Interviews QFN-21
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Jim Ladd 'Innerview' - Series 14. Show 1.
Roger Taylor - Broadcast July 1980 - U.S.
Transcription by Stephen Dance

Plays 'Let Me Entertain You'

Jim Ladd - Good evening everybody, I'm Jim Ladd. Tonight we
welcome for the third time a member of a band known for its
outstanding musicianship, complex and innovative
arrangements and a mastery of musical styles that range from
light opera to jack-hammer heavy metal. Our first show with
this band was in 1977 with basist John Deacon, the second
was in 1979 with guitarist Brian May and tonight we'll
introduce you to writer and drummer Roger Taylor as we begin
our Innerview of Queen. Later in tonight's show we're gonna
present an Innerview exclusive, an un-released piece of
music never before heard by the public, a debut of a special
project which we'll tell you about later, but now we're
going to meet tonight's guest, Roger Taylor, and we'll begin
with the rather unorthodox release schedule of Queen's
latest album, The Game. Why did you release Crazy Little
Thing Called Love two years before the album came out?

Roger Taylor - Was it two years?

JL - It seemed like it man, I mean we were playing that song
for months before we saw an album.

RT - Well you know the album wasn't nowhere near complete
when we done it (C.L.T.C.L.), 'cos it was the very first
thing that we did you see, and we liked the sound of it and
we thought the album's gonna be a long time coming, hey
let's put out a record you know, and why not, let's put out
a few, you know, and I think it's a different way of doing
it really, 'cos it's always the album and single, single of
the album and all that. 'Cos it's true, people who buy
singles, people who buy albums, are almost completely
different sections of people and I think if people thought,
hey there's already two or three songs that I know on this
album you know and they probably wouldn't have them if
they're album buyers, so I mean it's a good thing I think,
you know, I mean you never know you might be buying a whole
album of bummers (laughs).

Plays 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love'

RT - Freddie played the acoustic on that , it was the first
thing we did, it's like the early Elvis thing, All Shook Up,
you know, supposedly that was the kind of feel we were
trying to get. Freddie had taken a bath that morning and
said 'Ah I've just come up with this.'

JL - Well 'Rock It' seems to be a pretty straight-forward
let's just enjoy Rock 'N' Roll song, right?

RT - That was it, that was the whole idea behind it really,
I wanted it to be the most basic chord sequence, basic set
of almost simplistic lyrics, I suppose it didn't turn out
quite so simplistic in the end but I mean it was just basic
down to earth, that was the whole thing.



JL - What it gets, it's a good song, and also when he sings
that, it's almost like  a-capella thing at the beginning
when it's real quiet.

RT -  At the beginning yeah, that was where the whole song
came from really 'cos that was so simple, it's only 3
chords. That was why, I wrote it round that really and err,
in fact I used to sing it, but then we decided I think it'll
be a good idea especially if we can do a stage of Freddie
singing the opening.

Plays 'Rock It'           

RT - Well it was meant to just crunch in and I'm very
pleased with the drum sound on that one too. It's a strong,
thick but sort of live, livish quality.

JL - You do get some amazing drum sounds, do you oversee all
that?

RT - Oh totally yeah, I mean we feel very strongly about
that sort of thing, I mean we do actually produce the record
right down to the last EQ. Oh yeah I mean we'll argue all
night about the EQ on the snare-drum you know.

JL - In the song 'Coming Soon', what is that song about?

RT - (Laughing) It's gibberish. Well I think originally the
idea was, it was a sort of anti-advertising song I think,
'Coming soon to your neighbourhood', but in the end it ended
up really meaning nothing, it was meant to be like a modern
pop song, and that was all.

JL - Now who writes a song specifically to write gibberish,
that's what I want to know.

RT - Well I certainly didn't have any intention of saving
the world when I was writing it, it really came together out
of a beat, this early beat, I wanted it to have a sixties
feel, but a lot of these things change half way through and
you don't really know where the feel's going, really when I
hear it, I just like to listen to the sound of it.

Play's 'Coming Soon'   

JL - In the song 'Play The Game' itself, to me it sounds
like a pretty straight-forward thing, letting yourself be
free and kind of submitting almost to the game of life.

RT - Yeah, I must point out, I don't particularly sympathise
with those lyrics actually.

JL - Really?

