Interviews QFN-22
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Roger Taylor Interview From the TV programme 'The Vibe'
Transcription by Andy Fitzgerald

LUKE KENNY: Welcome to the show Roger.

ROGER TAYLOR: Thank you Luke, and nice to be here on The
Vibe.

K:  Thank you Roger. The new album is Made in Heaven: How
long before Freddie died was the album conceived?

RT: Well really, what happened was when we finished the
album before,'Innuendo', we were all aware, and we had a
visual understanding that Freddie, had a certain amount of
time left. So the idea, his idea really, was to go in and
work, and just work until he just couldn't work any more;
because I think the work was like a therapy for him, and it
was something for him to do in those terrible last days. And
so we went in and we worked, and a lot of... most of that
work can be seen on 'Made In Heaven' along with some older
material as well. So we took a long time to finish the
album, and we didn't really want to touch it for a couple of
years because it was a little bit too painful.

LK: And of course, all this was like putting it together in
the studio, emotionally and musically.

RT: Well, it was logistically quite difficult, and then also
it was a little  painful at first. But after a couple of
weeks of living with the voice again being in the room, he
almost became like he was a presence in the room. And
knowing him so well for so long, you almost knew what he'd
be thinking, so we got over that after a couple of weeks.

LK: You mentioned older material, like 'Made In Heaven' the
title track, and of course 'Too Much Love Will Kill You'.
Why the decision to choose older material on the album?

RT: What we went for was a mixture of (1) what we had left
from Freddie, and (2) Songs which we thought were great
songs which were never given their full potential before.
And I think that's the case with those two songs, and I
believe that by working on them, that we improved them
beyond... not beyond recognition but I think they were
vastly improved. In fact 'Too Much Love Will Kill You' is
the original Queen version before Brian May did a version of
that. So that in a sense is also, still brand new in a way,
because that's the  original. (Too Much Love Will Kill You)

LK: We are going to go back to the year 1972, the
breakthrough year for Queen .  What was it like recording in
De Lane Lea Studios in those times?

RT: It was so long ago I can't remember that much, but I
just remember being  very young, and we were all very keen,
and we had a vision for the band, what we wanted to do with
it. And I must say that I never dreamt that we'd be here all
this many years later, like 24 years later... it's almost
inconceivable, here we are, you know. We always knew exactly
what we wanted to do with the music, and we were just lucky
really that the career unfolded in a way that enabled us to
develop. And really we took a lot of left turns and right
turns, little changes here and there in the music, but
essentially it had the same musical core.

LK: How many of the Queen songs created then paved the way
for the Queen songsto come?

RT: Well, the blue print was there almost from the
beginning. It was just that we hadn't actually done it then.
We always wanted to retain a very musical core. It sounds
old fashioned in a way, but for good tunes we wanted to
combine harmonies with a musical work... hopefully
excellence. Therefore the sort of 'layering technique' came
about, which really we used for ten years or so, and then we
just sort of threw it aside. A lot of other people were
doing by then, but the multi-structured and layered method
of recording, you know that enabled you to get big sounds
and complicated arrangements over.

LK: Who was the driving force behind the band at that time?

RT: Well I think really the band was very much a unit. I'd
have to say that Brian and I had worked together before, so
we were already attuned to one another. We knew the way we
thought and we where wanted to go, and really Freddie was
that energizing catalyst. John came along a little bit
later, and John fitted in very well, but Freddie was a
catalyst. He was the one who really drove us, although we
wanted to know where to go. But having said that, the
chemistry was always very good. It was a sort of magical
chemistry that worked.

(Crazy Little Thing Called Love, You're My Best Friend). LK:
(talking about Bohemian Rhapsody) How long did it take to
record the wholesong?

