After Queen singer Freddie Mercury’s demise in 1991, the legendary rock band appeared to be completed. However in 2004, guitarist Brian Might and Roger Taylor teamed up with former Free/Dangerous Firm singer Paul Rodgers underneath the title Queen + Paul Rodgers. In 2008. Basic Rock journalist Harry Doherty – who first interviewed the band of their 70s heyday – met with the band to speak about their new album, The Cosmos Rocks.
Again in November 1975 I used to be granted an viewers with Queen. It was shortly earlier than the discharge of the band’s magnus opus, the career-defining A Night time At The Opera. I witnessed a bunch fussing and fretting – over what they’d in all probability name the approaching escape of stated file – a lot in order that they went again within the very subsequent day and began remixing the entire blasted factor.
Nearly 33 years later, I discover myself in a state of déjà vu, however this time in a parallel universe. With Freddie Mercury sadly lengthy departed, John Deacon gone, having taken on the mantle of enigmatic recluse, Brian Might and Roger Taylor at the moment are on the eve of releasing the primary Queen album in virtually 13 years, this time in collaboration with the legendary blues-rock icon, vocalist and founding member of Free and Dangerous Firm, Paul Rodgers, becoming a member of them to create The Cosmos Rocks, underneath the banner of Queen+Paul Rodgers.
And once more they appear to be dealing with the rapid future with the identical type of inventive wariness, though this time they don’t have cash worries.
“Effectively, the time across the launch of A Night time At The Opera was a interval of disaster for us,” remembers Taylor. “Our backs have been proper to the wall financially. We had offered loads of information and never been paid some huge cash – the previous, previous story actually. In order that album was our huge shot. Had it failed, we in all probability wouldn’t have been round for much longer.
“Aside from that monetary disaster, I suppose it’s the identical in a method with the discharge of The Cosmos Rocks. Nonetheless, I don’t suppose individuals actually anticipate something with this. However as then, now we have obtained all this new materials, and now we have proved that we’re a inventive drive and entity, and that this can be a viable operation.”
For the start of this “viable operation”, now we have to maneuver again in time to September 2004, to the Fender Stratocaster anniversary live performance at Wembley Area when Brian Might discovered himself on stage with Paul Rodgers – because the worthy substitute on guitar for one in all his personal heroes, the late Paul Kossoff – on Free’s All Proper Now. From these humble, chaotic beginnings, the regeneration of Queen would start…
“We got here off stage figuring out that the chemistry had flowed. It simply appeared so pure to try this. It was Paul’s girlfriend, who’s now his spouse, Cynthia, who checked out us each and stated ‘One thing occurred on there, didn’t it?’ She stated ‘All you guys want is a drummer’, and I stated ‘Really, I do know a drummer!’. It began off as a really small factor, as in ‘let’s do one thing with Paul and see what occurs’.”
Sooner that you can say ‘we are going to rock you’, a month later, Rodgers was becoming a member of Might and Roger Taylor on the induction of Queen into the UK Music Corridor Of Fame, with All Proper Now joined by We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions in a barely much less chaotic however memorably historic mini-set.
“There wasn’t actually that a lot to it, apart from’That is attention-grabbing’,” displays Brian Might, bedded down within the automobile park of an enormous industrial park in Tower Hill, London, the place Q+PR are about to start out the second part of rehearsals for his or her forthcoming world tour. “However I’ve to say there was a second there that was important for me: when Paul pitched into We Are The Champions. It was so apparent that he was making it his personal. It wasn’t something like Freddie would have finished and but it carried the spirit of the tune which Freddie had written. I instantly thought, ‘It is a lot extra than simply enjoying this tune; this can be a new world that we are able to go into’.”
Rodgers was reaching the identical conclusion. When it’s recommended to him that he in all probability thought this may be merely an attention-grabbing, however passing, experiment, he’s fast to disagree: “Slightly bit greater than that really. After we have been rehearsing the songs on the UK Music Corridor Of Fame, we had the janitors – and all kinds of different individuals who had seen all of it – popping their heads in and saying ‘what the hell is occurring in there?’. After we created pleasure there, I assumed that was fairly indicative of what we may have.”