RT - It was suggested we should call the album 'Play The
Game', but I don't like the idea of that, 'cos I mean
basically that means in English, the English vocabulary,
that really means sort of, let's go along with the
establishment, I mean that's what it means, and I don't
really particularly sympathise with that view, you know.

JL - That's serious, and neither did I, and that was kind of
hard for me to do, and then I went through all the things,
well maybe he's looking at the Game as more of like a game
of living as opposed to the game of society.

RT - Yeah right yeah yes he was, I mean Freddie doesn't
like, he never thinks politically. He's a totally
non-political person, he's sort of actively against even
discussing that sort of thing, you know.

JL - And yourself?

RT - Ah, I've got my views (laughs).

Plays 'Play The Game' 

JL - This album, which you guys took, not great pains, like
some bands have come with neon lights to say NO SYNTHESISERS
ON THESE ALBUMS, but this is the first one you've actually
used a synthesiser on.

RT - Yeah that's true actually yeah. Well I mean we didn't
use it that much, um it was really the result of, I uh
brainstormed one day, I just went into a synthesiser centre
in London and uh there was this one, it was an Oberheim
which really appealed to me, it was a brand new model at the
time. I took it home and I couldn't believe the things it
could do, it didn't sound electronic you know necessarily,
so we got into it a bit and we used it on the album, quite
sparingly though.

JL - Yes yes, I think what's gonna surprise a lot of people
is the fact that uh with all the stuff that Queen has done
that you've never used one before. Before you used this
synthesiser and you would want to get some special effect
like let's say on Ogre Battle, how would you go about that,
would there be outboard guitar stuff, they'd be like studio
techniques what?

RT - Yeah well Brian can get an awful lot of sounds on his
guitar, and different combinations of amplifiers as well, I
mean we even use some small ones that John's built, you know
for special types of distortion.  So we can do a lot with
that, but also we like to use the studio as well. I mean you
say Ogre Battle, I particularly remember we did a lot of
slowed down tapes and backwards tapes on that song for the
effects on it and there's a big backwards gong and backwards
cymbals and stuff like that on it.

Plays 'Ogre Battle' intro.  

JL - So basically you take let's say standard instruments or
outboard guitar stuff and --

RT - And then change them using the studio usually yeah, I
mean we even did a lot of stuff with voices. Um, there's a
track on out fourth album 'Night At The Opera' which Freddie
and I did it's called 'Seaside Rendezvous', and I remember
we spent one whole afternoon having fun trying to mimic
different instruments with the voice, you know like there's
sort of slightly comical, but we did sort of horns and
clarinets and stuff like that just with a microphone and a
bit of EQ you know.

JL - Could you do some for us now? Yeah really, what about a
trombone for us?

RT - (Mimic's a trombone and laughs) Oh no, I don't know
it's not so easy. I do a good trumpet actually.

JL - A good trumpet, alright!

Plays 'Seaside Rendezvous' clip.                                        

RT - Yeah well I remember when we were doing our first
album, there was one of the big old ARP synthesisers in the
studio and it was so complicated, it was plugs in those days
you know and you had to cross patch everything and it just
didn't sound any good even when you did you know, and we
just thought, ah these things are a waste of time you know .

JL - Yeah a lot of bands also looked at them as um, they
thought it was like cheating or something I don't know.

RT - Yeah there was that element in it, it never sounded
quite natural enough anyway you know.

JL - What was that thing that Keith Emerson used that looked
like an entire telephone switchboard?

RT - Uh he used a Moog didn't he?

JL - A Moog, is that what it is?

RT - Yeah yeah, several hundred! (Laughs)

JL - Now we did an interview with uh Nick Lowe and Dave
Edmonds, who were very nice guys and they said when they
were putting their band together they said 'NO KEYBOARDS',
because keyboard players were never satisfied with one they
always had to have fifteen.

RT - That's right yeah! In fact I was recording in
Switzerland recently and Rick Wakeman was in and he said can
I leave my keyboards in the studio while you're recording
there. So we said yeah sure why not, you know no problem. So
I  walked in the studio and the whole room was full of
keyboards, I couldn't believe it, he had something like
twenty-three different keyboards in there, it was outrageous
you know.

JL - THANKS RICK!

RT - Yeah thanks, where am I gonna put the drums?