RT: The recording was quite a long process. But it was all
in Freddie's head. He wrote that song, conceived it, and it
was like a map: he was just telling us to follow. He had it
written on the back of these phone books; all these very
complex harmonies, and so we recorded it in bits, leaving
gaps that we'd fill in later. And it was a massive job
vocally: just three of us on vocals with the recording. We
had the equivalent of about 120 people singing. So again and
again, layering and counter-harmonies, etc. It was a long,
almost tedious job, but it was interesting because the
middle section built as we went along. We put extra bits in
and it just became rather an extraordinary piece in the end.

LK: Given the technology constraints in those times, was
that a hindrance?

RT: Well it was because you didn't have all the tracks you
have to play with  now, and so we had to layer and layer,
and then you do a thing called 'bouncing the tracks down'
into two. This would give you more tracks to record on.
Basically these days you have 48/96 tracks. In those days we
had 16, maybe 24... I can't remember; and that was luxury so
it really did put a constraint.  But it was just really very
careful work building up. And I think it's coming up on your
screens now... (Bohemian Rhapsody)

LK: We were just talking about Bohemian Rhapsody. Now one
thing I want to know  is about the lyrics of the whole song.
They are quite radical and quite different, so who wrote the
lyrics and what's the whole song about basically?

RT: Well, the whole song was in Freddie's head. This was his
baby. What the lyrics are about, I haven't got a clue until
this day! I'm not sure he does! No, it was all about
remorse, and he just went off into a fantasy land. The guy
had obviously killed somebody and he was sort of confessing
to his mama. And, then it just went nuts, and it went into
somewhere, I don't know where!  Really, I wouldn't put that
much meaning on the words. It was just an extraordinary
musical piece really.

LK: And I like when Freddie says 'nothing really matters in
the end'

RT: Yes, I think that was a very nice way just to tie it,
tie it all up.

(A Winter's Tale)

LK: I remember reading that Freddie Mercury once said:
'We're the Cecil B.  De Mille of Rock 'n' Roll', always
wanting to do things bigger and better. So  as a member of
Queen, would you draw a parallel to that?

RT: That was very much our philosophy, we were trying always
to be apolitical  and just to disseminate good music. Is
that pretentious enough?! And I remember we had another
saying, we used to say 'we've got more lights on this tour
than The Vatican', and silly things like that. It's sort of
old fashioned [?] P.T. Vellum [?] showmanship in a way. And
that really in the 70s, that was quite a big part of the
whole thing. Then it was quite new to be big and
extravagant, and to put on a real spectacle. It was reaction
in a way against  all the bands that just used to come on in
jeans and face with their backs to the audience. It was
actually, putting on a show and really entertaining people.
It was a reaction to that, and that was very much us. I
think in the 80s, probably the music went away from that
kind of direction, but the shows got bigger. But we did a
couple of stripped down tours. But really I think people
wanted to see the big shows, and the big shows still happen.
I saw the U2 Zooropa tour, and that was a big tour. It was
massive, and you know the Pink Floydtour was a massive,
massive production, so in a way, a lot of people went to see
those, so I think there's still a real place for that kind
of gigantic spectacle .

LK: One of the shortest Queen songs that I know of is 'We
Will Rock You'. How did that come about because you know it
begins with you banging the drums, boom boom, and you know
the lyric and everything...

RT: Yeah, we were just trying to come up with the simplest
audience participation thing we could think of. And so Brian
came up with this lyric, ... it's really an
audience-participation thing... bong bong crack... that
thing, and it worked beautifully, so we recorded it very
simply. Everybody thinks it's drums on there - it's not.
It's just feet and hands, and just recorded many times over,
so it sounds like a lot of feet... just sounds like a big
thing. And then we did a sort of simple shouted street lyric
with a participatory chorus. And that's what 'We Will Rock
You' is. And to this day it seems to have endured as some
kind of anthem which is fine by me!

(We Will Rock You, (normal + fast), Bicycle Race)

LK: 'I Want To Break Free' looked like a real fun video to
make, so what was it like to dressup in drag?

RT: You're right, it was probably the most fun we ever had
making a video. A rather odd idea I suppose really! I think
it came from me, and the original  idea was to look like a
soap that we have in England called 'Coronation Street'...
it's probably the most famous soap in England, and we were
going to dress up as characters from the soap. In the end it
turned out like a cross between that and a complete drag
show! But it was such good fun to make, and I think some of
the fun came over on camera.