The phrase quickly leaked out to promoters that Queen and Paul Rodgers would possibly contemplate touring collectively and presents poured in. When Might known as Rodgers to ask how he would really feel about doing a tour, doing a set consisting of half Queen and half Rodgers catalogue (Free, Dangerous Firm, The Agency, solo stuff), he was able to take it to the following stage. However the singer insisted that the set ought to be “Queen-heavy” as they hadn’t been seen for therefore lengthy. And he was very conscious that it was nonetheless an sudden collaboration.
“I all the time admired them from afar, however I can’t actually say that I went out and acquired all their information or knew all about them,” admits Rodgers. “If somebody had known as up out of the blue and stated ‘How do you fancy doing this?’, I might have been slightly extra hesitant, however as we had really performed collectively, I knew that it labored on a really thrilling stage. The easy uncooked energy that was coming off that stage was so thrilling that I used to be very prepared to do extra and see the place it took us. And that has actually been the motivation behind all the things that we’ve finished. There was a mutual feeling of ‘This feels good, let’s do extra’.”
And so it got here to cross that Queen+Paul Rodgers (extra in regards to the much-debated moniker later) set off on a tour that was simply to start out with a number of dates and blossomed right into a world tour, taking in Europe, North America and Japan, with the reveals quickly reaching the grandeur that Queen have been famed for. They performed a “best-of-both” set.
“Effectively, it needed to be, didn’t it? We didn’t actually have any new materials then!” laughs Roger Taylor. And now they’ve been collectively for 3 years.
“All of us went into it with an open thoughts,” provides Might. “The important final analysis was that it was natural; it wasn’t one thing that was shoved collectively to get us again on the market or rejuvenate us. It simply occurred as a result of we obtained on with Paul and we have been enthusiastic about working with the man.”
However from dipping their toes into the water, then their ankles and knees, Queen and Paul Rodgers have been quickly as much as their necks in it. And aside from that, it was nice enjoyable.
“We took it one step at a time,” Taylor explains. “It was actually a case of ‘Effectively, that labored, let’s do this.’ There was no grasp plan. No person actually wished to commit themselves that a lot. However I’ve to say that I’m actually delighted to search out myself at this stage in my life the place we’re. It’s very thrilling.
“Clearly, we hoped it could develop and looking out again at a type of first gigs on the Brixton Academy, it was fairly tough and prepared. I keep in mind it being over loud and we actually hadn’t refined the method of working collectively. You’ve obtained to get that chemistry down, and it doesn’t all the time occur, however there positively is a good chemistry between us. Paul’s given us a critical blues edge that we didn’t have earlier than, and I prefer to suppose that we’ve given him a walloping nice wall behind him.”
Might factors out that Rodgers had knowledgeable him the day earlier than that this was the longest he had ever been in a band, and that features Free and the preliminary glory interval of Dangerous Firm. The large take a look at got here because the tour was ending, and the consideration of what would occur subsequent. It was after a gig in Vancouver that every one involved have been saying their good-byes.
“Effectively, on these huge excursions, you’re away from house for months and months and there does come a time whenever you lengthy to be house,” Rodgers explains. “So by the point everyone has reached the final present, they’re very a lot on the flight house of their minds. However on this tour, the final present was in Vancouver, and it was one of the best present we did – it was completely scorching. We got here off and everyone hugged and it was a case of ‘I’ll see ya, for certain! We now have to do some extra.’ We weren’t certain what that ‘extra’ can be, however the pure step was to enter the studio and see what occurred. Brian really stated to me ‘Let’s do extra, I don’t need this to finish’.”
What would that “extra” be although? To followers and critics alike, Queen carry an enormous weight of heritage with them, and whereas most Queen followers first endured earlier than having fun with the collaboration with Paul Rodgers, there have been few who even of their wildest goals felt {that a} Queen with out Freddie one thing that would by no means, and would by no means, occur.
