Article are tagged by member they primarily concern, year, album, and what type it is (review, interview, etc). Articles are from various sources but mostly found on queencuttings.com
“Shelves crammed with Grammy awards” are we sure. I don’t think we are….(Queen have never won a Grammy, though the interviewer could be talking about their Grammy Lifetime Achievement award?)
Sony still consulting them on everything is good. Glad to know they’re involved.
“Sony has a ‘timetable’ for Queen related activity, though he won’t elaborate” 👀
“Taylor has also just finished recording his seventh solo album, out later this year, which features an African choir. ‘I'm very happy,’ he says.” BACK. THE F. UP. NEW SOLO ALBUM?? EDIT: WAIT. Is the African choir the Ndlovu Youth Choir?? The one who did that awesome cover of Bohemian Rhapsody?? That’d be so cool if true
“It tastes like wee. I get shades of urine” Roger how do you kn—you know what, I’m not even going to ask
tldr: the Internet Archive/WayBack Machine is super important in term of archived content, billions of stuff are on there, and with the current event happening in the world like stated above,without this tool, it will be hard to properly document what took place. It will be easy for certain people to rewrite history. Dont let them.
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Brian May: It was actually the BPI Awards that we went to to collect an award and Geldof was a few tables away and came over and said “How about doing this, this thing?” And he said “We’re going to have this and this and this and this.” And we said “Oh yeah, I’m sure.” You know? I think he thought it was an almost impossible thing to get together but we said “Yeah, we’d be interested.” And then a bit later when he rang up and said “Look, Brian, I have to have a commitment. You know?” And so we sort of talked about it a bit more and it seemed like we were all very keen to do it.
Interviewer: Is that because you support the cause and want to do your bit or because it’s such a unique rock even that you can’t afford to miss out in a way?
Freddie Mercury: To answer that, honestly it’s a bit of both actually. Cause I think it is a very good cause and initially I think we would have liked to have taken part in the Band Aid single but I think we were in separate parts of the globe. And so the second bash I did was this thing and also the fact that some of the biggest and best known groups around the world are taking part, why not us? So I think it makes me personally proud to be a part of it.
Interviewer: Is it difficult to choose numbers for a twenty minute set, do you find that you have to stick to your best known numbers?
Brian May: Yes, we’ve just been talking about that. It’s pretty hard to make the choice.
Roger Taylor: Yes we don’t really know quite what to do, whether to play the hits or to try and do something new, but I think in twenty minutes really we’ve got to play things that people know and will recognize, you know, in Turkey or wherever they’re watching maybe.
Freddie Mercury: So we’re still squabbling over that fact, that’s what he’s trying to say.
Roger Taylor: Rawr!
Interviewer: But the spectacle of your live performance, from the backdrops and the expansive lighting rigs, is it going to be difficult to cope with the sort of sparsity of Wembley?
Brian May: Uh well it all comes down to if you can play or not really which is nice really in a way because I think probably there’s probably an element of people who think that groups like us can’t do it without the extravagant backdrop but we’ll see, huh?
John Deacon: *Raises eyebrows*
Interviewer: After thirteen years do you still get excited about this sort of live performance?
Freddie Mercury: This one especially.
Brian May: Yeah, it’s great.
Freddie Mercury: We still like to play and fool around.
Interviewer: And what about the number that you two are going to be performing towards the end, towards the finale? What’s the story behind that?
Freddie Mercury: Well actually it seems like, it looks as if we wrote it for this occasion, but we didn’t actually it was done a long time before that. It seems to fit the bill actually so I think they opted out and said don’t the two of us cause I mean during a Queen show that’s just the two of us *gesturing towards Brian* that actually play, Roger and John actually go and have a drink or something but so we weren’t going to do that one but it seems to be very sort of part of the show, it’s very meaningful and so we’re going to do it.
Interviewer: Tell me a little bit about it.
Freddie Mercury: Oh you tell them! *Playfully shoves Brian*
Brian May: Ah! It came about when we almost finished recording the album The Works actually and we’d been throwing stuff off because there wasn’t room for it and in the end we threw off so much that we said there’s a little hole here it just needs something. And actually Mack who’s producing us said “Why don’t you do something really simple, you know? Just write a song.” And Freddie and I were there late one night and we just came up with this thing it was very quick and we just had this particular thing in mind you know? The whole business of Africa was in our minds and that’s the way it came out.
Interviewer: Saturday is meant to be all for a good cause and there aren’t meant to be any egos involved but also-
All: *laughing and smirking*
Brian May: No egos at all, no!
Interviewer: But are so many superstars going to find it difficult to be in each other’s personal spaces?
Roger Taylor: Completely totally impossible.
Brian May: Should be hilarious.
Roger Taylor: It’s going to be chaos.
Freddie Mercury: I think it’s going to be chaotic, yes. It has to be I mean we’re not, we’re not all wonderfully well behaved kids are we? But that’s, that’s going to sort of actually be the nice part of it. There will be lots of friction and we’re all going to try to outdo each other I guess and but we’re just going to go out there and play.
Brian May: That’s right. We want to give something special really, that’s what it’s about. No the regular thing. So everybody’s going to out there giving their best and that’s what it’s about. Make some money for those people. That’s Geldof, that’s what he comes down to you know. We want to have a great time and I think we will but it comes down to the fact that it’s going to make tons of money and for a change the money’s going to go to the right place.
Queenmania!- Panties kept flying even when group had gone Sunday Times Extra, October 7, 1984 By Ezra Mantini Queenmania held thousands of rock fans spellbound at the group’s opening show at Sun City’s Superbowl on Friday night. Fans came from all over the country, with some families flying in on their private aircraft. As for the cars, the parking-lots and virtually every available space was jammed, with guards sweating to keep things under control. The security was very tight. People were searched at least five times. When the show finally started, the Superbowl had everything money could buy for lighting effects. Queen, too, rose to the occasion. From the very first moment they entered the stage everyone in the audience was caught up in their magic. But, somehow, I felt that the fans were a little too crazy about Queen. This was clear during moments when the band were offstage and only the tape was playing. The crowd went on screaming, throwing their underwear onto the stage and towards the end I counted three fans who were passed out and were carried away. I wasn’t surprised, at the rate nearly everybody was dancing. Queen had arrived! From teenagers to grannies - some of whom had flown from Bloemfontein - they were foot-stomping, hand-clapping and singing along. Though I am a lover of rock music, the acoustics nearly ruined what would have been a great show. It was just noisy and completely drowned the lyrics (granted, you rarely hear lyrics in rock music). Perhaps this was the best recipe for the teenagers, who seemed caught up in the frenzy of Queenmania. Among the songs they sang was “Radio Ga Ga”, which has been a number one hit. Other songs were “I Want to Break Free” “Another One Bites the Dust” and “Under Pressure”.