LK: But it changed over: it started off with you all in drag
and then it went onto Freddie and the tight body suits...

RT: Yeah, I don't know how! Freddie was the only person who
could have turned a drag act doing a soap into the Royal
Ballet, but he managed it in about 3 minutes. I never could
work out what that bit meant in the middle!

(I Want To Break Free)

LK: On one hand the lyrics say 'It's a hard life' and then
the video shows this  magnificence and opulence. So, what's
that all about?

RT: You might well ask! I thought it was a bit of a mistake
to be honest. Not one of my favourites. I liked the song,
and I like the record, but I don't like the video. We always
told Freddie that he looked like a 'Mediterranean prawn',
and I think he did! Yeah, I was never that keen on that one.
It was too silly. And it didn't really have any relevance to
what the song was saying. I think it was vaguely because it
had a operatic beginning.

LK: Who designed the costumes?

RT: Somebody on drugs I think, and it wasn't me I know that!
John our bass  player was dressed as a horse as I remember!
(laughs). If it wasn't so stupid!

(It's a Hard Life)

LK: We are going to go to 1986. We saw the release of the
movie 'Highlander'  which broke box office records
everywhere, and the song on the movie which also broke box
office records... 'A Kind Of Magic'. How did that come
about?

RT: I wrote the song. It basically came when we were
watching a movie which I thought was visually brilliant, and
it came from a line which was used a couple of times in the
movie, when Christopher 'whatever-he's-called' Lambert was
describing his powers because he was immortal. He would
describe it by saying 'It's a kind of magic', so I thought,
hmmmm... title for a song. So in fact they went on to use
that in the second movie as well, and of course it became
quite a big hit for Queen. In fact we even based a tour
around the title of that, and there were good memories.

LK: But the video is very different from what the movie's
all about...

RT: Yeah, the video is totally different. We treated it as a
video for the song, and with nothing to do with the movie.
We did, 'Who Wants To Live Forever' after that I think. As I
remember I think we included movie shots in that, but I felt
that 'A Kind Of Magic' should stand on its own, and it
didn't need... it worked without the context of the film. It
really didn't need the movie to prop it up.

LK: It was quite a unique concept. I saw you all dressed up
as tramps and  then you had this magic genie coming and
turning everybody into barons. It was quite cool.

RT: A nice idea. Freddie was a magician who turned us all
into musicians. (It's A Kind Of Magic, Under Pressure)

LK: Queen were one of the first bands to make videos with
their fan club members. What was it like doing gig after gig
and then making videos with them?

RT: Well really, I think the idea came about for a start. I
think 'Bohemian  Rhapsody' was basically the first sort of
video which was very much our sort of concept, and we
actually designed all the lighting and everything for it as
a band. So we were quite into the role of doing videos then,
and I think maybe the first song was Champions. We thought,
what we need here is the excitement of a live concert. Now
how do we get that?  We need an audience who is going to do
what they're asked: a little bit choreographed in a way, and
so we thought the best way would be to get in contact with
the members of our fan club, and see if they would like to
be in it, and of course everybody was very pleased to come
along. And I think we did that several times. We did that
with a song called 'Friends Will Be Friends' and with 'Radio
Ga Ga' as well, so it was always an instant source of
immediate crowd.

LK: That clap is like almost traditional with every Queen
concert, and every time that Radio Ga Ga is played.  It
looks massive yeah. What linked it to the concept of
Metropolis also?

RT: Yes, that was just a lucky thing really. We ran into
Giorgio Moroder in  Munich, and Freddie and I had always
been massive fans of the old Fritz Lang  movie Metropolis,
which is a very old movie. It's a sort of science/future
fiction masterpiece, and he just happen to mention that he
had bought the film rights for that, which wasn't exactly
true, but we said we'll write a song for you if you will do
a swap. So I think we did something for him which is called
'Love Kills' which came out under Freddie's name in fact,
and it was on the Metropolis soundtrack.  We got the rights
to use for a year I think of Metropolis, which fitted in
somehow with the Radio Ga Ga concept. That very sort of 30s
sort of look. In fact the movie was made before then, I
think it was '26... it was very good...

(Radio Ga Ga)

LK: Roger, apart from being with Queen, sometime in 1988 you
also revealed your own band The Cross, and went onto produce
a lot of songs and singles for different artists. So where
do you think your forte lies?

RT: We always regarded Queen as the mother ship; it was the
thing we could always come back to, and it was the provider.
It was the main stay of our lives. If ever we had long
periods of inactivity, I'd sometimes get a bit frustrated
for something to do, so I would do other things. And The
Cross were the band I'd had some fun with. It was sort of...
it didn't have a lot of success but it was fun, good fun.
That really happened in one of those periods.

LK: One of the singles that The Cross released was 'Heaven
For Everyone'. The 'Heaven For Everyone' you mean here and
Made In Heaven, is it the same song?

RT: Same song, but it's different treatment of the same
song.

(Heaven for Everyone)

LK: Roger, we were talking about your band The Cross. Was it
difficult to make music outside of Queen.

RT: Not really. It was just different, and I wanted it to be
different. It would have been pointless if it had been the
same. I wanted to do something a bit more basic andstraight
forward and simpler and so that's what we did. But  the
Cross was a thing that lasted a couple of years, and now
it's over. So it was an episode.

LK: And what are your future plans as a musician? 

RT: I don't know whether Queen will be working together
again, it's a possibility... it is a possibility. So there's
that. I'm also making a solo album, but slowly at the
moment. I don't know when it will be out, maybe sometime
next year. It's going back to the roots a bit again, but
it's coming nicely and slowly. I'm not trying to rush it.

(These Are The Days Of Our Lives, I'm Going Slightly Mad)

LK: What were your closest moment with Freddie Mercury as
part of the band?

RT: Too many moments to be one you know. I don't know how
many years was it 20 odd years working together very
closely, and we were close friends before we worked together
anyway. I do remember one moment before Queen actually when
we were just trying to start Queen. We had a stall together
in Kensington Market in London, and we used to sell old
clothes. We didn't have any money and Freddie was always
late. He arrived one day, took off his coat, went for a
coffee, and we hadn't sold anything that day so, one woman
came along and said 'That's a nice coat'. I said 'It's yours
for ten pounds'. So she said 'done'. she put it on and
walked down the street. He came back and he went nuts, and
this is about the time that Jimmy Hendrix died I remember.
So that was that kind of time period. He ran down the
street, found the woman, threw the ten pounds at her, tore
it off her back! It just goes back a long way.

LK: What was the one thing that Freddie believed in, right
from the very beginning of the band until he died.

RT: He believed in the band. He was always the one that
would pull us together, if we were fighting or anything. He
was the one that suggested that we pool all the writing, and
for the last 6/8 years everything was listed as 'Queen'
whether I might have written a song, he might have written a
song. It didn't matter... it was all put under one group
name to make it totally democratic, equal thing, and that
was a very strengthening thing to do. So it was a true band
in that sense.

LK: It was real nice talking to you Roger, it was a real
honour to have you on the show.

(We are the Champions)



_______________________________________________________________________

'THE INVISIBLE MAN'
Article taken from 'BASSIST' April 96

Jeffrey Hudson profiles the career of one of the most
under-rated, enigmatic and richest players around.

For some it's progress, but for others it's a sign of
getting old. Horrific as it may seem, there's a whole
generation out there who think that 'Another One Bites The
Dust' was written for ITV's (but it's an American idea! -
Ed!) Saturday night musclethon Gladiators. And little wonder
- every time 'Hunter' or 'Wolf' pounds the latest
seven-stone contender off the Pugilator, that distinctive
bass line comes thumping through the screen as backing music
to the victor's clenched fist, while baying audiences are
shown howling the title. Not that John Deacon's worries, of
course. As writer of the song he had to give permission for
it's inclusion in the tacky sweatfest, for which he receives
a more than healthy royalty cheque after every episode. But
isn't it just a little disturbing to think that one of the
biggest selling singles in the world ever should have come
to this?

