Queen

EVEN THOSE who dislike the group intensely will concede that Queen's rise to fame in '74 has been meteoric. They first came to the attention of a large section of the public in the latter part of '73 when they supported Mott the Hoople on a large British tour.
"Mott were so good to us, giving us advice so that we didn't make as many mistakes as they had done when they were starting out," Brian May told me. And the concensus of opinion was that "we've never worked with anyone nicer."
"We decided we couldn't do any more support tours after that, it just wouldn 't have been right for us.'' That was Freddie's comment after the tour. Their first album "Queen" had sold more than 30,000 copies already-an unheard of total for an "unknown" group.
It was already being predicted that the next album would reach at least the Top Ten in the album charts. What wasn't so easily forseeable was a hit single. With "Seven Seas Of Rhye" they had just that.
Queen were rehearsing in a studio in Eating when the call came to tell them they were wanted for TV's Top Of The Pops. I'd gone down to have a sneak preview of their new stage act, and we were perched around a tiny dressing room sipping tea when the phone rang.
Were they delighted? Hardly. "I don't think we should do it," Freddie commented, prowling round the room gesticulating with his hands to substantiate his argument. "We don't want anyone to think we're just a singles band - they'll get totally the wrong impression," he concluded petulantly. Their main worry, apart from the group's image, was that they wouldn't be able to get the sound right in the few hours available to them.
The first thing you appreciate about Queen is that they are incredible perfectionists - even the best is often not good enough.
At 3 am on the day of the show they were still to be found in Pete Townshend's studios in Battersea. Eventually they got the sound as close as possible to the original, although they had no sleep that night. That little story should serve to illustrate a few points about Queen's collective character. lt'll also give you some idea how long the "Queen II" album took to record!
Even then that album wasn't perfect to their minds-although a lot of people didn't agree with them, and the predictions of its success were proved to have been conservative.
So at the start of their very own British tour Queen had a hit single and an album. Despite the trials and tribulations of breakdowns and unsuitable venues. Queen emerged from that tour with a triumphant gig at the London Rainbow - just to prove to anyone who dared still doubt it that they'd arrived.
But as I sat in Freddie's Kensing- ton flat the week after that Rainbow gig, they still had plenty of things they wanted to say.
First Freddie. "We're going to have to learn to think quicker, because I hate compromises-everything's got to be done to perfection. I think the public know how much work has gone into an album or any piece of music and appreciate it.
"That's why I get so furious when people say we aren't good musicians-they can criticise anything else about us, but I believe we are technically good, whether you like our music or not.
"The other criticisms we hate are when people say we're a hype-how can we be when it's taken four years for our music and act to evolve? Two years ago we were wearing similar clothes, and no one was backing us at all then - we didn't have a recording contract."
Freddie's favourite hobby horse, understandably enough. Two other things dear to his heart are clothes and his stage act: "I always want to look good-that's important to me. I hate off the peg clothes, and will spend weeks (when there's time) delving for bargains and unusual clothes.
"As for my stage act, of course I've seen and been influenced by other people on stage. But what I do on stage is all mine-something that's evolved naturally. Art and music have always gone hand in hand, and the theatrical side of music has always been important to me."
Brian also feels strongly about Queen and its critics. After all, when you've been playing guitar for as long as you can remember and even spent two years of your life building a guitar from scratch it's hard to be told you have no talent.
Brian, the most obviously talented member of the group musically (just listen to those astounding guitar breaks) would never denigrate the contribution made to the group by John Deacon and Roger Taylor - the self-styled rhythm section or "sonic volcano".
John never has a lot to say for himself, content to be a steadying influence on a group of opinionated and in many ways extrovert people. Roger smiles more often than anything else, but ventures an opinion readily when he feels strongly about something.
This then is Queen. Already they have done great things. They may do even greater. There is certainly still enormous undiscovered potential talent in those four people, both collectively and as a unit.

