For decades, one of the most universally successful, influential, and beloved rock bands has been Queen. And as the band’s popularity is soaring once again due to the box office success of the blockbuster film Bohemian Rhapsody, singer/songwriter Kevin Michael Giordano has picked the perfect time to unveil his must-hear tribute to Queen’s late/legendary frontman, Freddie Mercury, with his new original song, “God Save The Queen”.

The song is being released via Subcat Records, and can be purchased here.

“God Save The Queen” serves as a fictional yet possible perspective about how Freddie may have been dealing with the end of his life (Freddie died on November 24th, 1991 at the age of 45, due to bronchial pneumonia resulting from AIDS). The song is in the style of the mid-seventies Queen period (A Night At The Opera, A Day At The Races, and News Of The World), and lyrically, includes reference to Freddie’s longtime girlfriend, Mary Austin, and longtime partner, Jim Hutton. A lyric video for the song can be found below.

Great care was taken in attempting to recreate Queen’s trademark sound, including the guitar tracks which were recorded very dry with many overdubs (this included performing it all with a coin instead of guitar pick - as Brian plays with a sixpence coin). As many as 35 vocal tracks were utilized, as the vocals (all sung by Giordano) were recorded similarly to the approach Queen took in the studio whereby the tracks were sung in groups of 3 voices doubled two or three times. The harmonies have added ninths and dissonants along with emphasis on the highest harmonies emulating the style of drummer Roger Taylor.

The vocals and guitars on the song were performed by Kevin Michael Giordano, piano by Andy Rudy, bass by Joe Arcuri, and drums by Gary Iacovelli, with recording engineering done by Ron Keck. Giordano is a musical performer, composer, conductor and teacher of many styles including rock, pop, jazz, classical, bluegrass, country, and broadway musicals. His undergrad and graduate degrees are in violin performance along with jazz guitar studies. He has performed around the United States and Canada with various symphony orchestras and jazz and rock ensembles.

And with the release of “God Save The Queen”, Giordano has expertly replicated the sonic hallmarks that have made Queen one of the greatest - and most instantly recognizable - rock bands of all-time.