In 1980 'Another One Bites The Dust' reigned at Number One
in the American charts for what seemed like forever,
eventually outselling every other chert-topper that year -
including Queen's own 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love'. It
was big; it was bigger than big, it was huge. It was also
remarkable for two things. One, it was only the third single
John Deacon had ever written - not bad considering he'd
penned just nine full songs in total. And two, while the
other singles from 'The Game' - Brian's 'Save Me' and
Freddie's 'Play The Game' - were standard Queen fare, this
song went places the band never ventured after dark. It was
funky!

"I listened to a lot of soul music when I was in school,"
John recalls, "and I've always been interested in that sort
of music. I'd been wanting to do a track like 'Another One
Bites The Dust' for a while, but originally all I had was
the line and the bass riff. Gradually I filled it in and the
band added ideas. I could hear it as a song for dancing but
had no idea it would become as big as it did. The song got
picked up off our album and some of the black radio stations
in the US started playing it, which we've never had before."
In the end it was a famous fan who swayed the vote: "Michael
Jackson actually suggested we release it as a single. He was
a fan of ours and used to come to our shows."

For American audiences the song represented Queen's finest
hour, capitalising on earlier successes like 'We Are The
Champions' and 'Killer Queen', but it's groove-orientated
origins remain as mysterious now as they did then. The man
responsible for the most famous bass line ever (okay, it
sounds a little like Chic's 'Good Times') is just about the
unlikeliest funk writer imaginable: he's white, he's a
contented family man (into his third decade of marriage) and
he's as middle class as they come. So where did he come
from?

John Deacon's background is one of old-fashioned hard graft
and erudition. Strictly middle class, he sailed through exam
after exam at his local Leicester schools, easily finding
time to fulfil his hobby of music. Like many others, he was
bowled over by The Beatles and in 1963, aged just 12, he
replaced his old toy 'Tommy Steele' guitar with his first
real instrument - a 6-string acoustic. At this stage it was
Lennon who John emulated, and he quickly became an
accomplished rhythm player (although before long he had
developed a fingerpicking style that Lennon could only have
dreamed of). Gifted with electronics - he was already
building his own radios - he initially joined his first
group, The Opposition, as a roadie-cum-electrician, before
taking his place on stage as rhythm guitarist in September
1965.

Despite his preference for Lennon, it was Paul McCartney's
career that John was destined to follow. After The
Opposition's bass player proved less than proficient, it
fell to John to play the bass notes on the bottom strings of
his guitar. This worked for a while, but in the end, like
McCartney a couple of years earlier, he was encouraged to
take up the instrument full time to help the band out.
Buying a 60 EKO bass in Cox's music shop in Leicester, he
made his low end debut in Spring 1966 - and never looked
back.

Three years later John changed direction again, this time
leaving the group (which had become 'The New Opposition'
then 'Art') to take up a degree course in London. That
wasn't all he took up: after meeting Brian May and Roger
Taylor at a party he was asked to audition at Imperial
College for their band. The band's name was Queen.

He was the perfect choice for the flamboyant group: "In the
early days I used to be very quiet because I always felt I
was the new boy. But I think I fitted in because of that.
They'd tried several other bass players before me, but their
personalities seemed to clash. I was all right because I
wasn't going to upstage Brian or Freddie."

In hindsight, Queen's path to taking their throne in rock's
court was spectacular, but in truth it was painful and
laborious. Their eponymous debut album didn't come out for
two years after it was finished and even then it failed to
chart. 'Seven Seas Of Rhye', from the follow-up LP, 'Queen
II', went Top 10 in Britain, but only with the third album
did the band really begin to be taken seriously. Even John,
who still thought of music as a hobby, was persuaded: "I was
possibly the one person in the group who could look at it
from the outside," he remembers, "because I came in as the
fourth person in the band, I knew there was something there,
but I wasn't convinced of it until possibly the 'Sheer Heart
Attack' album. A lot of people thought we were just a heavy
metal group but 'Killer Queen' showed a completely new side
to the band."