Paul Rodgers was definitely conscious of their status and the sanctity that surrounded it too: “Effectively, the manufacturing on their information was actually second to none. The readability, the good guitar enjoying, the power of their songs was all the time very highly effective. They have been extraordinarily distinctive, working in a different way from everyone else. You must admire that in a world that may get slightly samey. They have been by no means ever samey. They’re full-on distinctive. And I feel that’s additionally what occurred once we went into the studio.”
Typically, Might and Taylor haven’t any hang-ups about previous, current or future regarding the Queen legacy. “Unusually sufficient, we in all probability take into consideration that stuff lower than you’d think about,” says Might. “Everyone asks that query and they’re conscious of this legacy. However for us we simply do what we do and what feels proper. Possibly that sounds over simplistic.”
It does. No person wished to see them develop into their very own tribute band, and there was a little bit of concern that that really would possibly occur.
“Completely! The world which we reside in is kind of small actually – Roger and me and Paul and some individuals who work round us. Outdoors this boundary there may be this big interplay with the world which typically we’re conscious of, however for more often than not we’re simply doing what we do as a result of we like it.
“There’s all the time that pursuit of one thing fantastic; you already know, the factor which you’ve by no means fairly grasped earlier than. That’s the wonderful thing about rock. There’s by no means a boundary. There’s all the time some place additional. The fervour for that by no means goes away. So we don’t ask questions of ourselves a lot as the skin world does. We simply permit ourselves to get on with it.”
Nonetheless, they did face two risks in taking this from being a enjoyable touring venture right into a band with a brand new album and all of the seriousness that that step entails. Firstly there’s the hazard of it being a conceit venture, and secondly can they be the identical Queen model as earlier than?
“I don’t suppose we considered it in these phrases. I can inform you that,” Might counters. “We simply thought ‘Let’s make some music and let’s make it good and let’s see how far we are able to push issues’. It’s the identical because the previous days with Freddie: ‘How far can we go in any route? Can we discover one thing that has by no means been discovered earlier than?’ That type of factor…”
After which there was the title. Rodgers initially had doubts: “I’ll be sincere, once we began out I assumed perhaps we’d name ourselves Might Taylor Rodgers, or one thing like that. However I didn’t thoughts Queen+Paul Rodgers as a result of I feel it has a great identification.”
Was there an enormous dialogue about it?
“Probably not, when Brian known as me up and stated how ‘Do you fancy doing it as Queen+Paul Rodgers?’, I took a deep breath and went ‘Whoa!’ However stated, ‘Let’s give it a try to see it really works.’”
Taylor says he didn’t actually know what they’d name themselves. “We simply thought it was going to be us and Paul and it could become what it turned out to be,” he shrugs. “It was an natural course of. There was no total grasp plan actually.” And so far as he was involved, the “us” was Queen.
Ever the pragmatist, Might merely solutions: “It’s what we’re. We needed to name it one thing.” Dialogue over.
Might, although, was ready to spend a little bit of time contemplating the skills of Rodgers and Mercury and the contrasts in working with each throughout the band framework.
“That’s a really troublesome query to reply. There are various similarities between Freddie and Paul and there are a lot of attention-grabbing variations. Nevertheless it’s exhausting to place into phrases, simply emotions actually,” he says. “Paul is a really inventive man and in case you toss something at him, he’ll throw it again at you in a method that you simply didn’t think about. And that’s precisely what Fred would do, lateral considering was one in all his nice property.
“Having stated that, there are variations in the way in which the connection labored. Considered one of Freddie’s nice skills, unusually sufficient, was diplomacy. He was excellent at getting Roger and I, for example, to kind out our variations and work as a crew. Why would Paul even know that that was a part of what went on with us? Step by step, he has develop into a part of that.
“Three is an odd quantity in a bunch. You probably have two people who need to do one thing and one doesn’t, then individuals can get pulled a good distance in a sure route. Ultimately we needed to get to know one another very properly to get this factor to work. However Paul introduced some very other ways of working to us. He’s very instinctive. You sing one thing for Paul, a tune you’ve obtained in your head. He’ll course of it for some time and received’t sing it in any respect till he feels it and understands it after which interprets it in his personal method. So what you get again from Paul is – I’m tempted to say a blues interpretation as a result of blues may be very a lot part of what he’s – but it surely’s greater than that. Engaged on the album with Paul was an actual voyage of discovery.”