2/15/1975 The Boston Globe The Rock Folk: Nathan Cobb Queen for a Day The rented Lincoln carrying the four members of Queen was squirting through the traffic of downtown Boston one afternoon last month. Three local radio stations had already been visited since lunch, but the man from Elektra Records who was piloting the car had his mind set on four. This, after all, was the English band’s third attempt to perform in Boston, and the label was pulling out the stops to insure full promotional mileage. “The last time I was here I turned a nasty yellow color,” guitarist Brian May recalled, succinctly describing the hepatitis which befell him in Boston last year, sending him home on a horror-filled night flight and prematurely ending Queen’s first American tour. Since an earlier attempt to play in town had also failed when a member of then-headling Mott the Hoople became ill, Boston had not yet been confronted by the fast-rising glam group. “And then, after I got home, I got an ulcer,” May said as the car stopped quickly at a traffic light. “So for four months last year no one heard of us. People actually thought we were dead.” The driver, perhaps imagining the terrifying things which could still prevent his hot cargo from playing for 6000 Bostonians two nights later, pulled away slowly. At WRKO, the band members eased into the office of a program director Christy Wright, where a strategically-placed poster of themselves loomed from behind her desk. In fact, almost everything in the room seemed to have come courtesy of a record company: a Leo Sayer drinking glass, an Elektra paperweight, a life-size Elton John stand-up. Even the shirt on Ms. Wright’s back displayed a rock and roll logo. “It’s like a toy shop in here,” May observed, while vocalist Freddie Mercury, drummer Roger Meddows-Taylor and bassist John Deacon poured over the goodies. In the meantime, pleasantries were exchanged and Meddows-Taylor even managed to acquire a much-admired Jeff Beck pin. But everyone in the room knew that the purpose of the visit was singular - to help get Queen’s songs on the air. “Going to these places is all right, and we’ve got to do it,” Mercury allowed as the elevator later descended. “But I wouldn’t want to do it every day, that’s for sure.” That night, Freddie Mercury stood along one wall of a rather plush Beacon street saloon, his purple polished nails clutching a drink. He is, like the other members of Queen, extremely subdued to the point of being almost withdrawn. Nothing like the high energy image the band offers on stage, you understand. None of the glittery posing and high-stepping mania. But tonight Mercury had to pose a bit, because Elektra was throwing a party to allow local media types to mingle with a band which some suspect is going to be a genuine monster someday soon. It already is a monster back home in England, and the label had five people aboard the two-month American tour during its stop in Boston to insure that the group’s third LP, “Sheer Heart Attack,” was never far from peoples’ minds. So here was Mercury, being quietly charming and doing things such as warily accepting a strange-looking envelope from a bulky, pasty-faced admirer and hastily passing it along to one of the tour’s 15-man crew. As he was ushered along the bar to meet yet another invitee, the last person to whom Mercury had been talking excused himself, as he put it, to allow the singer to do his “job”. “My job?” Mercury replied softly. “My job is to play, though sometimes you wouldn’t know it.” Click, click and click. Two cameras made their way around the second-floor dressing room of the Orpheum Theater, where the first show of the evening’s pair had just concluded. It had been a rather average performance by the “nasty Queenies,” as Freddie Mercury referred to them on-stage, hampered by a blown fuse at the beginning (“There’s a tendency to want to knock things over when something like that happens,” Brian May observed) and an audience which didn’t always seem quite sure what to make of the polished theatrics, barrage of sound and concluding clouds of smoke. “American audiences seem to be starved for rock and roll,” May said as he slumped in a chair, draped in a white terry cloth robe. “They seem to want to be pulled out of their seats, as if they’re just waiting to burst.” The other band members, dressed in identical robes, quietly made their way in and out of the small room like intruders in their own house. Much of the food and drink which had been laid out on a table was ignored, or picked at by the few visitors who sat in a circle passing the cameras. Mercury remained on the fringe. Drinking lemon and honey in order to resurrect his voice for the second performance, he occasionally closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with trembling hands. Two shows is murder, he explained. And two more in New York tomorrow night. “If I did all the things they told me to on this tour I wouldn’t have a voice left,” he said. Standing behind him, Roger Meddows-Taylor was explaining the band’s stage showmanship. “To tell you the truth,” he confided, “the music’s on the albums. The shows are half music and half, well, you know, just trying to get the people up out of their seats.” Mercury rubbed his eyes some more, while May slouched further into his seat. For Queen, finally getting the people up in Boston had been anything but high glamor.
Sophisticratic rock - Genevieve Hall gets a dressing down from Queen
Record Mirror
March 30, 1974
Genevieve Hall
Fire and brimstone, the gnashing of teeth and all of hell’s fury, is nothing compared to the anger and wrath of Queen.
It was the first journalist they’d encountered after having had their new album Queen II slagged off unmercifully in most of the music papers. Plus the fact that one particular journal had analytically delved into the depths of hype using Queen and Merlin as their prime examples.
So was it any wonder that all their embittered feelings of outrage, hurt, anger and frustration poured out like hot lava from an erupted volcano?
Lead guitarist Brian May picked up the paper and waves it under my nose. “This article is the biggest load of rubbish I’ve ever read in my life”, he declares vindictively.
“Look, there are people going to read this article - some of them won’t have heard of Merlin and some of them won’t know us. The headline screams out commercial pop. They’ve printed a very old picture of us, which we hate, looking extremely poppy, and underneath it is the word HYPE. The whole article says in a suggestive way that Queen are a hype.”
Hype
“To be honest it looks to us like a put-up job. They say we’re a put-up job. I say that’s a put-up job, and the reasons are that this paper completely ignored us all the time we were going around on the road building up a following. We draw about a minimum of a thousand people a night for the last God knows how many months and they all know where we’re at.
“This paper completely ignored us and so now that we’ve got to the position where our records are taking off and we’re in the public eye. Now we’ve got to that position without the help of the music papers, they can’t really admit that we’re good, they have to suggest we’re a hype or something.”
Is that how you really see it? I asked.
“That’s exactly how we think it is,” joined in their drummer Roger Taylor. “Supported by the fact that they’ve compared us to a totally new band who we’ve never even heard of. We don’t want to say anything against them, but, apparently they’re just a straight pop band. Whereas we’ve been playing and working up to this for years. Christ, I’m 24, Brian’s 25, Freddie is 27, John’s a bit younger 23. Plus the fact that we’re all intelligent enough not to want to be put across in that way. We want to put out music first.”
Is it coming first? I asked, we appear to be getting a giant-sized image with the music running a close second.
“That’s only ‘cos we want to put our music across in the most striking and entertaining way. We want to make an impact. Surely that’s what it’s all about - entertaining.
“And that’s another thing,” he continues, “They’ve given the impression that someone’s said to us, ‘here’s a load of money boys, go down to Carnaby Street and get yourselves some clothes.
“Freddie and I used to sell old clothes. In fact Freddie used to design and MAKE our stage costumes. We’ve always taken care to make sure that our clothes are just right and look good. Perhaps they’d prefer it if we went on in dirty jeans, but we don’t really think the public want to look at that. I think they’d rather see something that looks good.”
Their lead vocalist Freddie Mercury (the aristocratic one) reads aloud with indignation the parody of a hype lead singer, and comes to a part where it says that hype bands employ writers to pen their instant hit singles.
“Now how the hell do they think we fall into that category? They haven’t done any homework. They’ve even called John our bassist our drummer. They haven’t even bothered to find out what we’re really about.
“Everyone seems to object if you’re playing what you think is serious and the kids buy it, they can’t understand it.
“Well we’ve definitely had no Chinn and Chapman behind us,” Roger bursts out, “every song we’ve do is planned by us, including our album sleeves” (note the famous Queen crest designed by Freddie).
Uncontrolled
“We even have control on which tracks we want released. In fact out of all the bands, I think we’re the most uncontrolled.”
“Exactly,” says Freddie, “That’s why this article is a complete farce and nowhere near the truth.”
OK - so how come they’re able to obtain this uncontrolled freedom?
It was Brian who answered. “Because the record companies desperately wanted us in the beginning. I know it sounds like blowing our own trumpet, but it’s true. We made demo tapes and everyone thought they were good and wanted us. They realised they were in competition with each other. So in the end we were able to settle for a deal which enabled us to dictate a bit.”