Another new side was demonstrated by John's first ever
composition for the group. a jaunty pop number called
'Misfire'. For this track he played acoustic guitar as well
as supplying a perky bass riff that dominates the song's
fadeout. He also shared a 25% credit on the jam track 'Stone
Cold Crazy', later to be covered by Metallica on record and
stage and performed by James Hetfield with Queen at the
Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992. Remembering the
frenetic sessions for the track and it's frantic pace, John
reveals, "It was very fast and hard to play."

1975 was a pivotal year for Queen and John in particular.
While most of the world went mad about the Mercury
composition 'Bohemian Rhapsody', the band were just as
amazed at the bass player's contribution to the album, a
little number called 'You're My Best Friend'. "John just
came from nowhere with this song," Brian admitted. "It was
only the second song he'd written for the group and it was
just this perfect pop song." The public agreed and the song
reached Number Seven in the UK - higher than anything
written by the already prolific May.

As well as his Fender Precision, John contributed electric
piano to the song (he also did some double bass work for a
Brian track called '39'), which he mimes in the song's
accompanying promo - or 'video' as they came to be known
after 'Bohemian Rhapsody's' groundbreaking achievement. The
classic bass mentality, John is as laid-back as ever about
the band's place in history: "People used to have clips
before but they were often shot on film. It was quite
accidental. We were touring at the time and we knew we
wouldn't be able to get to record 'Top Of The Pops' on the
Wednesday. Our managers had a mobile unit, so it was
actually shot on video in about four hours!".

Despite his single success, John was still limited to one
track on the next album, 'Day At The Races'. The next two
long players saw both he and drummer Roger Taylor allowed
two songs each - still half of Mercury and May's allowance -
and by the 80s the illusion of four close friends was
becoming strained. "We get on well in the studio and on
stage together," Deacon confessed in 1981, "but we don't see
that much of each other socially when we aren't working. We
all have our own friends. For instance, I would never think
of going round to Fred's house and he would never come to
mine. We're poles apart in that sense." Fights over songs
only made matters worse: "We split all our earnings from
records and tours four ways. The rows come when we have to
decide whose songs go on the albums and who gets the B-sides
of the singles since B-sides earn the same royalty rate as
the hit side."

Getting his songs on an album was one thing; keeping them
recognisable was another battle, as John found on the 1982
album 'Hot Space'. Despite the outrageous success of his
recent funk experiment (which weird Al Yankowicz was to
parody as 'Another One Rides The Bus') and the fact that as
a band Queen had tackled just about every style going, his
latest black-influenced song was being forced into more
conventional shape, as Brian admits: "In one track called
'Back Chat' there wasn't going to be a guitar solo because
John, who wrote the song, had gone perhaps more violently
black than the rest of us. We had lots of arguments about it
and what he was heading for in his tracks was a totally
non-compromise situation, doing black stuff as R & B artists
would do it with no concessions to our methods at all. I was
trying to edge him back towards the central path and get a
bit of heaviness into it. So one night I said I wanted to
see what I could add to it - it's called 'Back Chat' and it
should have some guts - and he agreed, so I went in and
tried a few things."

Against John alone, the guitarist won; but when the bassist
united with the all-conquering singer, there was no
opposition. 'Cool Cat', the pair's first collaboration,
found a lazy bass riff leading the way, with Freddie
scatting jazzily over the top. Mellow and distinctly
un-Queen, the original version features David Bowie on
backing vocals (check those bootlegs). Bowie had arrived at
the band's Swiss studios in Montreux and stayed to feature
on another bass-driven track - one that actually made it
onto the album. It was 'Under Pressure' and it reached
Number One in the UK charts (unlike 'Back Chat' which
stiffed at 40).

