Over at Cuepoint, Alan Light talks to Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen about their signature operatic rock sound, the band’s chemistry, and the final days of Freddie Mercury.
When Freddie was sick, but not speaking about the disease, was that hard for the rest of you?
Taylor: He actually announced it before he died. But basically he was being hounded by our beautiful, glorious, worse-than-shit press. He couldn’t even get groceries, they’d photograph him—they would be like a pack of vultures.
May: They stuck a lens through his toilet window one time.
Taylor: And he just wanted to be left alone. He didn’t want to be an object of pity, and he didn’t want any intrusive comment. He just wanted to be private in his final days. And we respected that, I think that’s fair enough.
May: I remember the first time he told us. He said, “I’m going to talk about this only once. I’m going to tell you what’s happening, and after this, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I don’t want anybody buying our records out of sympathy. This is the way it is, and that’s it, and now we go on and we make music, that’s what we do.”
“Kings of Queen” (Cuepoint)