You can’t deny that you’ve been getting preferential treatment over a lot of equally good bands, I said glancing around at their specially provided de-luxe van, which had been given to them at the beginning of their British tour.
“Ah wait a minute,” says Roger. “It wasn’t until our record company realised we were succeeding before they started giving us the big treatment. At first EMI printed 5,000 copies of our first album and much to their surprise they had to reprint that number five times over. So naturally when we made our second album, they felt justified in a lot of work behind it. Which is really why there’s been enough copies in the shops to put it into the charts in the first week.”
“Yes, but any record company if they’ve got any sense is going to do that,” says Freddie, “it looks like we’re getting knocked for having the right people around us doing their jobs properly.”
Is that a large part of their success - having the right people doing the right job?
“No”, answered Roger, “that comes after. Our success is due to us being a bloody good band and also having common sense - ‘cos there a lot of bloody good bands around - to get things managed properly. But even so we wouldn’t have had the support of the people if they hadn’t believed in us in the first place.”
And now over to Freddie. “People think that if there’s a lot of money put behind a band and they seem to make it quicker than usual, then they’re a hype. But we’ve geared ourselves to jump a few hurdles and have benefited by doing so.” He glances down at his picture.
“Oh really,” he exclaims in disgust, “this paper has no flair - I mean to print this picture three times in succession … and just look at my arms!” He was horrified, “look at how fat they appear, now my arms aren’t like that at all - what do you think?”
He rolls up his sleeves for me to inspect and I’d like to state here and now that the poor dear’s arms are quite, quite slender!
Ripped-off
Phew! If after all that you think that the lads are hypersensitive to criticism and feel animosity towards their critics, then let Roger put you straight.
“No, we don’t hold grudges - we just go round and wrench people’s arms and legs off. Or send them bags of wet cement, nothing too violent!”
By this time John Deacon (who reminded me of the Alice’s doormouse) had woken from his slumbers (too many late nights and early mornings), he was reasonably cheerful for someone who had had his clothes ripped off the day before.
“By the law of averages,” he was saying, “it’s someone else’s turn to be ripped off today.”
You talk to him about the success of their Queen II album and he says, “It’s all our Mums and hype.” He’s a lot quieter than the other three, but can’t help warming to him as he’s completely unpretentious.
Freddie is a pretty dynamic character, he has an air of confidence which can sometimes be mistaken for arrogance. He has hair the colour of midnight, luminous brown eyes which he makes look evil with skillful use of make-up. He speaks ever so nicely (don’t you dear?) with the superfluous use of his hands, and commands attention rather than demands it.
Brian’s the tallest one and has a shock of dark curls which bring out the green flecks in his lucent grey eyes. He’s the thoughtful considerate one, and it’s a joy listening to him arguing with Roger.
And Roger - well he’s the pretty one with a sense of fun. He doesn’t look capable of busting a gut over a set of drums, but once he gets that adrenaline moving - the guy goes berserk.
Sucker
Music wise, Queen are a heavy electric rock band - but not raucous. There’s a fair amount of melodic structure incorporated in their material, which contains complex harmonies and could quite easily become messy was it not skillfully honed to precision. They’re exciting to listen to and watch, and have the good sense to capture rather than rupture the senses. The only word which describes their musical finesse is SOPHISTICATION.
After their British tour which climaxes at the Rainbow Theatre, Queen will take their ‘sophisticratic’ rock for a two-month stateside tour. Their opening night will be in Denver, Colorado, where they appear on the same bill as Mott the Hoople. I don’t know about the rest of you - but I’ve always been a right sucker for royalty.
(Please read with a camp accent, stressing every second word)
New Musical Express
27 September 1975
Julie Webb
Forget those ‘Queen split’ stories - everything is just lovely. Elton is lovely as well. Freddie Mercury tells it like it is. By Julie Webb
It’s easy to understand how “Queen to split” rumours get under way. The band’s expected large summer gig never happened and the non-appearance of either an album or a single kept the silence at deafening point.
From America we heard that Brian May was offered a job with Sparks and in England there were stories to the effect that the band’s management situation was none too amicable. And throughout all this time the band remained stumm, giving no interviews and neither confirming or denying anything. Even a promised visit to see the band at Rockfield Studios was “put off” at the last moment. Is all well in Mercury’s trousers?
Still, all is now resolved. Queen now have a new manager, and their biggest headache in How The Hell Are They Going To Finish The New Album in time for November release. They are also planning a major British tour for late November and a single for October, so it’s time to zip up and get going.
It was three dishevelled members of Queen who were finally brought to bay at the studios in London. John Deacon was absent since they were adding vocals and I was informed he doesn’t participate overly on that side of things. Two members of Hustler - a quite different group - were sitting in the control room aghast at the meticulous way the band record.
If they sand “no no no” once, they sang it twenty times in the space of about ten minutes. And on each occasion someone would find fault. It must get exceedingly tedious.
The track in question is a Mercury composition “Bohemian Rhapsody” very much an operatic opus, taxing the vocal cords to the hilt. On playback it sounds truly magnificent, undeniably Queen yet with greater depth than on any previous efforts.
Mercury is bouncing about saying “Hello dear” to new arrivals. Brian May still looks fragile and Roger Taylor sits down rather wearily. They are scheduled to carry on recording till two a.m.
Mercury seems like he’s itching to talk and, yes, there’s plenty to ask. Like what happened with the old management, Freddie?
He takes a deep breath.
“As far as Queen are concerned they are deceased. They cease to exist in any capacity with us whatsoever. One leaves them behind like one leaves excretia. We feel so relieved.”
It appears to be an almost rehearsed answer. I plod on. How did the change of management come about - why change?
“We felt there came a time when we had got far too big for them to handle. We needed bigger handling. We needed a change. But I don’t want to delve into trivia…”
And on so to John Reid, new manager, also manager of Elton John.
“Actually we were approached by - and we ourselves approached - a series of top class managers to make sure we made the right choice. John Reid happened to be the choice because he flashed his eyes at me and I said ‘Why not’,” Mercury laughs.
“He’s great, actually, I thought he could do with another piano player so we could play duets all night. I said ‘What’s better than one piano player? - two piano players. In a way it’s just what we wanted and the combination is going to be startling. It’s the sort of combination we’ve wanted for years. The whole situation of record deals and his whole method of work, his whole approach is so right.
“He came in to negotiate the whole structure of recording, publishing and management.”
Mercury was present at the recent much-publicised John Reid birthday party last week (“we’re both Virgos you know”). This he pronounced “lovely”.
“I met his ‘other client’. He said ‘You must meet my other client, my other client wants to meet you.’ Elton John was wonderful - one of those people you can instantly get on with. He said he liked ‘Killer Queen’ and anyone who says that goes in my white book - my black book is bursting at the seams.”
The subject switched to the new album. Apart from the aforementioned “Bohemian Rhapsody” what other tracks are there?
“Well the album is called ‘A Night At The Opera’. We’ve finished all the backing tracks and it’s beginning to sound better than we expected.
“With ‘Rhapsody’ we’ve squeezed to our limitations for four octaves and not slowed down the tape! John Deacon had written a lovely little ditty called ‘You’re My Best Friend’ and Roger has written ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ including lines like ‘I’ve got a feel for my automobile’.
“Brian has an outrageous mammoth epic track ‘The Prophet’s Song’ which is one of our heaviest numbers to date. He’s got his guitar extravaganza on it. You see, Brian has acquired a new guitar specially built so he can almost make it speak. It will talk on this track.
