QUEEN's Brian May

QUEEN's Brian May - "Who Knows This Might Be The Last Tour, So You’d Better Come"

There is a new interview with QUEEN guitarist Brain May at his official website. Here is an excerpt from the chat where he talks about the upcoming Queen + Paul Rodgers tour which kicks off in Moscow during September:

"Planning a tour all depends on what is available at the right time and you always get a couple of itineraries coming your way until something is finalised. I didn’t realise it had been that long since we’d played here but I do remember playing both The Empire and The Stadium in years past very well indeed. This time around though it will be in the new Arena, which I can’t wait to see. Queen and Liverpool go back a very long way, when we used to spend half our lives on the road and sleeping on people’s floors. We played The Cavern too, of course, and have one of the bricks stencilled with the band’s name outside of the new building, which is great, but that was pretty late into our career and we’d got to the point, almost, when we thought we were never going to get asked. It was a real thrill when we were though and I’m really looking forward to playing here again. It’s pretty frightening gearing up for a tour. It's an all consuming thing once you press the button that set the wheels in motion and the beast that is Queen comes alive. But we all get the same buzz once the adrenaline starts to flow. Once the halls become available, the set design falls into place and then the rehearsals are upon you. It’s like a gathering storm of stuff that has to be done, which seemed such a long way away to when we first thought about going on the road again, last October in this case. We have to finish the new album, so there’s still plenty to do between now and when the first gigs happen, but I’m sure we’ll manage it all somehow. We always seem to. Who knows this might be the last tour, so you’d better come," he laughs.

Queen + Paul Rodgers' new album is being readied for release on September 1st. The Queen + Paul Rodgers 28-date arena tour will take in 14 countries in just seven weeks, and take the band to Northern Eurasia, Central and Southern Europe, and the UK, and is expected to wind up at the end of the year with the band’s highly anticipated return to South America, the setting of some of its most historic tours in the early 80’s.

QUEEN Guitarist Brian May - "We Reference (Freddie Mercury) Every Day"

According to Rollingstone.com, last year, vocal legend Paul Rodgers (ex-BAD COMPANY), drummer Roger Taylor and QUEEN guitarist Brian May gathered at Taylor’s estate outside London to begin recording Queen’s first album since 1995’s Made in Heaven. (Queen bassist John Deacon - who hasn’t performed with his bandmates since 1997 - opted to not come out of retirement for the project.) As the newcomer, Rodgers has had to bridge the gap between his blues-rock background and Queen’s lush, grand sound. “We’re learning a great deal from each other,” May says. “When we started talking about harmonies, Paul went, ‘Oh, really?’ ‘Cause that hasn’t been his thing. It’s a new world for him.”

The first single will likely be 'C-lebrity'. Other tracks include 'We Believe', an “epic in Queen’s traditional style,” according to May, and 'Call Me', which he says sounds like it would fit right in on Queen’s 1974 classic, Sheer Heart Attack.

The new album, The Cosmos Rocks, is the first the band has recorded without Mercury, who passed away in 1991. “I feel like he’s still very much part of the band,” May says. “We reference him every day. He always really enjoyed Paul’s work. He used to have a go at me in the studio when I tried to have him sing bluesy stuff. He’d say, ‘Brian, you’re trying to make me fucking sound like Paul Rodgers, and I can’t do it!’”

(Photo: Jill Furmanovsky)

QUEEN Guitarist Brian May - BO DIDDLEY "Was A Hero To Us"

QUEEN guitarist Brian May has issued the following tribute to BO DIDDLEY:

"From my point of view ... Bo Diddley was a hero to us, when we were starting off. In our first group, 1984 we used to play his signature tune, 'Bo Diddley' and 'You Can't Judge A Book (By Lookin' At The Cover)', but I doubt if there is any existing recording of this.

The original 'Hey Bo Diddley' recording defines a rhythmic riff which has become a standard piece of equipment in Rock music - a way down dirty chugging which gets into your mind and never goes away. It is also one of the very few big rock records which uses the device of a 'volume vibrato' on the main riff. This effect is very different from anything which can be done on the guitar - vibratos on electric guitars are done with the "whammy" (Tremolo arm), or by vibrating the string in and out of a bend with the fretting hand (the left hand for a right handed player); and these effects are always a cyclic variation in the PITCH of the note. Bo had used an affect which used to be standard on Guitar Amps, but was little used by our generation - a cyclic variation of volume (loudness). The only other example which comes to my mind is the guitar on the EVERLY BROTHERS fine record 'Always It's You' - but this was a very gentle bit of playing - to which the amp vibrato gave a delicacy.

Bo Diddley's use of the vibrato was on top of a full-blown heavily distorted chordal pattern ... so it sounded like a ton of bricks - or perhaps a great goods train, smokin' down the line!! He also had a habit of suddenly whizzing his left hand up an octave, to make the chords leap out as a kind of answer to the vocal ... and then he would slide the left hand down again, while still chugging away at the riff, giving a mournful sound - a resolution back down to the way down dirty riff. The cleverest thing about the way he uses the vibrato is that the frequency of the ups and downs in volume matches the tempo of the song. So the overall effect is irresistible.

I was intrigued that here was just about the only other guy in Rock who played a home-made guitar. I never met him - wish I had.

I would have said ..... Thank you, Bo Diddley, for inspiring us all."