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And I sat in hospital for quite a while thinking about all this,
but with all these wonderful memories of the tour going around in my head,
and that's when I wrote Now I'm Here.
Now I'm Here was sort of, in a sense, a chronicle of that tour.
And I remember thinking, "I wonder if I'm ever gonna get out of here
"and actually be able to play this."
Eventually we did. I have many memories of that time.
I remember the boys, they were still working on.
And I think we'd done the backing track for Killer Queen
and they brought it in with some harmonies on,
and me, being precocious boy, went, "I don't like them. They sound too harsh."
Now, I don't know if I was right or I was wrong,
but Freddie went, "Yeah, I think you're right, and we'll go back and do them again."
So, they actually waited until I came out to redo the harmonies and we redid them.
So, Killer Queen would have sounded very abrasive.
And I don't know if that stuff is still around. It may be, I don't know,
but we redid them and they became
a bit more melodious, I suppose.
But, you know, the boys came in...
I also remember they brought me in a toy, which was the very first video game.
It was like a box like this
with a *** at each end, like this, and all you could do was...
It was tennis, I suppose.
All you could do... You had a paddle at each end,
and this dot went across your TV screen, and you go...
And I remember thinking, "This is gonna catch on."
So, I remember playing that in the hospital.
The awful thing was
I'd had this operation done. There's a big long scar from here to here.
They don't do that operation any more,
but, obviously, they opened me all up and did the whole thing on me stomach.
And the worst thing is when you laugh...
You know, when you're trying to recover from this stuff,
you do not want to be laughing, 'cause it's the most painful thing in the world.
So, you know, the people who thought they were funny
would come in and tell me jokes.
So, I was grateful to have this videogame, so I could just play without laughing,
but amuse meself, in a sense.
And I did some painting in there.
I remember I did some water colour painting in there.
It was a bit of a long haul back to health.
But all the time, the songs were going around in my head as well,
and I was just hoping that I would get back out there
and finish the album, which we eventually did.
I remember that Freddie was very considerate and very caring,
and he must have known that I was sitting in hospital thinking,
"I wonder if they're gonna go on without me."
And I remember him coming in and saying, "You just get better, dear."
He said, "We'll wait for you. Doesn't matter how long it takes,
"we're not gonna do anything without you. Just get better."
So that was a very nice thing that Freddie did very early on.
And, yeah, Freddie was like that.
He could be kind of abrasive at times, but there was a lot of caring in that man.
And he was incredibly loyal to us and incredibly loyal to me, I remember.
And very supportive.
You know, I can remember him... You know, he would surprise you, Freddie.
I remember coming in one day late to the studio,
and Freddie was sitting there with a big smile on his face.
And I said, "What have you been doing, then?"
And he said, "You wait and see."
He said, "Listen to this, darling. Just listen to this."
And he put on this tape and it was a compilation
of every guitar solo that I ever played,
and he'd woven them into some kind of tapestry.
I wish I still had the tape, I don't know where it is.
But he said, "I wanted to immortalise your solos."
We just had a few minutes, you know. And it was a great little thing.
He said, "Here you are." And he signed it for me.
And it was a very nice thing to do, you know.
Just to sort of make me feel appreciated, I guess, you know.
I first met Queen when I was a solicitor
at Harbottle and Lewis in London, and I was a partner.
And I was running, what was then, a very fledgling music department.
And Queen had actually met
my partner, Charles Levison, before me.
But Charles had left the firm and they set up an appointment to see me.
Harbottle and Lewis was a show business firm,
and we were used to fairly bizarre clients.
But I remember when Queen arrived, the receptionist telephoned me and said,
"Mr Beach, Queen are here." And I said, "That's fine.
"Would you like to send them up?" And she whispered down the phone,
she said, "Have you seen them?"
And I said, "Well, yes." And she said,
"Well, one of them has got nail varnish on."
And I said, "Well, really?" "Yes. Black nail varnish."