“Then there’s ‘Good Company’ written by Brian, a George Formby track with saxophones, trombone and clarinet sounds from his guitar. We don’t believe in having any session men, we do everything ourselves, from the high falsetto to the low bassy farts it is all us.
“Another track is ‘’39’ a little spacey number by Brian, a skiffle style of number which we’ve never tried before and the albume ends with something totally unexpected, a little virtuoso track by Brian. There’s also ‘Sweet Lady’ a heavyish ditty in stupendous ¾.”
Apart from ‘Rhapsody’, Mercury himself has penned four tracks, “one is called ‘Death On Two Legs’ I’m not going to say anymore - just listen to the words carefully kiddies. A nasty little number which brings out my evil streak. The words came very easy to me.
“There’s also a lovely little ballad, my classical influence comes into it, Brian is going to attempt to use harp, real life-size harp. I’m going to force him to play till his fingers drop off. It’s called ‘Love Of My Life’.
“‘Seaside Rendezvous’ has a 1920’s feel to it and Roger does a tuba and clarinet on it vocally, if you see what I mean. I’m going to make him tap dance too, I’ll have to buy him some Ginger Rogers tap shoes.
“‘Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon’ (not the Kinks’ or the Small Faces’) is a short track, just one minute six seconds. A very perky spicey number dear. Brian likes that one.”
Summing up, Mercury says “There were a lot of things we wanted to do on ‘Queen II’ and ‘Sheer Heart Attack’ but there wasn’t space enough. This time there is. Guitarwise and on vocals we’ve done things we’ve never done before.”
In order to finish the album on time Mercury says they will “work till we are legless. I’ll sing until my throat is like a vulture’s crotch. We haven’t even reached the halfway stage yet but from the things I can hear we have surpassed anything we’ve done before musically.”
All right. Now to the other stuff.
Is it true about Brian being offered a gig with Sparks? Was there any serious thought of splitting up the band? Own up…
Mercury is contemptuous of the whole thing.
“About nine months ago Brian was approached by Sparks who said they would like him to join them as guitarist. But we all treat that sort of thing as everyday and mundane. We’re so involved in what we do - anyway we’ve all had offers to join other bands. We don’t give it a second thought.
“But while, say, Roger and I would tell them to piss off Brian takes his time about being nice to people so sometimes they get the wrong idea. Brian is really too much of a gentleman which I am not - I am an old tart - but not for one moment did he consider leaving us.
“But that was nine months ago, so long ago that that rumour went out with the Boer War. Still it’s very flattering to get offers.”
The November British tour, however should dispel any split rumours forever. Preparations are already being made for that.
“I’m thinking of being carried on stage by Nubian slaves and being fanned by them - in fact I’m auditioning for them now. I shall personally select the winners. But where to find a slave?
“I’m also looking for a masseur. The other one is no longer with us.
What happened to him? “His fingers dropped off.”
Trouble with Freddie, he’s always concerned with his health. Still there are reasons.
On the last American tour a couple of gigs were cancelled due to throat problems.
“My nodules are still with me. I have these uncouth callouses growing in my interior (throat). From time to time they harm my vocal dexterity. At the moment however” (he allows himself a smile) “I am winning/”
How can he ensure the problem won’t recur?
“I’m going to go easy on the red wine dear. And the tour will be planned around my nodules. Actually I came very near to having an operation but I didn’t like the look of the doctor and I was a bit perturbed about having strange instruments forced down my throat.”
After the British tour the band go once again to America and thence on to Japan. Japan hold fond memories for Mercury.
With a faraway look in his eye he say “I will be able to be reunited with my bodyguard. I must stress we all had one each - our own personal bodyguards that is. Mine was called Hitami and was the head of the Tokyo bodyguard patrol. His entire job was to pamper and cossett me throughout the tour and make sure no harm was to come to my person. He was very sweet, he gave me this lovely Japanese lantern which I treasure.”
Is there any likelihood Queen may do some American gigs with Elton John?
“Well funny you should say that. We had an offer to do two gigs in L.A. but we were far too busy so we couldn’t do them. But although we’re all the same family Reidy won’t put us out as a package. He knows the difference in the audiences we appeal to. He wants us to be a force of our own in America to maintain what we have, and to do everything bigger and better.”
Mercury is not quite sure if Seattle is on their American itinerary. He remembers a young lady from that part of the world quite vividly.
“A young American tart” he starts getting very angry at the memory of it all, “came in and pilfered my contents … my jewels, bracelets etc and she was just evacuating the room when I accosted her by the elevator.
“I pulled her by the hair, dragged her into the room, emptied the contents of her bag in the room and everything but the kitchen sink came out. I retrieved my things, and said ‘get out, you Seattle shagbag.’
Why hadn’t there been any recorded material from Queen for so long? (Yeah, I know that was an abrupt change of subject).
“Actually that was the way we planned it dear, but we should have a single taken from this album out in October. The album comes out in November when we start our world tour. We’re planning on a much broader scale than before dear.”
Queen’s Brian May likes to keep his personal life to himself. Here, he talks to Barry Cain about these problems
Regal rocker Brian May hates being asked about his private life. The dazzling guitarist from Queen, guards his behind the scenes secrets like the crown jewels.
“I need periods when I can get away on my own and think my own thoughts without anyone looking at me. That way I become a product of what I think I am and not how other people see me.
“In the ‘showbiz’ approach to life you are always aware of what you are doing. Even combing your hair becomes a big planned event. All that is destructive to the music.
“But when I’m performing I’m giving myself to the public. In that capacity I belong to them and only to them. But if that carried on after I would cease to exist as a human being. I would be worthless. Dwindle to nothing. I could say this in so many different ways. There is a strain, a physical strain of being on show 24 hours a day.
“Everything would disappear on the end. It’s happened so many times before. Marilyn Monroe and Jimi Hendrix are just two examples - extreme cases maybe, but very frightening nevertheless. Keeping my private life to myself keeps me going as an artist.”
And his attitude seems to be paying off. Brian turned up for Mayday looking immaculate in a black velvet suit, white shirt and tie. He was sporting a closely cropped beard and looked ridiculously healthy.
He fondled his black curly locks as he spoke. He carefully rummaged over each question before answering. Articulate he is.
Kid gloves with the new album. “We’re still putting the finishing touches to it … but it should be out next month. A track from the album, which will be called ‘A Day At The Races’, is shortly being put out as a single.
“Although the music is in the same style as ‘Night At The Opera’ we are breaking new ground, going in new directions. You couldn’t describe ‘Races’ as a follow up with the connotations that phrase involves.”
‘A Night At The Opera’ and a ‘Day At The Races’ are the titles of two Marx Brothers films. What next, Animal Crackers? Why the link?
“It was deliberate. We all admire the Marx Brothers and while we were out in the States we met Groucho. He said he liked ‘The Opera’ album and when we told him the title of the new one he flipped. ‘The Opera’ movie was the big, lavish one in the Marx Brothers’ career. So it was with us and ‘The Opera’ album.”
The Stateside tour really crowned Queen’s career to date and placed them firmly on the throne of success.
“Well, it’s finally really happening for us over there. We really reached towards our peak with ‘The Opera’ and it was great to see it break into the US charts. It’s always hard to get accepted over there - especially on the West Coast. But we were having sell outs everywhere. There’s a different kind of response between British and American audiences.
“Here the fans are more reserved until they have reached a point where they can explode. In the States they are ready to explode at the beginning. They will give you anything you want … once you gain their favour.”
What did Brian think of that new phenomenon, the well worn punk rock which seems to be a total antithesis to everything Queen represent?
