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If you look at the last bit of existing footage of Knebworth,
John throws his bass guitar, very angrily, into the amp.
I think John was going through a difficult time on that tour.
And I think it was personal reasons, mainly.
And he was very volatile.
And Madrid being one of them.
And very thirsty.
John had a little cocktail bar behind his amplifier.
Complete cocktail bar, actually.
Mainly *** in it.
And he had... His roadie used to whip him up a few cocktails through the show.
So, by the end of the show, he was flying.
I think because of the madness in our personal life
and because of the fact that we were saturated in our art, if you like,
you know, we were completely immersed in Queen at that point.
It led to us being something exceptional.
But in a sense we had paid the price.
We were all in turmoil in our private lives by then.
We'd lived through the touring life and remained quite sane for a long time,
but the cracks finally had sort of opened into huge fissures,
and all our marriages were breaking up.
It was a fearsome time for me
because throughout this madness of Queen,
my priority in life had been being a family man
and my kids and my marriage were everything to me.
Divorce was something that other people did.
But when I fell in love with this woman who was not my wife,
there was absolutely no way I could shake it.
Well, Anita was an amazing force to come into my life and still is.
She came to Wembley Stadium to see us
and, of course, my relationship with her had to be secret at that time,
which is not nice really.
But she came and took her seat
and a large part of the audience got up and applauded her.
And she said to me, "I want this. I want to do this."
And she said to me, "I want it all and I want it now."
And something clicked up here.
This is your first studio album since 1 986, why the wait?
The wait from 1 986, I think, really, was after we did the tour,
we were all absolutely exhausted and, basically, we didn't want
to really work together or see each other for a while.
And then towards the end of that second year,
we met up and Freddie suggested we try a little time in the studio.
We were refreshed, having two years off, and that helped get the album off to a good start.
These are some of our best studio times.
We'd made the decision that all the songs we write will be credited to all of us.
So it kind of releases a bit of positive energy in us.
They became closer and closer, without any doubt at all,
and the sharing of writing credits was a major breakthrough.
Ladies and gentlemen, of course, the top band of the '80s are Queen.
I'd just like to say, after all these years, contrary to what you might think,
we do very much appreciate that you still appreciate us
and we hope to be performing some more miracles for you very soon
in 1 990 and beyond. Thank you very much.
With Innuendo, somebody suggested that they should play live
and they thought that was a good idea so we set them up in the Casino hall.
The studio itself was linked with 54 mic lines going down
and we could record groups in there.
They actually created a song live, by improvising until it became a song.
And that's how it started.
We were working abroad again in Montreux studios,
I think Freddie had then decided he actually loved Switzerland
and he didn't want the studio to be under the lake,
which is where he wanted it before.
There's some very good stuff on Innuendo and it was quite live, as well.
I think a bigger studio is good for us.
There was a feeling of sort of re-exploring our youth, almost,
buried in there somewhere.
And it was fun.
We were working really flat-out on everybody's ideas
and not being possessive about things.
So, there's quite a liberation there.
I think we were all throwing in different ideas,
there was a lot more teamwork.
But people still get very precious about the songs they feel like they started off with.
Freddie was singing down there live, as well, with them
and there was absolutely no impression from me that he could have been sick.
He was full of beans and singing away.
The new album is great, I think it's the best one for quite a long time.
There's nothing in it that I'm embarrassed about.
Very often you put out an album and you think,
"Oh, but I wish we'd done this."
This one, I feel quite happy about and I can listen to it without any problem.
I like it a lot.
Actually, we had some fantastic times.
I think we got over our stupid going-out- the-whole-time business, you know?
And we were a very close-knit group, like a family,
and we would work in the studio until... Usually, until Freddie got very tired.
Will there ever be a Queen tour again, as far as you can say now?
I can't answer that. It needs four people to say yes
and, at the moment, we have only three saying yes.
So when we get the four to say yes, there will be, I hope, another Queen show.
We had recently signed a deal with Hollywood Records in America.
And it was a major deal, Hollywood are owned by Disney.
Freddie was, now, not well
and I was deeply concerned
that we had to go out and tell our record company in America
that Freddie was, effectively, dying.
There's only two bastions of the old British empire left.
One is the Queen Mary, which you're having this party on,
and the other one is us which you have just delightfully bought.
So we're thrilled to be with you and look forward to a great and sparkling future
under the Disneyland, or should I say, Hollywood sign.
-Good luck, Hollywood. -Okay.
-Bye. -Bye.
Maybe once more?
Oh, ***. All that crap again?
Mack and I were invited to a Queen party on the Queen Mary here.
We went down and, I believe, Brian was there with Roger.
Usually, Queen was always there together.
I called John up to see what was going on.
I said, "Is something wrong with Freddie?" And he wouldn't tell me.
Look in the camera.
I flew out to Los Angeles to meet with Michael Eisner, the head of Disney,
to explain that Freddie was now seriously ill.
And it was whilst I was out there, that I got a call
that it looked as though Freddie was reaching his last days,
and it was now getting very serious.
So the press release that Freddie and I had agreed
to be released at the last possible moment, was put out.
And, in fact, Freddie died 24 hours later.
So we got this press release out, announcing to the world
something that many people had suspected,
that he had AIDS,
just in the nick of time.
I think the press had their final bit of vitriol against Freddie at that time.
