Freddie Mercury: The Biography (6 page)

With Grose as their new bassist, the band looked forward to
their first gig. It was again in Truro, this time at the City Hall on 27 June 1970, but after all Mercury’s efforts to adopt
the name Queen, they were billed as Smile. ‘It was a long-standing booking,’ explains Mike Grose. ‘I suppose we could’ve notified
them that the band was different, but we didn’t bother.’

The gig was a charity performance, organised by the Cornish branch of the British Red Cross, and although the hall held 800
people, only a fraction turned up, which, according to Grose, was a stroke of luck. ‘We were a bit rough at the edges that
night,’ he admits. ‘We had practised, but playing live is different to rehearsing in a college classroom. We also got a bit
lost with one of us remembering a different arrangement on a song to the rest. We did our best to hide the gaffes but, let’s
put it this way, we didn’t expect to be asked back.’

Collective gaffes aside, Mercury was unhappy with his personal performance. Not even the generous £50 fee, which they were
relieved to receive at the end of the night, eradicated his self-recriminations – how unpolished he’d been – and for days
he dissected the gig, analysing precisely where he had gone wrong. There was a plus side, however, for they had undoubtedly
left a strong visual impression. The statutory stage wear of current bands such as Free and Black Sabbath was faded denims
and T-shirts, but Mercury’s vision for Queen from the outset was to stand out from the crowd. When they took the stage at
Truro’s City Hall, they were dressed stylishly in black silk, and weighed down with gaudy junk jewellery.

The strength of their visual impact was some consolation to Mercury, but he was still frustrated that the band had not yet
performed officially as Queen. Keen for them to start promoting themselves properly, he would insist this never happened again.
And he was equally adamant about the decision he had now reached to change his own name. Countless performers had done this
as a matter of course, but Mercury’s reasons seem fairly deep-rooted.

The name Bulsara tied him too firmly to his Persian ancestry, and as Queen’s first PR man, Tony Brainsby, confirms, Mercury
was always careful during interviews to avoid any reference to his Asian background. His parents’ religion and culture represented
a world from which he had been distancing himself for some time. Although his name change was not intended as a slight to
his family, he preferred to close the door on Farrokh Bulsara and reinvent himself as someone else – someone synonymous with
glamour, fame and strength. For this he delved into Roman mythology and chose Mercury, the messenger of the gods. As of July
1970, Queen’s lead singer was to be known as Freddie Mercury.

Friends accepted the change easily, but for Ken Testi, with whom Mercury had stayed in touch after leaving Wreckage, the new
band name came as a shock: ‘Since no one stayed in a flat with a phone, we kept in touch by using the public call box at the
end of the aisle at Kensington market, where Fred and Roger worked. Freddie wanted me to help get the band bookings, and one
day he rang me at St Helens, urging me to fix them up with some gigs as soon as possible. I asked him what they were calling
themselves now, and Fred said, “Queen”. Well, I guess that was a giveaway when you think about it, but anyway I gasped, “Freddie!
You can’t get away with that!” To which he replied airily, “But of course we can, my dear.”’

But behind the cavalier façade lay a calculating brain. Although they had been formed for only a few weeks, Queen’s lack of
progress was wearing them down. Playing local gigs was all very well – though even then bookings didn’t just drop out of the
sky – but their horizons went far beyond that. They wanted the band to attract the interest of record companies. Apart from
Smile’s brief liaison with Mercury Records, none of them could boast any real experience of how to do this. But they refused
to be deterred, and Mercury had already put the first phase of his attack into operation.

In those days, Kensington High Street thronged each weekend with people who could be helpful to an aspiring band. Fully aware
of this, Mercury made a point of being there. His apparently effortless display, mincing up and down the street, draped in
velvet and fur, with feather boas tossed casually around his neck, concealed a determined attempt to catch the eye of the
media, preferably someone useful from the record industry. Ken Testi confirms that ‘This was an every Saturday occurrence.
He’d go on the prowl up and down Ken High Street. Sure there was a bonus – he could cruise, and it was very important to Freddie
to go on the promenade – but he never lost sight of the fact that he was there for a more important reason, and it was a case
of, you never know your luck.’