And I said, "Well, fine." And she said, "But it's only on one hand."
And I said, "Don't be silly. Come on, send them up."
And they walked in, and I've always remembered, Freddie walked in first,
they sat down and Freddie kicked straight off by saying,
"We've recorded three albums,
"our manager's just bought his second Rolls-Royce,
"and we're on 60 quid a week, so something's wrong."
And I got involved in negotiating them out of their contract
with the Sheffield brothers.
The B-side thing is a whole kind of nest of worms.
B-sides.
Yeah, yeah. Well, they're classic...
Well, okay. It doesn't happen now, but in those days,
a single had two sides to it.
It's a piece of plastic, it's a piece of vinyl...
On this side is a record, which probably
every radio station's gonna play, if you're lucky.
On the other side is a track which, probably, almost nobody is gonna play,
and nobody's gonna care about,
but it's just on there because the record has two sides.
You know, it goes back years and years and years.
Occasionally, you'd have a double A-side, so people can play both sides,
but normally it was nothing.
Now, what happens is, when it comes to getting paid,
the record royalties for writing the tracks are split 50/50
between the A-side and the B-side, which is clearly
an unfair situation, but that's the way it was.
So whoever got the B-side got a free bonus.
He got a great wodge of money from nowhere.
And there was always some kind of resentment that would go on.
The classic case, of course, as Roger will tell you himself,
is I'm In Love With My Car was the B-side of Bohemian Rhapsody.
So I'm In Love With My Car became one of the biggest earners,
in terms of a song, of all time.
So we were all a bit like... You know.
And it became a joke, you know,
and Roger probably got unfairly victimized for it,
but he enjoyed it, I think. I think he enjoyed spending the money.
So it's fine. But we were always kind of aware of that stuff.
So we tried to share out the B-sides, so that we would...
'Cause there's no other reason of having a B-side except...
As I say, because it's possible to put a track on there.
'Course it all changes later on
because CD singles are different. You can put quite a few tracks on them.
And these days, a single seems to be a track that you download and that's it.
So, it's a long forgotten nest of worms,
and I'm quite glad that it's over, really.
Do you remember that? The first time you saw the harlequin outfit?
It was probably... It was in America, wasn't it?
I can't... No, I can't remember the very first time, no.
No, but the first one was just white I think.
We called him Kermit. That was his Kermit outfit.
I remember the look on the road crew's face was...
They were astounded.
He came out in ballet pumps and a Kermit...
A white, satin Kermit the Frog...
Got to admit, he had some nerve, didn't he?
We started it off in England, actually.
We had some time off,
and I'd always wanted to do something a little bit more that was more sort of disco-y,
but this was very uncool at the time, you know.
It wasn't the sort of thing that...
But, luckily, in a way, it came out quite heavily.
But I started it off with, actually, a completely different set of lyrics.
It was all about cowboys,
which was where the American phrase, "Another one bites the dust" came in, really.
But then I thought that was very silly.
I never even got to show that to the band. I decided to change it before then.
So I, you know, changed the lyrics altogether.
And we recorded it in Munich, a lot of it, really,
and Freddie helped out a little bit.
You know, he'd say, "You need something a little bit different there."
But it was basically ultra, ultra simple, really.
In fact, we used a drum loop.
You know, for the thing, 'cause it was just so simple,
and that's all I wanted all the way through. Something just solid, really.
And that was the way of doing it, really.
'Cause it wasn't the sort of music we played at all, really.
And I think the band was as surprised as I was
that it became so successful, I mean, especially in America.
When I did start with the band, Freddie and Brian used to be the main song writers.
They used to write individually, though, most of the time.
And then Roger wrote one, really.
I think he wrote one on the first album.
So, Brian and Freddie were the strong force on the compositional side,
but Roger had lots of other ideas on behalf of the overall image of the band,
and how to actually be a successful rock band.
