Saturday, March 23, 2013

‘We still would have been making Queen albums’: Brian May ruminates on what might have been



Credit: Somethingelsereviews

Guitarist Brian May says Queen’s record-smashing musical “We Will Rock You” is something Freddie Mercury would have loved. It’s just one of the many ways, the guitarist adds, that the late frontman remains a part of their lives.

Mercury died of AIDS complications, but not before establishing his own solo career. May and fellow co-founding member Roger Taylor have also been active away from the Queen franchise. May says they likely would have continued on in this way, even had Mercury lived. He’s just as certain, too, that Queen would still be making original albums.

“I think life would have been a little bit similar to the way it is now,” May tells www.celebrityradio.co.uk in the attached video. “We always came and went out of the mothership, as it were. Queen was our great vehicle, but as time went on, we certainly would go out and do other things, and then come back. I think it still would have been that way. I’m sure we still would have been making Queen albums. It was always such a stimulating experience to work together, and bounce ideas off of each other. I do miss that.”


In Mercury’s absence, Queen has toured with Paul Rodgers and Adam Lambert. But it’s the musical “We Will Rock You” that has most consistently galvanized fans over the past decade. The show has become the longest running musical ever at the Dominion Theatre located in London’s West End — besting “Grease.”

“Freddie is so much in our lives, it’s incredible,” May adds, “and in every aspect, in particular with the musical, which Freddie would have loved, I’m sure.”



Sacha Baron Cohen is taking singing lessons for his movie role as Freddie Mercury.





Credit: TheSun

Insiders on the biopic — due to be filmed later this year — say Sacha, 41, has not yet decided if his voice will feature in singing segments. But the Borat and Bruno star has been working hard to copy Freddie’s posh accent.

 He has also pored over hours of Queen concert footage and private videos of Freddie in reflective and sombre mood. Queen guitarist Brian May said that Sacha is “the driving force” on the film project.
A Hollywood source revealed: “Sacha is a huge Queen fan and is focused on getting Freddie’s mannerisms, style and speech perfect."

“He is working on building his vocals. It is a uphill task, because Freddie has such a unique power and tone.”
Sacha recently wowed fans with his vocals in the film version of musical Les Miserables.
That movie’s director — King’s Speech Oscar winner Tom Hooper — is being lined up for the Freddie film.




Brian May Interview.


Thursday, March 21, 2013

Anglo-Indian actor James Floyd Interested In Playing Young Freddie Mercury Again



Credit: ContactMusic

The young star played the tragic singer, who died in 1991, in British Tv movie The Best Possible Taste, and he admits he has been approached to play the young Mercury again in the new film project.

He tells Wenn, "I actually met with the film company that is making the movie in Hollywood. I don't know what part of Freddie Mercury's life they're doing, but if they're doing his whole life, then yeah I'd love to play a young Freddie. I'm pretty sure Sacha is still attached and he's playing the older Freddie."

But Floyd hopes he isn't asked to sing, he adds, "I sing a little bit but I don't sing like Freddie. His voice was operatic."


Friday, March 15, 2013

'Les Misérables' Tom Hooper for Freddie Mercury film



The Les Misérables director will reportedly reunite with Sacha Baron Cohen on the film, according to Deadline. Baron Cohen has long been attached to star as the legendarily flamboyant Queen frontman.

Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, Graham King and Tim Headington are attached to the project as producers.

The film was previously planned to shoot in 2011, but has been held up by contractual complications. Mercury's former bandmate Brian May has most recently said that the biopic should arrive in cinemas in early 2014.

Hooper is yet to announce a project to follow on from Les Misérables and 2010's The King's Speech.

Watch a clip of Freddie Mercury and Queen at Live Aid below:





Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Queen talk first gig and band early days



Credit: Matt Parker

Tuesday 5 March saw Brian May and Roger Taylor unveiling a PRS Heritage Award plaque at the site of Queen's first major London show, Imperial College, in London.

Imperial was a popular early haunt for the band as Brian May attended university there and even used it's noticeboard to recruit drummer Roger Taylor. The Heritage Award marks the location and date (18 July, 1970) of the band's first proper London show in the college's Union Hall and was presented to the band by Guy Fletcher OBE, chair of the UK performing rights society, PRS For Music.

Following the ceremony, the band sat down to an open press Q&A and discussed the show, selling popcorn and commandeering lecture theatres for the band's first rehearsals.

"That [gig] was pretty special because I was on the entertainments committee and we used to book all kinds of acts," said May. "We booked Jimi Hendrix and it was only a couple of years later that suddenly we were playing in that room. It was packed and I couldn't believe it, it had been such a dream. It was one of the first times where I was playing to people that actually knew our material."

"We had so many experiences up there – not all of them repeatable," expanded Taylor. "But I remember seeing great bands, like Mott The Hoople, T. Rex, Procol Harum, so that room was part of music history, really."

Although it's now thought by both band and fans to be something of watershed moment for Queen, at the time it seems that nerves weren't an issue.

"I think we were just at that age where you are often full of a – probably misplaced – confidence," continued Taylor. "We believed in what we were doing."

Brian: "We were young and we were full of ideas and we thought we were better than anyone else, precociously. We just went out to conquer the world and it was foolish and ridiculous, but somehow it worked out."

As well as being the site of their first major show, the union was a hang-out and a rehearsal space for the burgeoning rock gods.

"I remember as if it were yesterday, meeting Roger in a little room next door," said May of his first jam with Taylor. "Roger sat down and started tapping the edges of his drums. I said, 'What are you doing?' And Roger said, 'I'm tuning my drums!' The people that I'd played with at that point had basically just hit things, but Roger was a craftsman. As soon as he started to play, something amazing happened. It sounds corny, but it really happened instantly because we just gelled."

After a period of jamming with different bassists and frontmen under the moniker of Smile, Taylor and May eventually joined forces with the inimitable Freddie Mercury, then known as Farrokh Bulsara.

"Freddie used to come and see Roger and I play here and, basically, criticise [us]," revealed May. "He'd say, 'This is very good, but you should do this. You should be an act. You should give it everything you can.'"

Again using the college as his base, May called in a favour with a lecturer and found rehearsal space in one of the university lecture theatres, even playing some tiny showcases gigs in the classroom.

"We invited people from the record business hoping they would give us a record deal," said the guitarist. "We'd play and we made our own popcorn and orange juice and sold it. Those were the very first gigs with Freddie, so there's a whole load of history. [Even near where we're sat] there was a sandwich bar where I used to go and be afraid to talk to people - everyone becomes a rockstar because they have to!"







Sunday, March 3, 2013

QUEEN Guitarist Dr. Brian May Talks About Possible Collaboration With Adam Lambert...



Twitter - March 3, 2013: QUEEN Guitarist Brian May talked about the possibility of a future collaboration with Adam Lambert: