Is This The Real Life? (60 page)

Mercury once said, ‘We’ll just carry on until one of us drops dead, or is just replaced. I think if I suddenly left, they’d have the mechanism to replace me.’ Laughing, he’d added, ‘Not so easy to replace me, huh?’ Perhaps not. With the end of the tour in South America, the rumours began that Queen + Paul Rodgers were no more. ‘I don’t know where anyone got that idea,’ protested Brian May, writing on his website. ‘We just need a rest.’ In April 2009, though, Rodgers informed
Billboard
that his tenure with Queen was over. It was, he insisted, an amicable split. The singer had now signed up for another reunion, with Bad Company. ‘It was never
meant to be a permanent arrangement,’ he said. ‘I think we made a huge success of it actually.’

Before the Q+PR tour, Brian May had admitted: ‘Part of me is saying, “Why not stay at home and enjoy the life you’ve created?”’ But this is what I do, and who knows how much longer we’ll be able to do it?’ Back at home, though, May had a new non-musical project to be getting on with. His next book,
A Village Lost and Found
, was due for publication. Co-written with art conservator Elena Vidal, it explored the work of nineteenth-century photographer T.R. Williams, a specialist in stereoscopic images. The guitarist had, it transpired, spent years trying to identify the village that featured in many of Williams’s pictures. It was a painstaking labour of love. While the press marvelled at this rock star’s most un-rock-starry pastime, to those that knew May’s working methods it made complete and perfect sense. As their old engineer Gary Langan recalled, ‘I can tell tales of Brian May spending a week on a guitar solo.’

Away from Queen and his scientific research, the vegetarian May was also busy campaigning against fox hunting and badger culling, firing off angry broadsides to a wide array of a wide array of journalists and MPs, and expounding his views on his website, where the comments often made for a compulsive, if on occasions bemusing read (‘I’m not an extremist … but I’ve decided my guitar straps won’t be leather any more’).

November 2009 saw the appearance of
Queen’s Absolute Greatest
: the hits, repackaged yet again, complete with a second disc on which May and Taylor ruminated about the songs. They proved themselves to be witty, self-deprecating commentators, the ice in their glasses chinking in the background, as they shared fond memories of Freddie Mercury and the many misadventures they’d had along the way.

Contrary as ever, the duo seemed to forget the subject of their last single, ‘C-lebrity’, to appear on both the reality TV music show,
The
X-Factor
, and its US counterpart,
American Idol
. ‘I’ve not always been positive about shows like this,’ countered May. ‘But there is no doubt that it offers a door to some real genuine talent along the way.’ On
American Idol
, they performed ‘We Are the Champions’ with the
show’s finalists. But it was Adam Lambert, the eventual runner-up, who truly impressed them. ‘He’s the most phenomenal singer,’ said Taylor, ‘and we would like to do something with him.’ There was speculation that the 27-year-old Lambert would become Queen’s next singer, though nothing has come of it. In the meantime, May and Taylor threw themselves into tirelessly promoting
We Will Rock
You
, as the jukebox musical opened in new territories around the world. In summer 2010, Queen left EMI Records after thirty-nine years. With 300 million album sales worldwide, and their back catalogue again up for grabs, all the signs pointed towards a high-profile and highly lucrative fortieth anniversary in 2011.

In the spring of 1964, Farrokh Bulsara and his family had arrived from Zanzibar in the West London suburb of Feltham. Almost thirty-five years later, in the winter of 2009, Queen fans, inquisitive locals, Freddie Mercury’s mother, Jer Bulsara and Brian May gathered in Feltham’s anonymous shopping centre to watch the unveiling of a memorial to Freddie Mercury.