Plainly many old-school Queen followers have, or not less than had, the misguided impression that Paul Rodgers had “lucked out” in getting the gig with the band, forgetting, after all, that the vocalist outdated Queen in some ways – rock historical past, chart success and the like.
“I feel that was a reasonably broadly held notion. The actual fact is that Free have been well-known lengthy earlier than we have been,” Taylor emphasises. “Paul was one in all Freddie’s position fashions in a method. You’ll discover loads of singers citing Paul as being the blues benchmark for rock vocalists.”
“It’s a really attention-grabbing territory we’re marking out now,” continues Might. “It hasn’t been deliberate. The hyperlinks are there, although, very a lot with us, as a result of Free was an important affect on us within the early days, and significantly an affect with Freddie. He actually regarded Paul Rodgers as a hero. These guys have been stars earlier than we have been twinkles in one another eyes. Free have been, and are, an important inspiration. Hearth And Water was one in all our reference factors together with The Beatles and Hendrix.”
And so, for the previous two years, Queen have intermittently been holed up for a month at a time engaged on authentic materials at Roger Taylor’s fully-equipped house studio in Surrey. The one different attendees have been the technicians who would assist them file. As soon as they’d made the choice to make an album collectively, evidently Taylor turned venture supervisor. The drummer was the one that may pull all of it collectively and current the packages to his companions after they re-convened. Brian Might was busy ending his PhD in astrophysics, amongst different educational pursuits (“He’s solely been engaged on it for 100 and thirty years,” jokes Taylor). Paul Rodgers lived on the West Coast of Canada and had different musical commitments aside from his part-time Queen gig. They’d no bass participant, so these components have been divvied up between Might and Rodgers, each proficient gamers of the four-string.
Every of them would carry the early levels of what they’d written to every session, though in the long run, everybody’s contribution was deemed worthy sufficient that every one tracks can be credited as written by Might/Rodgers/Taylor, one thing that by no means occurred with the “previous” Queen.
“, all musicians are buzzing spherical with concepts, on a regular basis,” stated Rodgers. “The query is all the time ‘Will your concepts gel with the opposite musicians and make a observe?’ And we discovered very excitingly that we may.”
After all, they have been all wealthy sufficient to know that if what they have been doing was a load of shit, they might simply flush it down the bathroom.
“One factor I completely knew for certain was that it could not be shit,” laughs the singer. “Due to the calibre of the musicians I used to be working with in Roger and Brian, and as I do know what I can do, I knew it could be one thing particular.”
Taylor agrees: “Completely! And a number of the stuff didn’t work. So these songs didn’t make it.”
They have been additionally conscious that it couldn’t be like something they’d finished earlier than, both as Queen or Paul Rodgers, who feedback: “We had no preconceptions about going into the studio – ‘simply carry your concepts’. And the factor that I like about working with Brian and Roger is that they’re very authentic musicians. They don’t strategy a tune with the angle of simply placing guitar and drums on it. They’ve an strategy of ‘How can I put one thing on this that has by no means been finished earlier than even by me. And I’m like that too.’”
They’re buzzing about the truth that most of the backing tracks got here from one-takes reside within the studio, on songs like Voodoo.
“On that observe, I used to be simply enjoying an acoustic guitar, Roger obtained on the package and Brian was simply enjoying his guitar, and we simply jammed. And that went on the file just about as we recorded it. And that’s probably not what you anticipate from Queen, is it? Different songs have been full-on manufacturing with large harmonies, however every tune on the album is totally different.”
It was fairly comparable in some methods to Queen’s previous studio methodology, Taylor reveals. “I used to be capable of do loads of preparation after which the others may decide and select after which we might all develop the tracks. It didn’t matter who had the primary concept, all of us developed the songs between us. It’s a actually good course of, very inventive. A correct group course of!