(BREAK)

RT - The only thing I ever wanted to do really was to be in
a rock 'n' roll band. I mean, in fact Freddie and I we had
this thing, we were selling old clothes in Kensington Market
which was sort of the place to be in London in those days,
not so much nowadays, and we were doing that really to keep
the band alive, and er also, but John and I were still at
college, um and we were finishing off degrees and stuff and
err also being at college in England is a way of gaining a
certain income (laughs).

JL - Not to mention getting laid!

RT - Yeah right that too, and er so we just decided that
we'd finish, we'd like to finish, in fact we were making our
first album while I was doing my finals.

JL - And what was your major?

RT - I ended up majoring in Biology.

JL - Really?

RT - Yeah I started off, I was gonna be a dentist but I
decided I didn't like that, so I was there for like 4 years.

JL - Did you get a degree there?

RT - Yeah I did actually.

JL - You did?

RT - Amazingly enough yeah.

JL - Is the drive for perfection, the drive to get it right
to make some kind of thing, is that still alive, as let's
say when you began?

RT - Well yes, we was ambitious and we always wanted to be
big I mean you know.

JL - How big?

RT - Real big!

JL - Yeah real big?

RT - Yeah very big, why not?

Plays 'Keep Yourself Alive'              

JL - Would you recall or have an opinion on what the song
'Long Away' was about? That's a very favourite of mine.

RT - Yes I like that one actually, um...

JL - We have left our way behind us.....

RT - I think it's probably Brian getting worried about
getting rich or something.

JL - Oh yeah?

RT - Yeah I think he worries about sort of the fact that he
does tend to have quite a lot of money.

JL - How do you handle that?

RT - I love it, I think it's great (laughs).

JL - No bones about it, give it to me yeah?

RT - Well yeah, I mean I think Europeans tend to be a little
bit more guilty about material possessions, and material
wealth, whereas in America it's considered as a sort of
pretty honourable thing to have a lot of money, you know.

JL - And it doesn't matter if you got it dishonourably, just
have it.

RT - Yeah really I mean yeah, I mean it's pretty cool anyway
you know.

JL - Yeah so if one were extremely wealthy and showed their
opulence in Europe they would stand out more than --

RT - Yeah I mean for instance people in England these days
are at the stage where they really don't like big expensive
cars very much and err if you drive around a lot I think in
a big expensive car over there, I know several people that
have like, people will get sort of envious or sort of
they'll feel this is disgusting and they'll scratch the car
and things like that.

JL - Oh really?

RT - Yeah, you know yeah. That seems a little petty and
stupid to me.

JL - IT is petty, it is stupid and it, you can't justify it
but you can understand it, I mean it's just rage you know
it's ---

RT - Yeah you can understand where it's coming from.

Plays 'Long Away' 

JL -  Another One Bites The Dust.

RT - Oh that's John.

JL - Yeah.

RT - John is into, basically sort of funk and just catchy
music you know what I mean? And he likes a lot of sort of
black music and that sort of thing.

JL - I get a lot of requests for that song.

RT - Yeah I mean it's a really popular song, I must admit
it's not my favourite, but I mean --

JL - It's not mine either, but I get a lot of phone calls
for it.

RT - Yeah I gather it's very popular. We do it on stage now
and we just started doing it actually the other day and it
goes down really well. I never thought I'd play a beat like
that on stage.

JL - Yeah?

RT - Actually, I'm very pleased, we have a lot of black
people come up to us and actually say, who are not really
normally our audience you know they're not really into our
sort of thing.

JL - Hold on a second, not that that's coming through right?
(Police siren drowns everything out)

JL - O.K. 'Another One Bites The Dust', also in there, let
me just pull this sheet out to refresh my memory, I don't
have your lyrics memorised, I know the songs but --

RT - Neither do I, I wish I could remember them.

JL - (Laughs) This song talks a lot about street violence it
seems, did this come from an incident that he (John) saw or
is it just news?

RT - I don't think so no, John really makes them up out of
his mind.

JL - Yeah?

RT - Yeah.

JL - He's warped in other words?

RT - He's a little sick sometimes yes, no he's alright
(laughs) he might sue me if I say -

JL - Right, sue his his own group, what the hell.

RT - There could be money in it!