“The same applies in punk rock as with anything else,” he said. “It’s a generic name that doesn’t really mean anything. The best will survive, the worst disappear. Anything new is a good thing and some of the punk bands have really got something.
“It’s very natural for the kids to go for punk. Those bands, despite feelings in some quarters, want to give as much as possible to their audience. And so should any artist. It doesn’t matter what you play or whether you spend lots of money on lights and sound.
“You are playing to reach people, to generate magic. There are going to be more guitarists, more musicians who may start off as being something outside the whole music scene. They may seem like they have some new, eternal truth. But it still all comes down to playing to the people.
“You might use a million megaton bomb in your stage act. Okay. But the secret is how you use it. That’s what counts, how you actually present what you’ve got.
“Rock means many things to many people. It can be shocking, or it can be something out of a Busby Berkeley setting. And nobody wants to see you give a half hearted performance. You have to use everything within your range to give the people what they want.”
Image seems to play a very important part in Queen’s make-up.
“Sure we have this very flamboyant image. But if I thought I was just made up of a lot of glitter and glamour then I would give the whole thing up. I think our music is good. I think our songs are good. I think Queen are a good band.
“If I didn’t - what would be the point of going on?”
Freddie Mercury, Queen’s super sexy “leading man”, is as talented as one guy can be. This sultry, brown-eyed rocker was born September 5, 1946 (that makes him a Virgo) in far off Zanzibar, and later moved to India, and finally London, where he grew up. At the age of 14 he founded his first musical group, but Queen wasn’t formed till many years later, in 1970.
Freddie is more, though, than just a spectacularly talented musician and stage performer - he’s a fantastic graphic artist as well. Freddie graduated from the Ealing School of Art, and hasn’t let his training slide since becoming a rock superstar. Freddie not only attends art galleries regularly, he finds the time to design the stage costumes for the group!
Busy as he is, Freddie is actually a very private person. When he’s free he likes to spend time working on the lyrics and music to all those brilliant Queen songs, such as “Bohemian Rhapsody”, and he also spends lots of time working on keyboard and vocal parts. (He’s played piano since the fourth grade.) Freddie loves going to restaurants, listening to old Jimi Hendrix and Liza Minnelli albums and playing table tennis- and like his fellows Britons, he’s crazy about hockey, with playing or watching! Bet he looks great in a team uniform, too! Queen began a big tour in October that’s going to finish up in mid-December, in Los Angeles… double luck for Freddie Mercury fans, ‘cos that’s when a new Queen album is slated for release. Till then, why don’t you write to this sexy ‘n’ talented guy- here’s the address” ℅ International Queen Fan Club, 40 S. Audley St, London W1, England.
If punters queue when they’ve already got tickets…
…You’re witnessing A Phenomen. And such was the situation when Queen played the Edinburgh Festival - with supporters of The Young Pretender paying their man and his men the ultimate tribute… But what of the music? What of the future? Is our combination-clad Hero prancing up a blind alley?
It’s a freezing Edinburgh wind that whips up the bare slope by the Playhouse Theatre to torment the massed masochists who queue, strung out a full quarter of a mile, for Queen’s first British gig of 1976.
Masochists? Am I revealing my prejudice against the four wonderboys already? Actually, no: masochists because they’ve all got tickets already, and, while the pub the other side of the theatre stands almost empty, these kids are catching pneumonia for nothing in their impatience to reach their already allotted seats.
Baffled, photographer Chalkie Davies and I forsake the Scotch queue for the one inside the pub…
Later, in the Playhouse, Supercharge do their obscene thing to the delight of the packed audience. They’ve lost keyboardist Iain Bradshow, at least for tonight, and the consequent weakening in the band’s already clanky rhythmic mesh is disturbing. But that famed Scots audience does its nut.
Whether it’s the Bay City Rollers spot, the new punk rock leapabout or a completely serious, lopsided semi-funk song, the response is probably as strong as Superchange have ever had anywhere - and this is distinctly an off night!
The Liverpool layabouts troop off and the “We want Queen” chants strike up as scurrying roadies prepare a spartan stage: no clever backdrops and stuff, just Roger Taylor’s mounds of cymbals in front of that ever-present gong and Brian May’s mountain of AC30s.
Darkness...gaspo… a clashing gong… squeals of delight from the youth next to me...yer usual symphonic electronic atmospheric fanfare sort of thing… fading up into the Gilbert and Sullivan middle section of “Bohemian Rhapsody”...a welling up of dry ice...clamorous welcome from the audience..the youth next to me digs his elbows in my ribs and bounces on his seat in delirium…
And they’re on, racing straight out of the recorded “Bohemian Rhapsody” into a live rendition of the heavy riff section that follows. Lights flash madly, there’s smoke all over the place, the youth next to me is screaming with joy, as are 3,000 other lunatic Scotspeople. If explosions aren’t going off it feels like it, and I jot down what Freddie Mercury is wearing in an attempt to keep a grip on my reeling brain.
A white boiler suit, it says here. What professionalism. That’s like a war correspondent noting the time as the wall he’s leaning on gets demolished by a tank.
The relentless sensory bombardment continues as Queen bomb out of “BoRhap” - “just gotta get right outta here”, and how can I disagree? - into a harsh melange of heavy metal riffs plastered with flash harmonies, which in turn gives way to a fast intrumental.
Basically it’s rubbish, a theatrical synthesis of the grossest lumps of regimented noise the sometime power trio can contrive. As they thunder away Mercury emerges from the wings once more, looking like a frog in a balletic white skintight catsuit, and magisterially conjures up giant flashes that erupt deafeningly out of the stage.
The audience do likewise from their serried seats.
Queen have arrived, in more ways than one. Britain’s most successful group of the decade poutingly confront their loyal subjects.
The drift of the piece is obvious, maybe. The crowd loves ‘em and the critic hates them. Well, as it happens I quite like them, but generally that’s a fair picture of rock press attitudes to Queen: at the end of the gig, when the only possible view of the band involved standing on the shoulders of the person jumping up and down on the seat in front of you, I picked out two isolated, sour faces. Critics.
It wasn’t always like that: briefly, at the beginning of ‘75, Queen had a mass audience and critical respect. Dave Downing, whose newly published book, Future Rock, ranges incisively across the whole spectrum of heavyweight rock - Dylan, Reed, Bowie, Floyd, et al - reviewed “Sheer Heart Attack” alongside Sparks’ “Propaganda” in Let It Rock, January 1975:
“I find Ron Mael’s lyrics offensively lacking any conviction but pride in their own cleverness…. The arrangements conquer all in their streamlined assurance…. I have visions of a Gilbert O’Sullivan gone progressive….”
Change that to Gilbert and Sullivan and it could easily be directed at “A Night At The Opera”. However, Downing had this to say of “Sheer Heart Attack”:
“In stark contrast we have Queen’s third album….this is the best new band I’ve heard for a long, long time….Queen have convinced me that the division of rock into heavy soft has been largely a way of covering up the lack of energy in either. Whether rocking, ballading, whatever….they’ve got energy to spare. They have the old Beatles-style oomph.
“....Brian May’s guitar stalks Freddie Mercury’s vocals with as much power, and probably more ingenuity, than Ronno achieved in the heady days of ‘Panic In Detroit’....
“....Freddie Mercury’s voice is equally amazing, hampered only by the lack of lyrics to do it and the music justice. Some rock bands get hampered by depth-lyrics; I think Queen would just grow.
“But that’s a hope rather than a criticism. The superb gloss on this record covers the real gold, rather than, as I fear in Sparks’ case, just substitutes for it….”
Right, Queen at the time of “Sheer Heart Attack” were poised, ready to choose pretty much whichever direction and status they fancied. They had fought through the original drawbacks of being camp followers churning out rather grotesque Led Zeppelin rip-offs, to become a tough, stylish unit coasting on the back of a devastating single, “Killer Queen”.
Although they lacked Bowie’s way with words, the initial implications of the name still clung to them, and it seemed, listening to “Sheer Heart Attack”, that all they needed were some hot lyrics and a little discipline to instate them as not only the most popular Britrockers since Bowie, but also the best.
The first thing that hits you on that album, after a snatch of fairground FX is vibrant power as May leads the ensemble through the whirlwind of “Brighton Rock”. It explodes with a kind of seaside energy to match his mundane holiday romance lyrics, and stakes out May’s own preferred patch on the words map: storytelling.
That type of power is almost entirely absent from “Opera”, and even in “Brighton Rock” it gets horribly dissipated by a ridiculous guitar solo, May following himself up and down the scale in a meaningless exercise quite divorced from the rest of the number.
Another type of power also missing from “Opera”, is found in “Now I’m Here”, a Who-ish (“I Can See for Miles”) feel leading into brilliant beefy harmonies - very much in the mould of Roy Thomas Baker, Queen producer throughout their career, and now used to good use on Sunfighter’s “Drag Race Queen” - which wouldn’t get a look-in among all the breathy harmonies of “Opera”.
It’s great rock, strong and goodtime, apparently about Queen’s US tour with Mott the Hoople.
Elsewhere on “Sheer Heart Attack”, however, lay the seeds of Queen’s decline.
“Bring Back That Leroy Brown” was the first indication of their capabilities completely outside rock. As such it was immaculately performed, a camp minstrel pastiche, but unwelcome.
“Lap Of The Gods (Part One)” featured and unnecessarily ostentatious intro; “Flick Of The Wrist”, a murkily heavy song with a uplifting Baker buzz of a chorus, May’s guitar splattered all over the place in another facet of aggression that would soon disappear, was unfortunately a prototype for the appalling “Death On Two Legs”.
“Death”, the opening track of “ANATO”, is seemingly aimed at their previous manager to John Reid. Astounding dense musically, its lyrics are horribly strident and self-righteous, a blinkered, vindictive tirade that says more about the writer than his subject.
This sort of unflinching immaturity epitomises the Queen scene to some extent: infants on the loose with the weapon of technology, everything sublimated to technique.
“Flick Of The Wrist”, its predecessor, was similarly nasty - and apparently dealt with the same topic - but it succeeds where “Death” does not because the singing is sublimated to the music and, particularly, because the words are secondary to the melody.
In Edinburgh “Flick Of The Wrist” comes fourth, and it’s not as good as the record, possibly because they’re struggling somewhat on the faster songs.
They’ve already done “Sweet Lady” from ANATO”, Mercury singing well and the band thundering confidently. But suddenly Brian May’s guitar goes out of tune from all the crashing it’s received, and he drags the tempo. The final crescendo almost catches fire, but could do better.
Freddie toasts Edinburgh with champagne before he and May, moodily posed under blue spots, venture timorously into the medievally romantic “White Queen” from “Queen II”. Freddie goes to the piano for May’s curling, echoed solo, and we catch up with ourselves on “Flick”.
Here May’s problem is highlighted, he can’t get a decent uptempo solo together. The song is pounding along, but it’s like a cover-up, charging through seemingly pointless changes with throwaway solos, as if they’re attempting to dazzle you with workrate, a treasure trove of superficialities.
John Deacon plays a strong bass, holding up the song if necessary, and Roger Taylor, while seeming rather detached from proceedings up on his high riser, plays solid, varied drums. Mercury’s singing is superb, and on this might it’s mainly May whose playing isn’t quite up to scratch.
The medley comes next, and it brings a little warmth to the garish, posturing event. John Deacon’s “You’re My Best Friend” comprises the first part. Like “Misfire”, his semi-Caribbean pop-rocker on “Sheer Heart Attack”, it’s the friendliest track on “Opera”, and, while May and Mercury mess with every musical genre known to man, the only straight rock song apart from Taylor’s exhilarating “I’m In Love With My Car”.
Onstage, Mercury’s lead vocal floats beautifully on the band’s okay harmonies, and the audience clap along with the lazy rhythm. May’s guitar solo isn’t loud enough, and he hits a horrible chord at the end of it, but it’s a good break.
The two-note chime at the end of “You’re My Best Friend”, a similar device to the end of “Killer Queen”, leads into “Bohemian Rhapsody”.
On record, “Bo Rhap” epitomises the heavy-handed idiocy that bugs their last album. There are actually a few great touches in the rambling epic, notably the guitar break that follows the operatic bit, with its sudden halved phrases towards the end and the subtle way May’s fade out figure is continued by Mercury’s solo piano. But the rest is cumbersome and, where not plainly stupid, pompous and unimaginative.
For some reason Brian May seemed to have lost all feeling for rock on “Opera”, and the first guitar break on “Rhapsody” was the album’s sole unscrambled solo bar the period piece, “Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon”. And as for Beelzebub…
But the words of “Bohemian Rhapsody” are even worse than the music. The basic scenario would seem to be the romanticised alienation of a “poor boy” who indulges Mercury’s gun fetish by killing a man, leading to some kind of tug-of-war between, er, two forces. Life and death? Heaven and hell? Does Freddie know?
There’s that brief stab of “just gotta get out of here” defiance, but we finish on the fatalism of “anyway the wind blows…” A vague tale of idealised emotions that quite possibly means nothing at all.
Mercury’s songs do have a tendency to be vague to the point of meaninglessness - where they’re not utterly trivial anyway. Triviality I can take- “Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon”, for instance, where Queen’s technical skill turns a brief, twee ditty into a tour-de-force, with a great guitar break in what I think of as Brian May’s Mrs. Dale’s Diary style and one particularly wonderful harmony line on “there he goes again” - but the depths of pretension are plumbed on Mercury’s more “serious” songs.
These are actually fairly rare, but Mercury’s deepest opus outside of “Rhapsody” is probably “In The Lap Of The Gods” on “Sheer Heart Attack”, a portentous, monolithic singalong which I like a lot musically, but whose only discernible meaning is, like the conclusion of “Rhapsody”, that old vague predestination schtick.
The rest of Mercury’s oeuvre consists of live ballads (the melodically poignant, lyrically incomprehensible “Lily Of The Valley” from “Attack” and the more narcissistic, less focussed, meandering “Love Of My Life”, least memorable on “Opera”); bitchiness (that horrible duo, “Flick Of The Wrist” and “Death On Two Legs”); and weird period pieces (“Leroy Brown”, “Lazing”, and “Seaside Rendezvous” from “Opera”).
“Seaside Rendezvous” is pretty interesting stuff, illustrating the bizarre purism that prompts Queen to boast “No Synthesisers” on their album sleeves. A long, ‘20s-style piece, it’s fully orchestrated with instrumental passages by both brass and woodwind sections - performed entirely on vocals!
It’s astounding. Queen are perfectionists, as we all know; perfect confectionists. Even Mercury’s lead vocal is done, as on a lot of the album, line by line to get that bursting out of the speaker effect.
And therein lies their undoing, for they seem to have spent so long working on “A Night At The Opera” that they completely lost sight of the record they were making, coming out with shallow perfection without the least hint of the fire of “Sheer Heart Attack”.
However, returning to Freddie’s oeuvre: the next song in the Edinburgh medley, following on from “Bohemian Rhapsody” - and missing the operatics, thank god - is “Killer Queen”.