I mean... There was not really a leader as such,
because no one was really, actually, stating everything that could be done.
And then, as years went on, we all started to contribute
on the song writing side,
which helped a lot to sort of balance it out a bit.
You know, there was a different input as well.
'Cause, I mean, obviously, everybody goes through stale patches
where you can't come up with much in the way of ideas.
And then, if there's four of you writing,
then, usually, there's some strength there somewhere, which helps a lot.
We've all had hit singles. I mean, that's really been quite a balancing factor.
And that's very rewarding in a way,
'cause I think if I'd just been, say, a bass player all my life with the band,
it wouldn't be so satisfying to sit here now, and that would have been my input.
'Cause I only consider that as part of what I do.
Actually writing songs and also being involved in the decision-making processes,
or arguments or whatever, it is nice.
It really feels that you're part of our own destiny, really.
We were in New Zealand...
For our one big gig in New Zealand, in a big football stadium,
or whatever it was. Rugby stadium.
And Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet was there
and Fred had been up to all sorts of tricks.
And then the two of them got completely arseholed in the hotel.
And we suddenly realised, when we were in the dressing room,
that Fred was completely pissed.
Because he put his tights on back to front.
And literally, the music was sort of going, you know.
And we had to... They were just frantic.
So two people were holding him up, like a chicken bone,
and they were holding him upside-down by his feet,
'cause that's the only way we could get his tights off and get them on again.
And, you know, it's very, very funny.
The first, sort of, half-hour of the gig was terrifying for the three of us,
because we were playing like Trojans to make up for Fred's deficiency.
Normally, he was so together, and he was just so not together.
He was playing the intro for Somebody to Love, I think it was,
and he was just going...
In the end, he just banged the piano with his head, like that.
And somehow pulled it together,
and just, you know, pulled it all together.
By sheer force of will.
But it was very, very funny for about half an hour.
Were you ever annoyed?
Did you think, "What's he done that for? Come on."
No, we were just so worried he was gonna collapse.
But he was a tough guy.
Did Hadley come on stage with you?
Hadley came on at the end,
but couldn't remember a single word of Jailhouse Rock.
But there we are.
The Magic album, actually... Kind Of Magic was a strange album,
because, really, it started out as being a semi, sort of, movie score album.
And then we decided to sort of tip the balance
and make it really a, sort of, Queen album.
No, I don't know what prompted Russell to get in touch with us, but he said,
"Come down to a screening theatre in Soho
"and have a look at this and see what you like."
And we went and we saw the opening scenes and I think the love scene in the Highlands,
and we thought it was magnificent, visually.
You know, it was nowhere near finished by then,
and we just thought, "That's really great. We could do some good stuff on that."
And that inspired Brian to write Who Wants To Live Forever?
And then I wrote Kind Of Magic off that, again, nicking the line from the film.
And, yeah, that was quite a nice experience, actually.
A lot of people thought Freddie wrote Show Must Go On,
but, mainly, I wrote it.
I did a complete demo for The Show Must Go On,
including that very high part, you know, "On with the show!"
And I said to Freddie... 'Cause Freddie always used to say,
"Brian, you're *** making me tear my throat to bits again."
So, I remember apologising in advance.
I said, "I've done it in falsetto. I don't know if it's possible to do it full voice,
"but, obviously, that would be great."
And he went, "For God's sake." He said, "Roll the tape."
A couple of vodkas, and he went for that line,
which is outstanding for him to reach those notes.
He's reaching heights he's never done before.
He's just finding the energy from somewhere.
And the voice on The Show Must Go On is incredible.
I'd never heard anybody sing like that in my whole life.
And he rose to every challenge and seemed to reach
heights that he never even reached before.
But we were already very conscious that you had to keep giving him things to do,
because he kind of threw himself into being
our mouthpiece and the vehicle for our work. 260 00:15:26,123 --> 00:00:00,-001 But out work became so much more about him. �