Plays 'Another One Bites The Dust'   

(BREAK - Return to talk about 'Fun In Space')

RT - It's an album that I sort of wanted to do, there's
gonna be a lot of hard rock 'n' roll on it and some slightly
more um, almost psychedelic things on it, I don't know it's
just something I want to do because obviously I find myself
writing more songs now and there's only room for so many
songs on the Queen albums so I'd like to sort of just
express myself.

JL - So you'd be writing all the songs on the solo project,
and what instruments will you be playing?

RT - Fortunately or unfortunately I'm playing all the
instruments but --

JL - All the instruments?!

RT - Yeah but I didn't really want to make a thing of that.

JL - How many instruments do you play?

RT - Well I mean basically I play guitars and err a little
bit of keyboard, I'm not a good keyboard player but it'll be
mainly electronic only keyboards that are on it and
obviously all the percussion, I mean that's all the
instruments I want, I'm not interested in French Horns you
know.

JL - Oh you're not, bassoons perhaps are not gonna appear on
this album let's say? Well just let me ask you publicly
Roger, would you mind if we included that in the show here,
I mean just as a little example of what's gonna be?

RT - My god, err, yeah I suppose so that would be alright
yeah.

JL - Great!

RT - But this album is a long way off.

JL - Well we know.

RT - I know, but I've only got about a third of the work
done so far.

JL - Uh-huh

RT - Yes, yes.

JL - Good!

RT - Why not I mean that'd be interesting.

JL - Yeah I think it'd be very interesting, I think it'd be
something real special for the people.

RT - Yeah I mean nobody's heard it yet, I mean it's only --

JL - What's the name of it?

RT - It's called 'Fun In Space'.

Plays 'Fun In Space'    

JL - What would be if I was just to say, what's your most
memorable Queen gig that you've ever played, what would come
to mind?

RT - Ooh difficult, difficult, I probably....the first time
we played at the Budokan in Tokyo I'd say, It was like
adulation it was almost embarrassing err.. it was really
weird and we really weren't that used to playing big venue's
then so it was very exciting for us. I mean we've had
certain stand-out gigs which I remember. I remember there
was one at The Forum a few years ago which was a very good
gig and I think the first time we played Madison Square
Garden was very exciting 'cos we were nervous you know we
were very nervous.

JL - Do you still have stage nerves at all or not?

RT - Uh, I wouldn't say we get nervous now as much as just a
little tense beforehand that's all, you know you have to
deliver every night else you won't be coming back in this
area anymore 'cos people won't buy your ticket, so you have
to deliver.

JL - So then define that to me, 'cos I mean the way that you
say it now, one may interpret that as strictly a cold
business decision, we have to be good so we can keep the
revenue coming in.

RT - No it's not that, I mean if we do a bad show,
everybody's very depressed, for I mean several days it lasts
I mean if you think you do a bad show, but usually find if
you do a show that's not so good, the next night you come
back and you kill, I mean you go out there and you kill!

 Plays 'Tie Your Mother Down' LIVE      

JL - On the LIVE album, which is very well done there is my
favourite version of 'We Will Rock You' which is the second
version on there which the audience is real prominent on.

RT - Oh yeah.

JL - Where was that done?

RT - It was done, the whole album was done uh, on the
European Tour and we took different songs from different
dates you know depending on which, if somebody played a
bummer in one we wouldn't put it on the album, um some halls
sounded better than others you know. We did wanna make a
proper live album and it was in fact a proper live album,
there are virtually no overdubs on that album and I don't
know of many live albums which are truly genuine, in fact I
know of one which did very well in England in which the only
thing which was genuinely of them was something like the
bass drum and the audience, and everything else was
overdubbed which is outrageous you know, I mean we wanted to
make a genuine live album and that's what it is.

Play's 'We Will Rock You' LIVE CHANT        

JL - I should just ask this, maybe if it's the last
question, so there is no paranoia of any Queen fan that the
group is gonna do anything but keep going on, I mean Queen
is gonna go on for sometime?

RT - Oh yeah, there's absolutely no plans to split up or
change or anything.

JL - Well listen, I just got to tell you again it was a very
pleasant time here.

RT - Thankyou yeah I enjoyed it actually. I enjoyed it very
much.

JL - O.K. good, well then thank you for sitting down with us
man.

RT - Pleasure.

JL - O.K. and we're gonna hold you to sing us a song before
we leave!

RT - Alright! (Laughing)

JL - O.K. Good! Thankyou Roger!

Plays out with 'We Will Rock You' LIVE    



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