Queen Unseen (20 page)

Early one winter morning, I left the Hilton very
bleary-eyed
indeed and took an early flight with Paul Prenter to Genoa to meet representatives of Queen’s Italian record company and drive to San Remo, where we could visit the theatre and check it out. The technical side was my responsibility; stage set up, putting in extra lights, drum risers and so on, while Paul was to discuss the arrangements for hotels, cars, the press, interviews, etc. Queen were top of the guest bill for the two-night show and as always keen to make a big impression. We had not been briefed, it was simply taken for granted that whatever was done had to be the best – and ‘big’. We met our genial contacts and, as befits being in Italy, had a very decent lunch. 

After visiting the venue, it was arranged that we would hire some extra lights, a drum riser and Ludwig drum kit from a company in Milan, and only bring from England Brian’s and John’s guitars, Fred’s mike with ‘wand’ and a front skin with current Queen logo for the bass drum. Arrangements having been made, we drove to Milan. Before Paul left for London, he put in a request for some stimulants to be made available for our stay in San Remo. No problem.

Yours truly (sucker) would fly to Milan in advance of the show with a lorry load of lire and do the business, check all was well with the gear and then drive south to San Remo.

Arriving at Milan’s Linate airport for my flight back to Munich, I wondered if all small Fiat motorcars should really be driven like Ferraris in urban areas. Having been frisked by machine-gun-toting security and subjected to a grilling and declaration of all my German cash, I was finally allowed through to buy my 200 duty-free fags. The gate marked on my Alitalia boarding pass gave the destination as ‘Monaco’.

‘Where’s the gate for the Munich flight then, signora?’

A well-manicured finger pointed to the Monaco gate.

‘No, love – Munich – in Deutschland – comprendo?’

An indifferent Italian shrug. Having given half my boarding pass away, I found myself being bundled towards the door and the waiting transit bus. Mild panic, and I’m looking for clues to our destination. ‘Munich, München – Germany…?’ I climbed the steps of the plane not knowing where I was heading, so asked the stewardess: ‘Does this flight go to Munich?’

‘Si, yes, it goes to Monaco – Munich.’

‘Oh I see – it stops in Monaco on the way?’ (Seems an odd route.)

‘No sir, eeet eez a direct flight, eeet is same place, Munich and Monaco.’

Monaco turned out to be the Italian word for Munich. Very confusing this foreign language business…

The flight over the Alps was bad. Very bad. Bottles and bags came crashing down from overhead, but it didn’t stop them from serving the meal. Now I know how important food is to the Italians, but how comfortable is a plastic
in-flight
snack as you look out and watch the wings buckle by the glow of lightning flashes?

The total of Queen and their entourage who flew out to Italy from London for the four-or five-day trip numbered eighteen. Possibly a little excessive for a mimed TV show by four musicians! But hey – this was Queen – big band – first time in Italy – big impression. I left in advance for Milan with the few thousand pounds in lire of ‘float’ I had got from Coutts Bank. I was travelling with John’s bass, Fred’s microphones with ‘wand’ – which I had checked in, and a couple of fragile bass drum skins with the Queen logo as hand baggage. I also had different-sized spares in case the Italians got the drum dimension wrong. They did.

I had requested a window seat and made my way on to the Alitalia jet, where I asked for somewhere safe to put the drum skins. There wasn’t anywhere. My assigned seat was already occupied by a large Italian woman, complete with black dress, a rosary welded to her fingertips and a moustache to rival Fred’s. She did not want to move – in any language. I explained my predicament with the drum skins
and that I could store them flush against the edge of the window seat.

‘Impossible – they must be checked in and travel in the hold,’ said the stewardess.

I tried again, this time using the name San Remo.

‘San Remo?’

‘
Yes – gruppo – musica: Queen.
’

Magic words. ‘Mamma Italia’, her moustache and matching armpits were dispatched to the back of the plane. My own mamma-in-law was Italian – but fortunately nothing like that.

Arriving in Milan, I collected the luggage, weighed up my options, and walked towards the green customs channel where I was curtly stopped and asked to open the guitar case and other bags. The customs officers held their hands up and looked at me as if to say: ‘Are you having a laugh? Looking like you do, and strolling through the green channel with this lot?’

The magic words: ‘San Remo – Queen.’