What a song. Although they take it slower than on record it still sounds slightly rushed, the ideas fall so thick and fast.
It has so many virtues that “Opera” lacks: interesting music (that got neglected on “ANATO” in favour of performance); brevity; flash (“Opera” is positively pedestrian compared to the swagger of this mid-tempo marvel); and it’s unpretentious in its triviality, something that none of the work - at - it - for - six - months - to - get - the - vocals - sounding - like - George - Formby’s ukelele trivia on “Opera” could claim.
Back live, it transforms into the noisy “March Of The Black Queen” from “Queen II” and thence to the end of “Rhapsody”. Kimono Taylor’s gong jerks us into a snazzy rendition of “Leroy Brown”, purely instrumental, and end medley.
“Brighton Rock” follows, red hot and awful tight, Taylor’s falsetto screaming over the top, until…
Oh no, it’s this guitar virtuoso bit, where the others go off and leave May to fiddle about with his patented delayed action devices. The man has little idea of stage craft standing awkwardly on Freddie’s promontory and dashing back to his amp every now and then to twiddle another knob. The performance is clever, but he’s hardly playing great music - enough’s quite enough.
At points during this intermediate solo May hits something good - a glassy, Japanesey section, a mellow, symphonic bit - but his individual slot is plagued by the fault that haunts Queen and devalues what good stuff they do play: they’ve got no taste. Don’t know good from bad.
They can perform, and they’re very bright boys (according to Larry Pryce’s unwonderfully written and uninformative Official Biography Of Queen, Brian may or may not have a PhD in Astronomy, Mercury a degree in graphics and illustration, Deacon an honours degree in electronics, and Taylor a degree in biology) but as for taste…
As if to emphasise that point, Taylor returns to do his dumb trick with lager on his tomtoms and they lumber into a bunch of monotonous, archetypal heavy metal riffs.
Next song, “‘39”, has the four down front - May on acoustic and Taylor on tambourine and bass drum.
My, they look well-coifed. Mercury demonstrates his fine voice again.
A newie, “You Take My Breath Away”, from the album currently known as “A Day At The Races” - half-finished - shows Freddie still pludding the fragile ballad vein, a hesitant, precious ditty accompanied by lone piano, old fashioned and unexceptional.
But then it’s Brian’s big moment, composition-wise: “The Prophet’s Song.” In Pryce’s book May explains that the plot came to him in a dream: “...a dream concerning revenge, only in the dream I wasn’t able to work out what it was revenge for.”
So out of the astronomer’s subconscious comes this Noah’s Ark parable seemingly set in the present, with a ship full of humans apparently heading off into space.
Musically it’s “Old English”, according to Roger Taylor, the rock equivalent of a Prussian military division marching to the Crusades, marred by the most fatuously self-indulgent acapella nonsense imaginable in the middle.
If Queen were chameleons to begin with (Zep meets Bowie), they’re even more that way inclined now, changing personality completely from one song to the next (George Formby meets Cecil B. DeMille meets…) It’s a treatment to which May’s songs lend themselves.
“Good Company” is a very English tale, another vague moral story, done Formby style, with an extraordinary guitar ensemble imitating a complete trad jazz band, another labour of months for a trivial piece of flash.
“‘39”, the acoustic song, seems to be another slice of science fiction, an obscure folk tale which disguises its meaning frustratingly well. Nice feel, though.
Onstage “The Prophet’s Song” is launched amid billows of dry ice and taped wind. As they muscle their way through the heavy chorus I keep expecting them to bump into one another in the confusion, but they manage not to. Anyway, the others clear off when Mercury goes into his ridiculous echoed vocals workout, a one-man Swingle Singers, appalling narcissism.
The audience, to their shame, seem entranced by the spectacle of the great poseur and his myriad voices. Nauseating.
At the end of the song to revolving globes descend and a tape of jangling piano speeds dizzyingly. The globes rise - UFOs taking off?
Anyway, it gives Fred a chance to change into a grotesque black outfit, and suddenly we’re back into the flashing lights/strobes.racing adrenalin scene again with “Stone Cold Crazy”, very fast and heavy, May playing a good scientific solo.
Freddie goes pianoing again for “Doing All Right” from “Queen”, slow and laconic with waterfalling guitar and lovely harmonies, but that gives way to a lousy solo over an unexpectedly Brazilian riff and more unnecessary changes. What are they trying to hide?
“Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon” is neat, and then the crowd get “Keep Yourself Alive”, which they’ve been baying for. It’s an okay song, but they do it terribly heavy and insult the listener with their soulless, declamatory attempts at communication.
Queen almost boogie on “Tie Your Momma Down”, also from the new LP, the most straightforward song so far with a slide break that veers towards a 12-bar. Freddie postures crassly under the rather inept lighting.
“Liar” from “Queen” comes in on a Bo Diddley beat, and as it gets into typical Queen HM jaggedness May slings out a real nasty phrase that sneers at the ineffectual stuff he’s played all evening.
As it dissolves into aimlessness it becomes obvious that Queen live are some great songs, an image and a lot of noise. Their heavy metal is no better than the likes of Nazareth, unfocussed, with no real dynamics outside of structural party tricks. A cover-up job for essentially lumpen music… yet they are capable of so much more.
“Lap Of The Gods” picks things up, its relentless chorus rising and falling on good chords - a rare commodity for Queen, as is its stable rhythm - and as the stage vanishes beneath dry ice they kiss goodbye.
Now this I don’t believe. Never in my life, outside of the likes of the Rollers, have I encountered such a hysterical response to a band. It’s like a riot, kids charging about in the smoky darkness, and if Queen don’t get back there soon this lot are going to knock the place down.
The encore is the great “Now I’m Here”, followed by their “Rock’n’roll” medley of “Big Spender” and “Jailhouse Rock.” They really shouldn’t do that. Mercury’s got no idea about getting down and having a good time, and his attempts to get audience participation are laughable. It’s scrappy stuff, and even their rock’n’roll is spoilt by too many changes!
As for where Queen go from here, the two songs they played from the next album were undistinguished, and can give no hint of what it will contain.
Nowever, it’s pretty obvious they’ve driven so far up their particular blind alley that there’s virtually no hope of them ever fulfilling the potential that was there in “Sheer Heart Attack.”
They could have been giants of real music, but it seems they are destined to remain the most perfect indulgence in rock. Masters of style, void of content.
Queen were forced to curtail their debut American tour by almost a month, due to the illness of guitarist of Brian May. The band had been supporting Mott The Hoople in a week-long season at the Uris Theatre on Broadway, and May collapsed after the final gig at this venue.
He was flown home suffering from acute hepatitis, and has to remain in isolation for a month. This means that the group will be inactive until early July, when they hope to resume recording sessions. A spokesman said: “They are all bitterly disappointed, specially as their ‘Queen II’ album is now climbing the U.S. charts.”
Here is an article on Brian written just after his recovery from hepatitis & just before the release of Sheer Heart Attack. I’d never seen it. Cool stuff!
I transcribed this article since it was a little hard to read, enjoy!
October 26, 1974
Queen Tragedy Strikes!
Brian May
Queen’s Guitarist Just Recovered From A Lengthy Illness Tells Disc How It Felt To Be On The Brink of Retirement
“Tragedy Strikes Queen! Queen Disaster on American Tour!” If they weren’t exactly the headlines of a few months ago, they could have been. For on the crest of an enormous success, half way through a triumphant American tour the group had to come home to Britain.