”That is totally different from earlier than however the identical, type of. The factor with Queen was that we have been an actual group. Everyone labored just about on all the things. Sure issues have been little bits of flights of fancy or songs that concerned just about one particular person. However loads of it was completely the group, and everyone firing in concepts and everyone working as a unit. Like now.”
I keep in mind at that Night time At The Opera interview in ’75 within the rapid aftermath of recording the album, Might appeared a bit distant, not fairly certain if he had delivered the standard of labor he may have. Insecure, virtually. As we talked in regards to the recording of The Cosmos Rocks, he gave the impression to be considering an excessive amount of once more as he recalled the method of creating the album. He had been immersed and engrossed in his PhD which he would work on on his trusty laptop computer whereas on tour. However as soon as they’d set deadlines to truly launch the album, issues turned rather more critical.
“An album is a dreadful factor to do actually,” Might ponders. “It’s such an enormous a part of your life and it all the time will get painful at a sure level. And this was no exception. We had loads of enjoyable, we did a number of periods over the course of a few years, however when you’ve obtained a deadline and you already know it’s a must to ship, it turns into very critical certainly. The identical previous issues rear their heads. It’s very troublesome. On this case, it’s three totally different artists with paintbrushes making an attempt to color the identical canvas.
“You get to some extent finally the place some actually troublesome choices need to be made. It’s a democracy. That’s all you’ll be able to say and that’s the way in which it was within the previous days as properly.”
Queen had all this labored out of their former life, I imagined. How did Might react to the brand new third man?
“Paul’s nice. He’s very mellow and really properly adjusted. He’s a really advanced human being. He’s good to work with, little doubt about it, however after all, he’s additionally nonetheless a hero to us in some methods so maybe we’re very well mannered to him. He’s nonetheless ‘Paul Rodgers’. We get the moments the place it’s, ‘Oh, that’s Paul Rodgers’.
“Roger and I – for various causes – are very well mannered to one another as a result of we all know the way it can go. We’re like brothers and we are able to struggle badly; so we have been all very well mannered to one another for a really very long time and maybe we didn’t air the issues that have been worrying us. And, after all, there comes some extent the place instantly the concerns develop into essential and it’s a must to carry them out, after which it’s a troublesome time. However that’s a part of the inventive course of, and everyone knows it. You may’t actually make an album with out that painful burden, so we buckled right down to it and labored our method by means of all of it.”
So it was painful?
“Sure, the final bit was, significantly for me. All of us have lives as properly and to be sucked in to that extent that you would be able to solely eat and sleep and be within the studio is a painful factor in itself. It grinds you down after some time. The ultimate mixes which is the place 1,000,000 choices are made; the sequencing of the album, deciding who did what. It’s like being in a brand new group. This stuff include each bunch of boys that come collectively. Finally you suppose, ‘How a lot of that is me?’, ‘Am I represented?’, ‘Am I being marginalised?’ All these infantile considerations come up. You must be very grown as much as get by means of it.”
However Brian is aware of he’s made an album to be happy with. As does Roger. As does Paul. As would John. As would Freddie…
“I feel it really works properly as a result of we’re not making an attempt to recreate something that any of us have finished earlier than. We’re making an attempt to be ourselves collectively, and that creates a completely new entity,” says Rodgers.
“I assume whether it is profitable, we’ll have the ability to say, ‘Effectively, there you go, we are able to nonetheless do it. That was a part of the driving drive actually, that we are able to nonetheless be a cogent drive,” provides Taylor. “I consider The Cosmos Rocks as a Queen album with a twist. Very a lot so, as a result of Queen has been my life, my occupation. Most of my skilled life has been this band. I’ve virtually obtained it stamped by means of my core, like a chunk of Brighton rock. It’s what I do, and we’re fortunate sufficient that persons are nonetheless .”
“We discovered that we may make a great noise. It comes from easy issues like that,” concludes Might. “We had the gear in ourselves to generate a great joyful sound. It’s our love of rock’n’roll, and it’s nonetheless there, thank God. After all, there are robust components of all of our previous, of Queen, Free and Dangerous Firm. Nevertheless it’s a brand new band.”
Initially printed in Basic Rock subject 125, October 2008