Queen were counting on a showcase gig they had arranged for mid-July at Imperial College. The audience would include their
friends, who could be depended upon to clap enthusiastically, but the bulk of the audience, they hoped, would consist of the
music executives whom they had personally invited. It didn’t turn out to be their night, though. Some executives did turn
up, and the band’s friends did their best to make the gig swing, but absolutely nothing came of it.

Having to content himself with the knowledge that at least their performance was improving, Mercury shelved his disappointment
and concentrated instead on a gig just over a week away, on 25 July, at PJ’s in Truro. They would be publicly billed here
as Queen for the first time, but this gig turned out to be the last for Mike Grose. ‘Basically, I’d had enough of never earning
decent money and of living in squalor,’ reveals Grose. ‘I thought, to hell with it. There wasn’t any animosity, and in fact
Roger rang me up a fortnight later to ask me back, but I didn’t want to.’

When Mike Grose left that August, he had an uneasy feeling that he was walking away from something special. But, at twenty-three,
having played already for six years, he was ready
to quit. By contrast, Mercury, at much the same age, was driven all the more to succeed. Time was not running out for the
band, but by their mid-twenties most rock stars were established. Queen remained in its infancy, and was now short of a bass
player.

There was some urgency to fill the vacancy left by Mike Grose, for in less than three weeks’ time they had a booking at Imperial
College. For a second time Roger Taylor’s West Country connections proved useful, when Barry Mitchell heard in Cornwall that
a London band were in desperate need of a bass player. ‘I was given a number to ring,’ says Mitchell, ‘and Roger invited me
to meet them. I went to the flat they were sharing around the corner from Imperial College, and from there we walked to a
lecture theatre for my audition. We did a couple of bluesy numbers then returned to the flat for a chat, when it was kind
of generally agreed that I’d passed and was in.’

Fresh-faced with long blond hair, Barry Mitchell looked the part as well as being good on bass. But he never felt that he
quite fitted in. May later called Queen an ‘efficient little machine’, clearly resistant to outsiders, and Mercury, May and
Taylor were established as something of a clique. Nevertheless, Mitchell looked forward to the new challenge. His first impressions
of Mercury were clear: ‘Outside band business Freddie was very deep, and you never knew quite what to make of him. But professionally
it was obvious right from the start that he was the driving force in the band. His ideas to be flamboyant, to wear women’s
clothes on stage and so on were, without doubt, all very much part of his plan to grab as much attention as possible. It’s
the same as him naming the group Queen. He knew exactly what he was doing.’

Mitchell’s debut with Queen took place on 23 August. Performing again in front of an invited audience, it was hoped this show
would be their springboard to fame. By now
Mercury’s anticipation had reached fever pitch, and he’d asked a dressmaker friend to make him a couple of special stage outfits,
based upon his own rough sketches. He saw himself in a slinky black one-piece of sensuous material, so figure-hugging that
it left little to the imagination. Slashed dramatically to the waist to expose his hairy chest, with a quilted wing effect
at the wrists and ankles, he called it his ‘Mercury suit’ and commissioned a replica in white. Getting ready for that gig,
Freddie Mercury was to take their new bass player by surprise in other ways, too.

‘I walked into the flat and stopped dead at the sight of Freddie not only in this outfit, but with great big curlers in his
hair,’ says Mitchell. ‘I thought, Wait a minute! What’s this? I came from long-haired, greasy blues bands, and I wasn’t getting
into any of this lark.’ Unperturbed by Mitchell’s dismay, Mercury continued meticulously painting his fingernails black and
making the finishing touches to his hair with a set of heated curling tongs that he wielded like a pro.

But it wasn’t only Mercury’s stage clothes that were different. There was also the extraordinary trouble the band was prepared
to take to please their audience. Mitchell recalls that ‘Earlier that same day, I’d been round at the flat to help them get
things ready. We were making our own popcorn and orange juice, which was being laid on free of charge. It sounds corny nowadays,
but it was a heck of a lot more than other bands did.’ There was no return on their hospitality, however, and they reverted
to scraping together as many gigs as possible. Mitchell admits, ‘Queen were busier than any band I’d been used to. We played
another gig at a private school in London not long after that night, but it was the Liverpool scene that was special then,
and it was clear they [Queen] had good local connections.’

Those Merseyside connections continued to be made through Ken Testi. By now social secretary at St Helen’s College of Technology,
part of his job involved booking bands
for college dances, and as such, he was invaluable to Queen. Even so, at the beginning of September, bookings dried up when
May’s academic studies required another trip to Tenerife, leaving Mercury, Taylor and Barry Mitchell to content themselves
with rehearsals. One practice session, in particular, remains vivid in Mitchell’s memory.

‘It was on 18 September,’ he says. ‘I arrived at the flat to meet the others and had just walked in when Freddie, very pale-faced,
asked, “Have you heard? Jimi Hendrix is dead.” God, the stunned feeling was immense. He’d been our idol, and we were all absolutely
shattered. Freddie and Roger closed their stall that day as a mark of respect, but by night we were still in a state of shock,
so at rehearsal, as our own tribute, we played nothing but Hendrix songs the whole session.’

Hendrix’s death had genuinely shaken Mercury. The American guitarist, singer and songwriter was one of a handful of artistes
whose influence played a tangible role in shaping his own musical taste, which as Ken Testi reveals, was difficult to define:
‘Freddie’s album collection in those days struggled to get into double figures, and those he did have he kept flat in a drawer.
He had Liza Minnelli’s
Cabaret, The Beatles (White Album)
and
Sgt. Pepper,
Led Zeppelin’s first album, because he loved all the power chords, the Who’s
Tommy
and one by the Pretty Things called
SF Sorrow,
which Freddie considered to be the first rock opera.’

Mercury himself cited his two major influences as Minnelli and Hendrix, an odd cocktail which perhaps helps to explain the
showbiz flair that formed such an integral part of his own performing style. It is often said that you can tell a lot about
a person from their record collection, but this ragbag selection of Mercury’s was only confusing. He was right, however, about
SF Sorrow
– it was the first rock opera.

The Pretty Things had deserted their early R&B roots and were involved in London’s psychedelic underground scene.
When
SF Sorrow
was released back in December 1968, it was critically acclaimed several weeks before the appearance of the Who’s now much-vaunted
Tommy.
The band’s lead guitarist, Dick Taylor, formerly an original member of the Rolling Stones, confirms, ‘We recorded our album
before
Tommy,
and in fact, there’s a track on it which sounds extremely like “Pinball Wizard”. Phil [May] had concocted a story, and we
all wrote songs around that. It was kind of surreal and poetic and quite complex, about someone’s life and death. To tell
you the truth, I don’t think I’ve ever really understood it myself, but the thing is, it was certainly
pre-Tommy.
But the Who got their album out in the States first, and that was all it took for
SF Sorrow
to get sidelined, and
Tommy
hailed as the first rock opera.’

Dick Taylor and his then wife, Melissa, were friends with Mercury and Mary Austin. ‘Melissa worked at Biba, when Mary worked
at reception, and it was through their friendship that I got to know Freddie,’ says Dick Taylor. ‘We met up often, and I never
knew he felt that way about our album, but it doesn’t surprise me. He really was very quiet in private. He didn’t say much
at all to many people, at any time. He invited us to some of their gigs when he was newly starting out, and I was very impressed
with how hard he was working at it. When I saw him with Queen later on the telly I thought, Blimey, that’s a bit over the
top.’

Mary Austin’s increasing significance in Mercury’s life continued to deflect any doubts about his sexuality. ‘Although ours
was very much a business arrangement,’ says Barry Mitchell, ‘I’d often head off to the market to see Freddie and Roger, just
to knock about. Freddie was always full of wild gestures, hands flying around, and would be very demonstrative when he greeted
you. Don’t get me wrong, he was great fun, and we all got used to him, but all this limp wrist stuff – I was sure it was all
part of the act. I already knew what he was up to with the
band’s image, and I assumed this caper was just an extension of that. I never wondered seriously about him being gay, because
there was no sign of anything other than a heterosexual relationship with Mary.