If a Deacon song could be said to have crowned Queen's US
career in 1980, it was another of his compositions which
effectively killed them off. 'I Want To Break Free', from
1984's return-to-form album 'The Works' was a massive seller
world-wide, largely aided by it's hilarious video of all
four band members in drag. Unfortunately the fact that it
was a spoof on 'Coronation Street' was lost on Americans who
thought the butch rockers of four years earlier had gone
mad. They would never have another hit there in Freddie's
lifetime.

Wherever it went, it seems, the song caused uproar. South
America, Queen's honorary home since their record-breaking
excursion there in 1980/1, had seen the lyrics as something
more than a love affair gone wrong. For them it was a
campaigning song for freedom - so when Freddie appeared in
front of 200,000 people at the Rock In Rio festival in 1985
wearing false breasts, he was reportedly booed and pelted
until he removed the offending mammaries.

That incident aside, the South American excursion was even
better received than their first trip when things had been
quite scary for a while: "We only just made it to our cars
in time, rattled and bruised," John recalls. "We had only
gone a few hundred yards when the driver stopped for petrol.
Within seconds the car was surrounded by girls battering on
the windows and roof. The driver had no idea what was going
on; they'd never had to deal with anything like it before."

If the band thought the Rock In Rio was big, another concert
they were to perform in 1985 saw them steal the day from
some of the world's biggest acts in front of half a billion
people: Live Aid. "We didn't know Bob Geldof at all," John
remembers. "When 'Do They Know It's Christmas' was out, that
was a lot of the newer acts. For the gig, he wanted to get a
lot of the established acts. Our first reaction was, we
didn't know - 20 minutes, no soundcheck?!

"When it became apparent that it was going to happen, we'd
just finished touring Japan and ended up having a meal in
the hotel discussing whether we should do it ..... and we
said yes.

"It was the one day that I was proud to be involved in the
music business - a lot of days you certainly don't feel
that! But the day was fabulous, people forgot that element
of competitiveness  ..... it was a good morale booster for
us too, because it showed us the strength of support we had
in England and it showed us what we had to offer as a band."

The day also showed Deacon's characteristic shyness. He had
been listed to meet the Prince and Princess of Wales before
the show and to join them in the Royal Box. In the end ...
"I was too nervous of meeting Princess Di and so Spider, our
roadie, met her in my place - he shook hands with her and
everything. The pictures made all the front pages and he's
now the most famous roadie in the world!"

By the mid 80s, the collaboration between singer and bassist
became more pronounced. Released in 1986, 'A Kind Of Magic'
featured two compositions credited to Mercury/Deacon.
Following the groove set down on 'Cool Cat', the new efforts
blended John's funk leanings with Freddie's innate pop
sensibilities; 'Pain Is So Close To Pleasure' in particular
saw Freddie giving his best Diana Ross impression to keep up
with John's bass-driven tune, while 'Friends Will Be
Friends' was more standard Queen anthem fare, scoring a
decent hit for the band.

The next studio album, 'The Miracle', found the partnership
again working - sort of, but with neither willing to take
credit, especially for 'My Baby Does Me': "John came up with
the bass line for that one," Freddie recalled in a BBC radio
show in 1989. "No I didn't, it was you!" John hit back.
Joking aside, with up to three years separating album
releases, it is the writing process which has kept him sane:
"If I'd just been a bass player all my life with the band,
if that had been all my input, I wouldn't be as satisfied as
I am because I only consider that as part of what I do.
There's the songwriting and also being involved in the
decision making processes - arguing or whatever - which is
nice; to be able to have a part in the band's destiny."

Recording of the band's next album began as soon as 'The
Miracle' was completed; by this stage Freddie knew his days
were numbered, although he never admitted it to the group.
Not only did he live to complete 'Innuendo', but he also saw
the album's release, the release of a second 'Greatest Hits'
package as well as finding the energy to lay down basic
tracks for what would be the last Queen recording: 1995's
'Made In Heaven'. 