There was so something both incongruous yet strangely fitting about the tribute. The square plaque, depicting a red, white and gold star, set into the ground inside the unprepossessing mall, may have honoured one of the most famous rock stars that had ever lived, but it was also a reminder of the unremarkable, thoroughly suburban world from which he’d come. The plaque acknowledged the four years Farrokh Bulsara had spent in Feltham, after which he’d fled the coop for a nomadic lifestyle, moving between houses and flats in London, leaving Farrokh and even Fred Bulsara Behind, and becoming, to the world at large, ‘
FREDDIE  MERCURY, MUSICIAN,  SINGER AND SONGWRITER
.’

‘Freddie, you pursued your dream,’ said Brian May at the ceremony. Through Mercury, May and the rest of Queen had also been able to pursue theirs. Yet while many of their heroes and contemporaries could never survive the loss of such a crucial band member, Queen’s resolve to carry on marks them out as astonishingly and uniquely resilient.

‘We’ll never stand still,’ said Roger Taylor recently. ‘Queen is still alive in Brian and myself. We will do the best we can.’ Whether performing with fellow rock stars, talent-show hopefuls, the cast of their own worldwide musical or commissioning actor Sacha Baron Cohen to star as Freddie Mercury in a forthcoming Queen biopic, the intrepid duo shows little sign of stopping. As long as there is someone willing to take the wheel, the juggernaut that is Queen in the twenty-first Century will continue to roll.

Very special thanks to my wife Claire and son Matthew for too many lost weekends; the ever-patient Graham Coster and all at Aurum Press, particulary Lucy Smith for picture research; my agent Rupert Heath and friends and co-conspirators, including Phil Alexander, Martin Aston, Dave Brolan, Dave Everley, Pat Gilbert, Mark Hodkinson, Dave Ling, Kris Needs and Peter Makowski.

This book draws on my own interviews with Brian May and Roger Taylor conducted between 1998 and 2008 for
Q
and
Mojo
magazines. Also my own interviews with and contributions from: John Anthony, Mark Ashton, Judy Astley, Louis Austin, Mike Bersin, Douglas Bogie, Mick Bolton, Caroline Boucher, John Brough, Rick Cassman, Tony Catignani, Chris Chesney, Patrick Connolly, Geoff Daniel, Dave Dilloway, Rik Evans, Brian Fanning, Fish, Morgan Fisher, Nigel Foster, John Garnham, Christian Gastaldello, Alan Hill, Peter Hince, Paul Humberstone, Ian Hunter, Gary Langan, Geoffrey Latter, Renos Lavithis, Reinhold Mack, Aubrey Malden, Mark Malden, Fred Mandel, Alan Mair, Laurie Mansworth, Bob Mercer (RIP), Barry Mitchell, Adrian Morrish, Keith Mulholland, Bruce Murray, Jack Nelson, Martin Nelson, Gary Numan, Chris O’Donnell, Denis O’Regan, Jeff ‘Dicken’ Pain, Ray Pearl, Rick Penrose, Glen Phimister, Mick Rock, Steven Rosen, Subash Shah, Norman Sheffield, Brian Southall, Ken Scott, Chris Smith, Billy Squier, Ray Staff, Chris Stevenson, John Taylor, Ken Testi, Richard Thompson, Andy Turner, Kingsley Ward, Susan Whitall, Terry Yeadon and Richard Young. Many thanks to everyone that spared the time to talk to me. Extra special thanks to: Adrian Morrish, Dave Dilloway, Peter Hince and Mark Malden (author of the currently unpublished book,
Freddie Mercury: From the
Inside Out
) for going the extra distance on my behalf.

Numerous magazine articles and interviews proved invaluable during the writing of this book, including many published in
Q
,
Mojo
,
Classic Rock
,
Uncut
,
Record Collector
,
New Musical Express
,
Melody Maker
,
Sounds
,
Disc & Music Echo
,
Creem
and
Rolling Stone
. For the best online resource for Queen information, go to: www.queen.com, www.queenzone.com, www.queenconcerts.com, www.queenarchive.com, www.queencuttings.com, www.brianmay.com and Rupert White’s impeccable blog, queenincornwall. Thanks to all webmasters for their help.