The reason for that sudden end to their tour sat right in front of me, looking a little pale and wan but nevertheless recovered from that violent attack of hepatitis which incapacitated him for months. In fact Brian May was looking a lot better.
“I feel a lot better - the doctor says I’m 100 per cent fit. The only trouble is that I’m so tired. We’ve been in the studio, and as you know with this band that means 24 hours a day. But the album’s finished - we finally cut it early yesterday morning. Rest now? You must be joking. We’ve got the weekend and then we start routining the act on Monday. After all, the start of the tour is only a couple of weeks away….”
Brian’s so obviously back into the swing of thing now it’s hard to believe that for all those weeks there was doubt whether he’d be fit enough to finish the album or tour.
“It certainly was a bad time but my illness brought me back to myself. I went through a lot of phases - some where I was terribly influenced by things that happened to me and others where I felt as if I was the only person in the world.
“When I was in the hospital I found plenty of time to read the press cuttings that some of friends of mine had been keeping for me, and that really depressed me. It was about that time I began wondering whether it was worth going on with music and the group.
“The thing about hepatitis is that it takes away all your drive and I was left feeling as if I didn’t have anything to contribute to. Some times I felt as if it just wasn’t worth it, either.”
That’s an understandable enough feeling when you’re in the hospital as a result of an infection caught on tour. But worse was still to come.
“When they found out I had an ulcer, I really thought that was the final straw. You see, instead of getting better after the hepatitis I just got sicker and sicker, and eventually they found out what was wrong. I was very down then.
“Eventually I decided to do anything as long as it wasn’t to do with music. I surrounded myself with other things, read lots of books and got away from it all.
“So when I did come back to music it was purely for my own pleasure. I’d just pick up my guitar and mess around - something I haven’t done for a long time. Before I’d been so involved in what the group was doing that there just wasn’t any time for anything like that.
“That brought me back to music and I think I’m more committed to it than ever. Music seems like my whole life now, whereas before I often thought about going back to my studies one day.
“The other thing that helped a lot was all the kind messages, cards and presents that people sent me while I was ill. It was so kind of them, and meant so much to me at that stage. I suddenly began to believe again that people are really nice. It made such a difference.”
Happily (and hopefully) that time is now gone and Brian’s come back to Queen with a fresh lease of life and a new perspective on some things.
“When I came back I was able to look at Queen as if I was an outsider - I’d never realized what it sounded like or how much the group had to offer.
“They’d got so much done without me - they were really good about it. All I had to do was go in and put my bits on. There’s more guitar on this album than there’s been on any of the previous ones. The only thing that really suffered from my illness was that I have about three and a half songs on the album.
“That doesn’t really matter, because I play my best guitar on other people’s songs. If I can hear the whole thing I can hear what to do, whereas with my own things I’m too close to them.”
With the addition of Brian’s contribution “Sheer Heart Attack” was finished.
So what is his verdict?
“It’s not bad, Neddy!”
What?
“That was one of our catchphrases while we were recording. Things get a bit silly and you have to laugh when you’ve been in the studio mixing for about sixteen hours. That was one of Roy’s phrases, but in the end everybody was saying it.
“I think it’s a successful album. We’re not trying to prove anything any more as we were at the time of ‘Queen II’, and so it’s a lot different. That album was a unified statement of what we were at the time, whereas this is much more varied than anything we’ve ever done.
“It’s an album with a sense of humor and a sting in the tail…. Every track is different, some are very heavy while others are much more melodic. There was a hint of that on ‘Queen II’ and here it’s much more apparent.
“This is the first album on which we sound like a band rather than four individuals. I think it’s the experience we’ve gained on our tours beginning to show now. The whole thing gels together.
“Of course we’ll be doing some of the numbers on the tour, I’m not sure whether we’ll be doing Killer Queen because it could be rather an unexciting number to stage, but we’ll certainly do some of the others. And there’ll be all the old favourites,” he added, smiling.
To all those who said Queen had had it when Brian collapsed, all I can say is to watch this space for a hit single, a hit album and another great tour. And welcome back to Brian, the quiet man of Queen who’s now an even more positive quarter of their strength.
Swallow mercury and it’ll burn your insides. Listen to Mercury and it’ll blow your mind.
That’s if you like Queen’s new album of course, which judging by the single Killer Queen, is something of a more thoughtful and melodic departure for the band. It’s the first album since the globally high-selling Queen II and the first single since Seven Seas of Rhye, in fact it’s the first of anything since the band abruptly returned from the States and Brian May returned from his hospital bed.
May’s illness, the first installment that is, hit him in the middle of the band’s American tour and caused its postponement with another month of dates to play.
The second installment of Brianitis struck while the band were recording backing tracks for the new album. But throughout it all the band have remained patiently loyal, and, in retrospect, perhaps thank the illnesses for putting on ice the rapidly advancing phenomenon of over-exposure.
According to leader Freddie Mercury it’s also left Brian a better person, freeing him of something that had laid unknowingly malignant for some time.
“Brian had the illness for about six years without knowing,” explained Freddie. “But now it’s all cleared up he’s changed completely.”
Brian grunts at the suggestion, giggles and bashfully disagrees.
Freddie continues: “At the time he fell ill we thought what a loss it was because we went to the States to follow-up the Queen II album which had taken off there, and the illness hit at the height of the tour.
“The cancellation of the tour was a shock. It was the first time we had been to the US and if we hadn’t gone they’d have probably thought we never existed, but I’m glad Brian didn’t fall ill in the first month of the tour.
“Anyway, we thought it would be the ideal time to work on the album, so we spent about two weeks writing songs, then laid down the backing tracks when Brian fell ill again.”
The album was finally finished the night before this interview in fact, and what a change of style. Gone is the ‘hit it straight atchya’ approach in favour of a much subtler advance.
“Basically we are still a rock band,” admits Freddie. “That’s the first album. The second was a bit different, and those who have heard the new one don’t even think it’s us.
“Y’see the style change has always happened. We go on the pretext that you should stick to the formula that works so the new phase is the old style, plus.”
Plus what?
“Well, we do things as they take us. It’s just a phase, just a way of doing things. In the studio we use all the techniques available because they are there.
“There are so many directions our music can follow.”
Before the band went off to America, the Queen bubble in this country was rapidly inflating. A tour with Mott and then dates on their own had earned them chart singles and albums. There seemed no end to it.
But after Brian’s illnesses and the band’s prolonged stage absence, does anybody remember Queen? It seems so, and it appears that absence certainly does make the heart grow fonder.
“We’ve been off the road for so long it will be interesting to see what happens when we get back, but I think the fans will remember us judging by the way tickets have been going.
“We’ll be including tracks off the new album obviously on stage, plus a combination of the other two albums, new lights and a whole new stage show. We’ll be approaching it in a different spirit because everything is different, we’ve got a new road cres everything. We want to please everybody and have a groove.”
When the UK tour and subsequent Continental tour are over, the band will be returning to the States to pick up the pieces. Freddie reckons that the Queen II album, which made the US Top 30 would have made the Top 10 had their tour continued, so it’s important he gets back there.
Presumably, as the Americans’ picked up on Queen earlier on they will follow suit with the new material. But it’s going to be hard work, as it will be here.
Two British TV appearances in a week can’t be bad, but such confusion has the new single caused that they were on Top of the Pops and the Whistle Test in the same week.
But whichever way you look at them, whether as a heavy rock band, or as another glam-rock boogie outfit the fact remains that they are popular. And for those die-hard fans who have waited a long time for Queen’s return, worry not. Freddie has a final word for you.
“I don’t want people to think that we’re suddenly giving up the past - we’re adding to it.”