Which is amazing, that we had some nasty reports saying...
Some of them even saying that he deserved to die
because he had a promiscuous lifestyle.
Quite unbelievable things that people wrote.
So Roger and I went on television to set the record straight.
Last week saw the death of one of the most flamboyant and popular
figures in rock music, Freddie Mercury, lead singer with Queen.
Joining us in the studio now to pay tribute and maybe to reflect on Freddie's memory
for the first time, are two of the band members,
guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor.
And we do appreciate you coming.
Everybody's become instant experts on the life and past of Freddie Mercury,
be they in the papers or be they on television.
Where did they go wrong and where did they go right in their assessments?
You first.
It's been quite distressing to read some of the reports in the press.
Yes, it would be wrong of us not to say that he has been depicted in certain quarters
as a sort of decadent, wild, bisexual, irresponsible lover.
Certainly, the Freddie we knew wasn't wildly promiscuous, he wasn't consumed by drugs,
any of these things people are saying.
He had a very responsible attitude to everyone he was close to,
and he was a very generous and caring person
to all the people that came through his life.
And more than that, you can't ask, really.
I'll tell you, we do feel absolutely bound to stick up for him
because he can't stick up for himself any more. So, you know.
I think you can't defend anybody
in the context of having Paul Daniels sitting next to you.
Were you a fan of Queen and of Freddie Mercury?
Well, no, because I wasn't a fan of any music.
I just put my head down, I should imagine like you did into music,
I put my head down into magic.
What a ***!
And can I equally say that I'm not giving any of the royal family magic lessons,
which I read in the paper this week. Thank you.
This award is slightly different. It's not voted for by the grandees of the BPI,
but actually by the 1 7 million listeners to national Radio 1 FM.
Now, there were three Queen singles in the final 1 0 titles
and the winner is by Queen, These Are the Days of Our Lives.
Thank you. A great mixture of emotions goes through your head at moments like this.
This is a very special moment, I guess.
Awards are very strange things. People have different attitudes.
If Freddie was here, he'd probably say, "You go and pick it up, darling.
"Put it over there on the mantelpiece next to the Galle lamp or whatever."
But then later on he would say, "Look, Mum, Dad,
"that's what I did. I'm proud."
So, we're very proud. We're incredibly proud of everything that Freddie stood for,
and we feel like his spirit is definitely still with us. Thanks a lot.
Lurking in the wings, was all the material we'd done with Freddie
which was unfinished, and what were we going to do with this?
Would we manage to make an album with it?
Things like Winter's Tale really came out of that desperately-ill stage.
They were made, very much, out of an awareness
that Fred wasn't going to be around very long.
I think I kind of dragged my heels.
I think I went through a very extended grieving process, really,
because I didn't want to talk about Queen.
I went out on my tour, solo tour,
and, of course, all that people wanted to talk about
was Queen and Freddie's death and stuff.
I couldn't deal with it. I just said, "Look, let's talk about what's happening now."
So I had a bit of denial stuff going on
and I think I was reluctant to get back into opening those boxes
and dealing with Freddie's voice there.
And it was tough to begin with.
John and I will definitely be carrying things on.
With or without Brian, it's up to him. We'll never get over Freddie,
but I think the period of mourning has passed.
And it's time for a fresh look at it.
Roger made the first inroads
and he took some of the tapes down to his studio and started working on them.
Of course, that's the trigger I need.
I hear what he's done and I go, "No, no, no, don't do it like this, you gotta do it like this."
My juices were working and I just dived in before I had time to think.
And I took over some particular tracks. It was a monumental task.
It was very weird working with Freddie's voice coming out of the speakers.
But, again, it was a very interesting process.
We knew that the situation was closing in on us,
so we made the most of every moment and really enjoyed it.
I think Brian and I certainly felt that we knew what Freddie would have been thinking.
It felt like he was almost in the corner of the room,
we had known each other so well for so long.
We sort of thought, "He'd like that bit, he probably wouldn't like that bit."
So we sort of got there and I was very pleased with the result.
I'm very, very fond of Mother Love
and it has a little piece of Going Back at the end,
which is one of the first things Freddie ever sang in the studio.
In fact, probably the first thing. A Carole King song.
And I wrote to Carole King to ask her permission to use it
and she was delightful, she was so supportive.
She said that she was thrilled that we would consider it important to put on there.
The whole album is a fantasy, really, because it sounds like
the four of us are there all together having fun and making the album.
But, of course, for most of the time when you're listening,
that's not the case.
It's built to sound that way.
And a lot of love went into that.
And there's tracks like I Was Born to Love You which, of course,
was never a Queen track, that was a solo track.
Which Freddie did very hurriedly
and he never bothered about the backing track
so we stripped everything away and lovingly, cherishingly, re-edited all his vocal
and put it all together.
And I spent months and months piecing together our bits
to make it sound like we were in the studio together.
I think it's one of our best albums, strangely.
So, good experiences all connected with that album.
And I love the album. I can put it on anytime and, obviously,
there were moments working on it, when you're just listening to Freddie's voice
24 hours a day, and that can be hard.
You suddenly think, "Oh, God, he's not here. Why am I doing this?"
But now, having been through all that, I can listen to the album
and it's just joy. I feel like it was the right completion. 241 00:20:42,005 --> 00:00:00,-001 It was the right album to finish up on. �