The singer's death in November 1991 has proved a brutal blow
to Deacon. "As far as we are concerned, this is it," he
insists. "There is no point carrying on. It is impossible to
replace Freddie." With Queen retired he seems unlikely to
forge a solo career like May and Taylor - "I can't sing;
it's the one thing I wish I could do, because it would make
songwriting so much easier!" - although he once released a
solo effort under the group name of The Immortals (he wrote
and recorded 'No Turning Back' as the theme to the 1986
'Biggles' remake).

Sightings of Deacon are rare. Queen's quarterly fan club
magazine regularly lists his activities as 'holidaying with
his family in Biarritz' - if they include him at all. Over
the years he has done little session work and then usually
on Queen solo efforts: re-mixing Roger's 'I Cry For You',
playing on Freddie's 'How Can I Go On', helping out Brian's
proteges Anita Dobson and Minako Honda. Among his few
outside involvements he also worked with Hot Chocolate's
Errol Brown on a single, played on Elton John's 'Ice On
Fire' and 'Leather Jackets' albums and - quite inexplicably
- appeared wearing a blue wig in a video for Morris Minor
And The Majors!

Since the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert of 1992, Deacon's
public appearances can be counted on one hand. Record
industry bigwigs might have seen him backing such players as
Genesis and Pink Floyd at an EMI private party; but fans
would have had to have been at the Shepherd's Bush Empire
last year to see his short guest spot with the Spike Edney
All Stars (a group of satellite Queen players, supported by
the fan club). John walked on late in the evening, oblivious
to the phenomenal response from the crowd and played for a
couple of non-Queen soul numbers; unfathomably he left as
quietly as he'd arrived - before the band launched into
'Crazy Little Thing Called Love' - and was the only one of
the 30-odd band who didn't return for an encore.

In many ways John Deacon has achieved the ideal balance - a
strong family life; riches beyond most mortal dreams; huge
hit singles; recognition from his peers as a songwriter -
and yet can still walk down most streets unrecognised. It's
a long way from where he was in 1971: "I had just started
doing a degree in Electronics (he eventually got a first)
and I was in the band. The band took off so I went with it -
at least I was guaranteed 20 quid a week, so it was worth
having a go. Then it seemed to snowball and take over my
life. And it's been like that ever since."


_______________________________________________________________________

The Works - John Deacon's bass style.

Certain early publicity stills from the 70s showed John
posing with a fender Jazz, but considering they also depict
Brian wielding a Strat and not his trademark 'Fireplace',
their veracity can be doubted. In essence he was - and is -
a Precision man, sporting variously shaded varieties over
the last 25 years.

Throughout the 1970's a sunburst Fender was his main
squeeze, although on stage it had to share the spotlight
with a sunburst MusicMan (and occasionally a 'triangle').
Only when his hair got shorter (for 'News Of The World'
onwards) was a stripped natural finish selected instead;
this was to be around for almost a decade, right through the
'Works' tour and even appearing at Live Aid.

The 'Magic' tour of '86 saw a black Precision wheeled out
for the first time, although it didn't always make the video
shoots: 'Friends Will Be Friends' saw John struggling with a
John Entwistle-designed Warwick Buzzard; 'One Vision', 'I
Want It All' and 'Headlong' featured a red Precision; but
most interestingly, 'Princes Of The Universe', 'Breakthru',
'Invisible Man' and 'Scandal' all saw John wielding a Giffin
natural wood finish bass, custom-built for him by Roger
Giffin. Essentially, a 2-pickup Precision clone, it features
a ghost inlay on the 12th fret. Those 4-strings aside, 'Who
Wants To Live Forever' saw a double bass in operation, 'A
Kind Of Magic' a banjo and 'One Vision' a set of drums.

Whatever the brand of bass, the style hasn't altered.
Extremely able, but rarely flash, John never uses a
plectrum; just his fingers hooked over the instrument which
is usually held at 45 degrees - and often played one-legged
(see 'Queen Live At Wembley' for proof!)

_______________________________________________________________________
END 
