he was a TV host [Trump hosted the US version of The Apprentice reality show]. He’s just full of bile, really, isn’t he? Avaricious, so full of his self-regard. Yeah, what a monster, incredible what he gets away with, I can't believe it.”
So disliked is Trump by some artists that he has faced multiple cease-and-decease orders for using famous pop songs at his rallies over the past decade, Queen included. At the 2016 Republican National Convention, the future president entered the stage to Freddie Mercury’s We Are The Champions. “He came poncing on to it,” recalls the drummer, “I saw it on the news and was horrified. I thought people might think we actually support him. The last thing you want is to be seen as supporting this pig of a man. Shameless!”
As a band, Queen hasn’t been quite as blunt politically as Roger with his new single, or Sir Brian May with his animal rights campaigning. But over their 21 years together with Freddie Mercury and John Deacon as a quartet, they applied the same bold, audacious attitude in their creative endeavours.
Most famous of all their tracks is Freddie’s Bohemian Rhapsody, a six-minute suite, mixing genres full of made-up words – met with bemusement from their record label, and bafflement by their critics. Yet, the incredibly ambitious track topped the UK Singles’ Chart for nine weeks and became Britain’s third best-selling single of all time.
But the risks Queen took with Bohemian Rhapsody and their 1975 album A Night at the Opera found their roots, with their signature harmonies and varied musical styles, a couple of albums earlier, in one of the band's lesser-known records, Queen II.
The band today launches a remixed, remastered and expanded version of their second studio album, which – although widely praised decades on – likewise suffered the same fate as Bohemian Rhapsody in the initial reviews.
“We got so lacerated,” sighs Sir Brian May, on Zoom from his home that’s "not too far from Roger" these days. “We were pulled to pieces by the critics for this album. You try not to let it affect you, but it does… That was always very uncomfortable, but we felt like it was us against the world.”
Asked if it was make or break for the band at this stage in their career, the 78-year-old responds: “We get lost in the music. We don't do it because we want to make money or we want to be superstars. We do it because we somehow have to do it. So there is a sort of settlement in that. But at the same time, yeah, you're aware that outside the door, there's people [on the business side of things] waiting to bite your heels off.”
Nevertheless, unlike their self-titled debut, which they’ve previously remixed and remastered, Queen were much more in control of their own destiny when recording their follow-up, once again at Soho’s Trident Studios.
Freddie once said of Queen II, “I wanted to give it everything – to be self-indulgent. But the whole band in particular, we don't go in for half-measures and I'm pretty hard with myself. There are no compromises… My God, we were such impatient boys… ”
For the guitarist, Queen II was the single biggest leap the band ever made. “The first album was really difficult and we couldn’t really get what we wanted because of being forced into this kind of template of the Trident Studios sounds. We were still fighting some battles, but we were starting to win. We were precocious but quite consistent.”
Considered by many fans to be Queen’s heaviest record, the original LP was split into Side White and Side Black with a general theme running throughout. Kicking off with Side White dominated by Brian’s more emotional tracks like Father to Son and White Queen, to Side Black with Freddie’s dark fantasy-themed songs from Ogre Battle and The March of the Black Queen (which Brian sees as a forerunner to Bohemian Rhapsody) to Seven Seas of Rhye, which would become Queen’s first hit.
“We were much more in control”, recalls Roger, “It was a big step from Queen I in terms of complexity and studio technique, which we were learning quite quickly. We were much more confident having done the debut. We knew what we wanted it to sound like, especially with the drums.”
Unlike later Queen albums, Freddie didn't sing lead vocals on every track, with Brian and Roger doing so on a couple of their own songs, including the drummer’s groovy finale of Side White, The Loser in the End.
Reflecting on their frontman's development as a singer, Roger admitted, “Freddie was great, but hadn’t really developed that amazing technique that he had yet. There was a lot of competition there [when it came to lyrics]. Strange thing is, in the 80s Freddie sort of slackened off on his songwriting.”
Brian remembers the Queen singer was usually the first person to say if someone else’s vocals suited the track better. “In some cases, we argued and talked about and tried things out, and all sorts of different results happened. Usually, I felt, after trying it myself and trying it with Freddie, I would say, ‘Look, Freddie, you've made this into something greater than it was. So off you go, do it.’ And of course, as the years went on, we all got better at writing for Freddie.
"So by the time I'm writing Fat Bottomed Girls, I'm writing it specifically for Freddie, with some experience behind me, and I know what he can do. I know what he can bring to it, so I'm encouraging it. So I think you'll find I sing less on the later Queen albums. And Roger too, because we had this wonderful singer in Freddie. Why wouldn't you use him the whole time? You just have to learn to give him the right stuff.”
Of course, for over a decade now, Adam Lambert has been belting out Freddie’s vocals for Queen’s live performances. But the band haven’t performed since closing their Rhapsody Tour in Tokyo over two years ago.
Brian suffered a minor stroke in August 2024 and, while having fully recovered, has been enjoying time with grandchildren aside from the odd one-off gig, like a Benson Boone concert cameo or when he and Roger performed Bohemian Rhapsody with an orchestra for the song’s 50th anniversary at the Last Night of the Proms last year.
Roger, on the other hand, would love to get back out there. “I don’t feel similarly. I always love touring and was always happy to do it. I love my grandchildren, but I don’t want to give up my life in order to be with them. I think that’s their parents’ job... What a horrible thought!” the drummer chortled cheekily. “I’m very lucky. I have a lovely house, but I don’t want to be in it all the time. I’m still in the world and like to get about. So I would certainly not be averse to playing again.”
Sharing Roger’s feelings with Brian, the guitar legend responded, “I also have loved touring over the years, and I'm very grateful for it. It's been a fantastic thread to our lives. But at the moment, although I love playing live, I don't feel that I want to be away for months on end at this point in my life, it may change. I'm not saying I'm retiring. I'm just saying right now, I don't feel like I want to.”
Whatever the case, the show must go on, as Queen are already thinking about the band’s life beyond their own. The band has been in talks for an ABBA Voyage-style show that could be in the Las Vegas Sphere or elsewhere. “Since the ABBA show, technology has come on in massive leaps,” said Roger. “It could be done seriously well. It’s very difficult to know exactly what to do and I don’t want to screw it up.” Whatever the future holds, one thing’s certain: the crown’s not coming off anytime soon.
Freddie: so guys I have a really cool song idea
Brian, Roger, and John:
Freddie: okay so, first we open up like a church choir, yknow, beautiful harmonies galore, and then we’re gonna slip smoothly into a depressing ballad in which I pour my entire soul out and then we’re just gonna throw some guitar in the middle of that and THEN we transition into epic opera madness, after which we’re going to go absolutely crazy, like headbanging type stuff. After that we conclude with the last bit of the depressing ballad and then Roger is gonna hit a gong
Brian:
John:
Roger:
Freddie:
John: Freddie what the hell-
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