Queen: “Freddie Didn’t Want Us To Stop”
In exclusive interviews in the new MOJO magazine, Brian May and Roger Taylor reveal more about the music behind the movie of their lives.
IN THIS MONTH’S MOJO magazine – in UK shops from Tuesday, May 21 – Queen founders Brian May and Roger Taylor talk about the watershed moments in their lives as music makers. For instance, how criticism of their debut single, Keep Yourself Alive, fed into their approach to the Queen II album’s career-changing Seven Seas Of Rhye.
MOJO 308, starring Queen, King Crimson, Creedence Clearwater Revival and more.
“Everything deliberately happens in the first 10 seconds,” May tells MOJO’s Mark Blake. “Guitars, harmonies, vocals – and it worked. Radio picked up on it.”
May and Taylor discuss the influence of Led Zeppelin, The Beatles and – less obviously – The Temperance Seven on Queen’s music. They also talk about the decisions that led to the modified chronology of the band that appears in the Bohemian Rhapsody movie.
“Freddie’s moustache is in the wrong place in documentary terms,” concedes Brian May, with a smile. “But for telling the story we want to tell, it’s in the right place.”
A 13-page, in-depth MOJO cover feature touches on all the key points in Queen’s career, addresses the film’s staggering success, and includes dissections of 20 of their most ground-breaking songs plus an essay on the Essence Of Queen by the Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins.
And as they gear up to embark on a mammoth July-August tour with singer Adam Lambert they’re even leaving the door open (well, only very slightly open) to the idea of a Bohemian Rhapsody sequel.
ORDER YOUR COPY OF MOJO 308 NOW
Also in the issue: our covermount CD is a 50th Anniversary King Crimson collection co-curated by Robert Fripp (who is also interviewed inside); Creedence Clearwater Revival’s stellar 1969; The Flaming Lips revisit The Soft Bulletin; Floyd’s Roger Waters and Nick Mason share a stage; Barry Wom on why the Rutles really split; and more!