Rosie Horide

Right Royal Freddy

(New York)

Freddie Mercury was taking tea on the 47th floor of his New York hotel. In his suite. The Royal suite, of course. It was the morning after yet another triumph for Queen - that brilliant and highly original British rock band built around the outrageous ideas and stage presence of the exotic Mr. Mercury. They had played their fourth concert in as many nights at the battered but fashionable Beacon Theatre, and with an album and a single in the American charts, they were riding high.
Warm tea was permitted to slide down Mr. Mercury's regal throat as he prodded gingerly at some nasty looking bruises on the side of his neck. He explained, 'My very promising pop career nearly came to an untimely end last night. Two young girls outside the theatre decided to claim my scarf as a souvenir. They quite forgot that it was wrapped around my neck at the time, and they very nearly strangled me. I'm sure Her Majesty doesn't have to put up with this sort of thing. But then, she doesn't have anything in the charts at the moment does she?'
He is a wicked man, Mr. Mercury. He is also everything that a rock idol is supposed to be, and New York has been quick to recognise this. Like Mick Jagger, Freddie has off-beat good looks. Jagger has those pneumatic lips, and Freddie has the most outspoken set of teeth ever to have found their way on to a pop fan's wall. He also enjoys the lifestyle of a true superstar - he lives out our fantasies for us far more effectively than we could ever manage to do for ourselves. Even if we had his kind of money.
His dress sense is sensational. He seldom looks less than spectacular, and he is not the sort of chap who believes in going unnoticed. Satin is his favourite fabric, with silk coming a close second. And he loves those loose, floppy, Japanese-style jackets. But as he is quick to point out, 'There is a quiet side to me too, you know. My home life is very civilised, and I hardly ever dress up to watch the television. Unless I am watching a Royal occasion of course. Then, my dear, it's on with the tiara and the ermine the LOT!
But Freddie felt there were better things to do in the city of New York than sit around sipping tea and discussing sartorial matters. He invited photographer Terry O'Neill and me to join him on a shopping expedition, and it seemed a reasonable idea. Freddie was his casual self in short fur coat, white satin slacks, white clogs and silver snake bracelet.
The problems we encountered were little ones. Like young girls sobbing softly outside the door of a shoe shop while Freddie sought something for the regal feet inside. And then there .was the confusion of the young lady in Bloomingdale's department store who began to give Freddie a free manicure, only to discover that the nails on his left hand were already painted with black lacquer.
Freddie said, 'I love America. But I can't imagine ever coming here to live. Our music is successful over here because it is so distinctively English. We must keep it that way. I have just bought a new house in London, and an enormous car that looks like a boat on wheels. I could never leave all that. And I have far too much fun ever to worry about a silly little thing like tax.
'I know I'm terribly extravagant. I always have been. My life these days is one perpetual spending spree. So I suppose I am the sort of person who needs to find ways of reducing tax. But it's all such a bore. Why don't you buy a pair of these beautiful glitter shoes? They're outrageous. And they're cheap. And they're much more interesting than tax, don't you think?'
I did think so. But I decided against buying the lurid footwear. You have to be a star to wear shoes like that. Somebody rather like Freddie Mercury, in fact.

Queen ...Regal Rock

WHEN, in 1973, that awful expression 'Glam Rock' was enjoying its heyday and bisexuality was tout a la mode, a new name emerged on the scene - Queen. Groaning journalists got ready to write this group off, as the grossest outfit to climb belatedly on the bandwagon of glittery decadence.
Few writers, though, would pass up the chance of an interview with the band. With a name like that, the burning question to be answered was 'Are they or aren't they?'
It rapidly transpired that they weren't and in those days were anxious to play down the gay connotation of the name.
"It's all very embarrassing," Queen's lead singer Freddie Mercury would say at the time. "Actually we've been around quite a while and we chose our name long before glarn rock and the gay thing became fashionable. We like to think of ourself as Queen in the regal sense, because our music is supposed to be quite majestic in a way."
Even in those early days. Queen had plenty of interesting things to say about themselves apart from inviting speculation over their sexual proclivities.
Before the group ever formed, each of its members had 'further - educated' themselves to the hilt and armed themselves with degrees that would give them passports to very respectable careers should their venture into music ever fail.
Like the countless girls who take secretarial diplomas before launching into the precarious world of the theatre. Queen decided to have something behind them to fall back on should the worst ever come to the worst.
Like most new groups, Queen, at the outset, were far from wealthy and rather than furnish themselves with second-rate equipment which was all they could afford, they decided they'd do better to make their own. Between them they had considerable expertise with electrics and so, rather than their home-made guitars becoming an object of patronising talk, they were scrutinised with much real interest and hailed in some quarters as genuinely innovatory.
Their costumes were also quite novel, since they were probably the first group to abandon the garish
multi-coloured clothes that had run rife through the pop world in favour of outfits all in black and white, leaving lights to provide the colour. This move was quickly picked up by so many other bands that very soon black and white costumes became as commonplace as what had gone before. Queen's first album "Queen 1" was received with mixed feelings, but the general opinion was that it wasn't at all a bad start.
Onstage it was clear that, however much Queen might protest that their name was to be taken in the regal sense, the other applied equally well. There was a strong air of high camp about the whole of Freddie's stage presence, culminating in an interpretation of Shirley Bassey's Big Spender that would have suited a drag queen down to the ground!
In the autumn of 1973 Queen did their first major British tour supporting Mott The Hoople. Mott, who had only recently hit the big time themselves, were only too aware of the difficulties of being a second-on-the-bill band and, seeing the potential in Queen, did everything possible to make the new boys feel at home and the two bands rapidly became best of friends.
That tour helped Queen im- measurably. By the time it was over, their act had become much more polished and generally more confident all round, they'd weeded out the weak links in their material and were ready to go out as a headlining band in their own right.
They had been seen and approved by thousands of people up and down the country and had successfully paved the way for their second album "Queen II" to go into the charts and they also had a huge hit with a somewhat unlikely single called Seven Seas Of Rhye.
By Christmas 1973 everyone was tipping Queen as the brightest hope for 1974 and so they were to prove.
By Easter last year they had I arrived to stay but, even at that time, few realised how much higher they would go.
In the late summer they suffered a setback when Brian May contracted jaundice and they had to cancel an American tour. It wasn't to hold them up for long though.
Soon after his recovery they came out with a single, Killer Queen, that would have been worthy of The Beatles and followed it with their third album "Sheer Heart Attack", which immediately shot into the upper regions of the charts. Meanwhile, on a new British tour, they sold out everywhere they played and the audience reaction everywhere was ecstatic. In what was generally considered a lean time for roadshows with many top line bands playing to half-full houses, only two acts stood out as generating real enthusiasm on the scale of Beatle days - one was David Essex, the other Queen.
This year Queen have been since virtually everywhere that matters, from the Far East to America's West Coast and the reaction everywhere has been tremendous. In some places where they were playing for the first time, they were already well known. In Japan, for example, they'd already been voted top band with "Sheer Heart Attack" as top album, before they'd ever set foot in the place.
While the band has never had a leader as such, Freddie has come to be looked on as its main spokesman. He's developed a lovely line in camp humour and now, when any one asks him 'Are you gay?', he blithely replies 'As a daffodil my dear, as a daffodil' and delights in telling stories of embarrassed customs men who open his cases to be confronted with bottles of mascara and nail polish among piles of satin knicks.
It's all just good clean fun though. If it weren't, you wouldn't see, at Queen concerts, the legions of mums and dads who now make up a solid part of the group's devoted following. Perhaps soon they'll invent another ghastly tag for bands such as Queen could it be 'Pantomime Rock' with Freddie as the good fairy?