QUEEN Guitarist Brian May - "We Reference (Freddie Mercury) Every Day"
May 1, 2008, 16 years ago
According to Rollingstone.com, last year, vocal legend Paul Rodgers (ex-BAD COMPANY), drummer Roger Taylor and QUEEN guitarist Brian May gathered at Taylor’s estate outside London to begin recording Queen’s first album since 1995’s Made in Heaven. (Queen bassist John Deacon - who hasn’t performed with his bandmates since 1997 - opted to not come out of retirement for the project.) As the newcomer, Rodgers has had to bridge the gap between his blues-rock background and Queen’s lush, grand sound. “We’re learning a great deal from each other,” May says. “When we started talking about harmonies, Paul went, ‘Oh, really?’ ‘Cause that hasn’t been his thing. It’s a new world for him.”
The first single will likely be 'C-lebrity'. Other tracks include 'We Believe', an “epic in Queen’s traditional style,” according to May, and 'Call Me', which he says sounds like it would fit right in on Queen’s 1974 classic, Sheer Heart Attack.
The new album, The Cosmos Rocks, is the first the band has recorded without Mercury, who passed away in 1991. “I feel like he’s still very much part of the band,” May says. “We reference him every day. He always really enjoyed Paul’s work. He used to have a go at me in the studio when I tried to have him sing bluesy stuff. He’d say, ‘Brian, you’re trying to make me fucking sound like Paul Rodgers, and I can’t do it!’”
(Photo: Jill Furmanovsky)