‘
Ah, si, la musica bella. No problem. Benvenuto in Italia!
’

Pleased at avoiding another customs confrontation, I waltzed my trolley into the arrivals hall where I was greeted by my sharply dressed record company contact of the previous meeting. (He was in Armani – I was more Army & Navy.) As we had met once already, he thought that entitled him to kiss me. I was certainly not having any of that nonsense! I appreciate that the Italians are passionate people, but didn’t they invent homosexuality? No – maybe it was the Greeks? Anyway, as I have indicated, I later married into an Italian family and have to regularly kiss men, women and moustaches…

Squeezing into a metal box constructed in Torino, we drove into Milano. I was assured all was ‘magnifico’ and a meeting for the goods to sustain the entourage was set up. Splendido. Time for vino? No?

‘You have dollars or pounds to exchange?’

‘No,’ I replied proudly. ‘No need to change it: I’ve got it all in lire.’

‘Are you crazy? It is illegal to import or export lire above a certain amount.’ (At that time about £200.)

‘Customs were fine, no problems – but then they didn’t see the money.’

‘You are very lucky, signore. They would have “confiscated” the cash, you would have definitely been fined, and probably detained in jail.’

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh! Mamma Mia let me go
!

That was close. I was then introduced to a third party and was told how many millions of lire were required for what was wanted.

‘Fine, it’s all here – I’m ready to go.’

‘Peter, it is better you don’t come to this meeting.’

‘No, sorry, pal, I don’t hand over large wads of cash without personally seeing something back.’

It was then
clearly
explained to me who the people holding the merchandise were: dark suits – Sicily… something nasty left in the bed (something nasty was about to be left in my trousers).

‘I’ll stay here with a cappuccino then – got anything in English to read?’

Having earlier narrowly avoided an Italian jail, I decided to skip meeting the Mafia. Our man returned with huge
rocks – like chunks of ancient Italian marble. Flaking some off, we tried it. There was no need to ask for the money back. Buzzing at 1,000 miles an hour we could easily have run down the autostrada to San Remo.

When I did arrive that night, Paul Prenter was still up waiting for me, or, more importantly, for the merchandise. He commandeered it all and hammered at the rocks with a glass hotel ashtray on the hard wooden floor – smashing the ashtray as the chunks of cocaine slithered across the room. He was on his hands and knees desperately trying to retrieve every morsel. It’s a very nasty drug at times, cocaine.

The following day, the Queen entourage arrived and the festival turned into a big party. I was moved from my room in The Royal Hotel to a tiny cupboard in the hotel annexe, as some periphery person deemed more important MUST have a room in the main hotel. It was at this time that I began to consider just how much I was appreciated and valued, and whether I wanted to do this any longer.

Blondie, a German friend of ours from Munich, had shown up in his official capacity as representative for Puma sportswear. He had custom-made a tight red singlet vest with a leaping white puma on the front for Fred, and was delighted when he wore it on stage in front of a TV audience of millions.

In those days, there was virtually no sponsorship or hard endorsements. Queen would be given loads of sportswear from Puma, Nike and Adidas and would maybe wear it – or maybe not. No contracts were signed or heavy lawyers involved. It was very relaxed and low key – just the occasional promo photo. It was a different era.

Appearing in San Remo were other English artists, including Paul Young and Culture Club. I was surprised at how big Boy George was. Normally, the angles photos and film of bands are viewed from are low, making people appear larger and grander. Many stars and singers are actually quite short and slight. Not ‘Boy’ – he was built like a brickie’s labourer.

The San Remo show was deemed a huge success for Queen and I wasn’t surprised. Queen’s popularity in Italy is all down to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. There are many theories of what ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is all about, but I know the truth. Honest. On a couple of occasions I asked Fred, ‘What’s it all about then, Fred – “Bo Rhap”?’

He would twiddle his hands dismissively: ‘Oh, you know, dear – this and that.’

Revealing …

Actually it’s all about Italy and Fred being influenced by the magnificence of this cultured country. Just think about the words: ‘Mamma mia’ – Italian of course. Galileo, Figaro, Magnifico? – all Italians. Scaramouche – a pizza topping from Naples. Fandango – a formula one racing driver for Ferrari. Bismilah – a fashion designer in Milan. And Beelzebub was a striker for Juventus. The pathos of the grand mini opera is summed up: ‘I sometimes wish I’d never been to Roma at all.’

Now you know.

