Queen Unseen (16 page)

D
espite those rare Days of Doom on the road, touring was vital to the success of a band, and was fundamentally there to promote their recorded music. So the next stop for Queen after global gallivanting was to think up and produce new product – their fresh pound of vinyl for the record company Shylocks.

Recording: a process performed in recording studios, where records are recorded for record companies.

Record companies: places where artists’ records are manufactured, promoted and distributed.

Record company executives: a professor ran an experiment on how dogs’ and their owners’ behaviour echo each other. He took three people from different walks of life and put their respective dogs in a sealed room – each with 12 dog biscuits. After an hour, the professor returned and appraised
the first dog, which belonged to an accountant. The accountant’s dog had placed two biscuits next to three biscuits, and in between made a + sign from two biscuits. Over to the right was a pile of five biscuits: 3+2 = 5. ‘Very good. A success.’ Next, it was on to the civil engineer’s dog, which had built a tiny ‘A’ frame bridge from his biscuits. ‘Excellent. Proves my theory.’ Finally, he approached the record company executive’s dog, who had eaten all his biscuits, fucked the other two dogs, taken the rest of the day off, and on leaving asked if there were any printed T-shirts going free.

No surprises there.

‘Queen – that “Bohemian Rhapsody” thing? It was all right, a flash in the pan though – they’ll never last.’

‘Nice video, but yeah – that glam thing is over. Finished!’

The dogs (talking) bollocks.

Some of these oscillating record company people stuck their heads so far up the collective ass of Queen they could wear them as a form of hat. Or crown.

It’s a funny thing; there are now as many record company ‘people’ who claim to have ‘broken’ Queen, and seen the wonderful potential of the six-minute ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, as there are currently living in China. And of course
none
of them
ever
wanted to edit it…

During their career Queen used numerous recording studios around the world, where I spent countless hours trapped in timeless limbo. Was it exciting being one of the privileged few to be there as the band developed and 
recorded new songs? No, mostly it was bloody boring! And to think I passed my first year City and Guilds in mechanical engineering to hang around waiting, making tea, collecting Chinese and Indian takeaways and feeding parking meters for a quartet of talented musicians. I was wasted; I could have been a qualified turner and fitter by now.

Making records, just like film – another glamour industry – is often tedious and repetitive, as ‘take after take’ is put on tape until it is perfect. Then once more, just to be sure. During the recording of
A Night At The Opera
, I was taken on as a full-time roadie for Queen and spent many days and nights commuting across London to the various studios being used. I was picking up an antique harp for Brian to play on ‘Love Of My Life’, from an equally ancient woman in Barnes, south London, when I thought, ‘Queen is a rock band – is this rock ’n’ roll?’ Then I listened to snippets of
Opera
being sung in the control room, and when I heard other sections of what was to become ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ I thought it was going to be a new intro tape for the live show. Wrong – it was a rather successful six-minute single.

Various London studios were used for their different merits: live room, dead room, control room or even recreation room. The studio with the magic feel was Sarm Studios in Brick Lane in unfashionable Whitechapel, in the East End of London. The first 24-track studio in the city was situated here in a pokey basement. Despite this, Queen produced very innovative material here.

Wessex studios was an old converted chapel in Highbury, 
north London, and the place where, in 1976, we first witnessed punk. The Sex Pistols were also booked in and doing their early recordings, when nobody really knew who they were. Johnny Rotten was sitting in the lounge area on a brown corduroy seating unit, wearing a lime-green mohair jumper and ripped jeans. Safety pins were inserted in every available space and his hair was dyed a ginger hamster colour, spiked and lacquered. Despite this, he seemed a quiet, pleasant sort of bloke – he didn’t snarl at me when I asked if I could change the TV channel, just shrugged and nodded. What was all this fuss about these guys?

One afternoon when Queen were working in the control room, Sid Vicious stumbled in, the worse for wear, and addressed Fred: ‘Have you succeeded in bringing ballet to the masses yet?’ (A reference to a quote Fred had made in the music press.)

Fred casually got up, walked over to him and quipped: ‘Aren’t you Stanley Ferocious or something?’, took him by the collar and threw him out. So much for the mean edge of punk.

During recording sessions at Wessex, Fred defied the ethos of punk and purchased his first car – a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. Mine was a rusty old Morris Mini… He was very excited and proud, so insisted that we should share in his delight. Fred crammed as many of us as possible inside the car and got his driver to take us for a spin around the leafy streets of Highbury. One of the crew pointed out that the silver lady mascot on the bonnet of a ‘roller’ was a target for thieves – and they were often wrenched off, so Fred should be careful.

‘I’d cut their fucking hands off if I caught them!’ he said with some venom.

‘We Will Rock You’ was recorded at Wessex, the ‘boom boom chas’ at the start of the song being recorded by all available feet, including the crew, stomping on some wooden platforms, while hands clapped the off beat in the cavernous room. The result was soaked in echo, multi-tracked and given some studio magic by engineer Mike Stone to create an introduction that has become an anthem throughout the rock and sporting world. I personally find this song a bit spooky. When I was at junior school in the early sixties, we would line up in rows according to age in a sparse, cold classroom for morning assembly. The master would warm himself, as he leaned on the metal rail around the
coal-burning
stove and chose the morning song. My favourite was ‘We Will Rock You’, a short hymn about keeping the baby Jesus happy and content. Funny old world.

Early one morning, just as the sun was rising… not the introduction to another traditional song, but after a long ‘We Will Rock You’ session at Wessex, a very tired Brian was driving home at dawn in his Jaguar XJS, his new pride and joy. There was black ice on the Marylebone flyover. Whoops! Brian was shocked, but unhurt. The car, however, was trashed and Brian’s ‘Fireplace’ – his true pride and joy, the famous red guitar he built with his father – was in the boot. Fortunately, it only suffered some surface damage, but the light fibreglass case had been little protection. After a chat with Brian, I immediately commissioned CP Cases to build something that would survive a truck being driven over The Red Special. Unfortunately, the case weighed the same as a truck! 

Queen were openly very competitive and studio discussions often brought out petty rivalry with other bands’ successes. Few were above criticism.

‘I see they’re doing three nights at Madison Square Garden.’

‘Huh! They’ll
never
fill them!
Never
sell out.’

‘They already have, Rog.’

‘Well – the tickets must be very cheap…’

‘I love this band, the one at number one.’

‘What! Are you joking? One-hit wonders!’

‘I still like them.’

‘What do you know?’

‘That they’ve sold more records than your last single…’

‘What! Never! Get EMI on the phone, now!’

Two artists above criticism were Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon. Two icons praised and revered by all of Queen for their work, style and attitude. Fred idolised Hendrix, and in the sixties had gone to see him play live whenever possible. He loved the sounds Hendrix drew from his guitar and would often try to emulate his hero, but, accepting he did not have Hendrix’s phenomenal guitar skills, would bang an acoustic guitar and vocalise ‘taka taka taka taka – chak chak’. Gerry Stickells, Queen’s tour manager, had been Hendrix’s roadie, then tour manager, and close to him until his untimely death. Often the one to talk Fred around when he was being ‘difficult’ on tour, Gerry was a good diplomat and Fred was most impressed with Gerry’s history. This is the man who told Hendrix that the Blue Boar service station on the old A1 was a place that all the bands stopped at. 

‘You mean like a club, man?’

‘Uuuh – yeeeeaaaah…’

Hendrix sauntered into the transport café, guitar in hand, expecting to jam with other musicians.

‘Uh… yeah?’ says Hendrix.

He didn’t get a jam; he got a fry-up with brown sauce and some
very
strange looks from lorry drivers.

The mid-1970s: the era of shag-pile carpet, rubber plants and rock bands using the country house studio – to get away from it all.

Queen had used Ridge Farm, a family-run rehearsal facility in Surrey where the band, their partners and the crew all lived together. After ideas had been formulated for the
A Day at the Races
album, we moved on to Richard Branson’s The Manor in Oxfordshire to begin recording. This was the sweltering hot summer of ’76 and it certainly was good to be out of London in the fresh air of the country. In keeping with the Branson/Virgin hippy image, some of The Manor staff were Buddhists who chanted in the attic (we had thought the incessant droning that kept us awake was some old Steve Hillage or Mike Oldfield tapes). This was the first album Queen had produced themselves, assisted by long-standing studio engineer Mike Stone.

To relieve the pressure between recording sessions, there was a TV lounge where we could watch three channels. In the days before video recorders we all had to be there on time –
The Benny Hill Show
was everybody’s favourite. A different era. It was the Montreal Olympics that summer and 
dainty dashes were made, by Fred in particular, from the studio to the TV lounge to see the live finals of the various athletic ‘dashes’.

One evening, during dinner at the grand baronial table of The Manor, there was a phone call from Freddie’s girlfriend, Mary Austin. She had left The Manor to return to London earlier that day and now confirmed that she wasn’t feeling well – an ear infection. Mary was Freddie’s long-term lover, who supported him greatly in every way in the early days of Queen. They were at that time living together at his newly acquired flat in Kensington.

A year or so later, they parted as lovers and Fred bought Mary a flat at the end of his road, so they would still be close. She was the true love of his life, and remained close, loyal and supportive until the untimely end of Freddie’s life. In fact, it was Mary who inherited the bulk Freddie’s estate.

‘I HAVE to go now! I have to go to Mary!’ he stated emotionally to everybody gathered at the dinner table.

Fred would need to be chauffeured because he never drove – never even attempted to learn. But he did have an opinion on motor vehicles, and, when shortly before recording at The Manor John mentioned he was going to buy a Ford Capri, Fred told him that the model was not suitable for a member of Queen. John subsequently purchased a sporty Jensen interceptor, which sat in the driveway of The Manor.

With dinner over, I offered to take Fred, not in a sporty two-seater, but in a VW van – the John Reid Management vehicle that I was using.

I was shot a cursory glance of Mercurial disapproval. The 
manageress of The Manor diplomatically offered the studio car: a Ford Cortina estate.

With Fred sitting up front beside me, we set off. I felt a bit uncomfortable with the car’s brakes, which were spongy and slow to respond. During the journey, we chatted about music and things in general, but I sensed Fred was tense – he really did care about Mary and wanted to be there with her as soon as possible. Approaching London at a roundabout on the A40, I changed down a gear and pressed the brake. Nothing. Oh dear! I managed to swerve and steer the car most of the way around the roundabout until it veered into a pile of drainpipes. As I fought to control the car, in my mind flashed the headline that might appear in the
Melody Maker:
Roadie Kills Pop Star. The car came to an abrupt halt, and Fred and I looked over at each other and confirmed we were both all right. Completely free of injury, not even a scratch or bruise.

Knock-knock.

‘What the fu…’

Faces pressed at the car window; gypsies, who often parked along this stretch in their caravans. They wanted to know if we were OK and suggested that if we were drunk or had stolen the car it was better to leave soon. We were both stone cold sober and the car was off the road, so what next? Fred would take control – he would go for help!

Neither the AA nor RAC stood before me on the roadside, not even the elusive, stylish Queen megastar, but Fred, in his faded blue jeans, white clogs and an embroidered black silk kimono a fan had given him on tour a few months previously. He had not shaved for a day or two and his dark stubble was proud, his carefully tousled hair now blew free 
as he wandered off towards some lights in the distance to call his driver Derek and, presumably, Mary. As I waited for Fred’s return, a passing motorist stopped and enquired as to my welfare and then kindly offered to call a tow truck from the next available telephone box to take the car away. No mobile phones then. I waited. And waited.

After about half an hour, Fred returned and explained the situation comedy that had unfolded. He had knocked on the door of the first house he came to and was quickly recognised by the people who answered. They let him use the phone and offered him tea. He graciously accepted and then realised that, being Fred, he had no money on him (he never carried cash) to repay their kindness. The electricity meter ran out, so they had to go next door to borrow some 10p pieces to feed the meter and boil the kettle – then there was no milk for the tea, so another dash next door was needed! Next door recognised him too and joined the tea party.