Meanwhile, back in Munich, recording carried on (a bit) and discipline slackened. The studio was not exactly being used 
to its full potential, doubling as a breakfast cafe, chat room, meeting point, dining room, recreation area, video playback suite and occasional place to record songs. Once the basic tracks were laid down, you no longer saw all four members of the band together regularly. They would come in for their own songs, to collaborate or play on other songs, or just eat and meet. At times, members of the band would fly out to Munich, do a bit of work and fly home to London again.

There was one occasion when we were not spending large sums of money for Musicland to be sporadically used, that a few hours of studio time and producer Mack were required. ‘I Want To Break Free’ had been chosen as the follow-up single to ‘Radio Ga Ga’, and John was to oversee mixing the 12-inch version. Problem was that Musicland had already been booked by somebody else. I flew out to Munich with John and, in the meantime, Mack found another professional studio that he knew – Union Studios in Allescher Strasse. The mix with its slowly building intro on the synthesiser was so popular with everybody that the seven-inch single was held back and then released with this new mix.

When John and I and the rest of Queen were back in Munich at Musicland to continue final recording of
The Works
, we were once again installed in the Hilton Hotel.

Room 828 Muenchen Hilton Hotel. Knock-knock.

‘Who is it?’ It’s around 5:00 am and I’m entertaining!

‘Ratty, it’s John.’

‘Yes, John.’

‘I’m fed up with all this – I’m off.’

‘Back to London?’

‘No.’

‘Are you… leaving the band?’

‘No, I’m off to Bali – tomorrow – today that is, but I need some cash.’

(
You
need cash?)

‘Right… well, you’re the boss, it’s your money, and it’s stashed in a flight case – we can get it when the studio opens. Bali? Fine, well, I’ve heard it’s very nice – when are you back?’

‘Dunno, I’ll call you. I need a break. OK, I’ll check out. Put my luggage in your room, can you, and you’d better tell the rest of the band – please.’

‘You’re the boss…’

Later that day: ‘Fred – John’s gone to Bali.’

Cue Mr Mercury leaping on to the dining table to sing ‘Bali High’ from
South Pacific
, in the grandest operatic style.

Apart from breaking the news that band members had gone missing, my daily routine would include going upstairs to the news-stand in the Arabella Hotel and buying what was left of the English papers that were flown in. They did not arrive until around lunchtime, which was very convenient as we were never out of bed until at least that hour. I would also buy an assortment of international magazines for the band to peruse, and any music publications in any language.

Fred discovered a double page spread of himself live on stage in one mag and flaunted it around the studio. Then he and the others would often criticise other bands’ images.

‘Just look at Sting! She’s posing with her shirt off again!’

Fred always wanted his newspaper horoscope (Virgo) read out to him daily and sometimes other signs (presumably people he was close to or interested in at the
time). I read John’s to try to find out when he might be back from Bali… he eventually called, a week or so later, asking me to book him back into the Hilton, and could I pick him up from Munich airport. He showed up with peeling, flaking skin from severe sunburn, and was immediately dubbed The Snakeman.

Fred would either get very excited by the horoscope prediction or dismiss it as rubbish. He then asked for vodka. Not
a
vodka – just vodka.

Everybody drank vodka, which is apparently a ‘clean’ drink and good-quality stuff is easier on the system – so they say. The band all drank it with tonic, the crew with orange juice. We were younger then and our livers could cope – most of the time. Brian also enjoyed his vodka, but was never the best at timekeeping and particularly after a hard night. He did not smoke cigarettes and never did drugs and had a good diet, so he did make an effort to look after himself.

All the crew smoked and so did Roger, but Fred and John, both former non-smokers, started the habit in the ’80s. Then Roger, after various attempts, eventually gave it up. I never thought Fred suited smoking. There was historically an element of cool and macho attached to cigarettes, but Fred didn’t jam the cigarette in the corner of his mouth James Dean style or bite on it like Clint Eastwood. Nor did he hold it up and let it smoulder as Marlene Dietrich and other Hollywood stars did. No, I have to say Fred smoked cigarettes like a schoolgirl, puffing quite lightly and urgently on cigarettes and never leaving them in his mouth for long, before snatching them out with his fingertips. Naturally, he never bought his own, so would bum fags from the entourage.
Munich and its people and places inspired everybody and in particular one of Brian’s songs: