Queen Unseen (22 page)

My background was basic working class; accountants, lawyers and bankers never featured in my world; they were above me, and due to the inherent class system of the time I foolishly believed that they were somehow superior. I am now of a very different opinion.

The rot at the accountancy firm started when I discovered one of its employees had misled me over a flat I was buying, losing me both the flat and money, then disappearing in a sports car he hadn’t paid for – never to be seen again. That wasn’t the worst of it; the guy who fled was not a qualified accountant at all, but a petty thief who also stole items from the office. But, more seriously, he had been forging two of 
Queen’s signatures on company cheques and embezzling the money for himself. Subsequently, Queen gradually pulled everything out of the accountancy firm, then adopted a different system for looking after their finances and appointed a reputable firm of city accountants. When Peter Chant, the new accountant, was checking how I filled in my expenses book, he said, ‘This all seems fine – but what does B&C mean for cash paid out?’

‘Oh, that? That’s bribery and corruption.’

He laughed, then asked me, ‘OK, but please do try and get petty cash slips signed when you can, and not by Mr Michael Mouse or Ivor Bigun.’

What happened to Keith Moore? Queen’s former accountant subsequently served a prison sentence for stealing around £6,000,000 from the Geordie bass player Sting.

In fact, I met Sting in the reception of Keith Moore’s firm one day in 1977. I was introduced by Andy Summers, an excellent session guitarist, who I knew from previous tours I’d done. This was the era of punk, and, now sporting dyed blonde hair, Andy told us they had formed this new band: The Police. ‘Never get anywhere,’ I concluded with Crystal as we walked back to the van. I will add in my defence that we had not yet heard them play. I felt the same on the Mott tour in ’73 about Queen and I
had
heard them play – every night. A career in a record company A&R dept was not an option for me.

John, Brian and Roger liked to watch other bands play in London. Fred never went to rock shows and would favour 
attending the ballet or opera. Or he was equally quite happy at home with the telly.

I went along with John to see Bruce Springsteen at Wembley Arena on his 1980
The River
tour. It was a tremendous show and afterwards we went to the backstage bar area and had a drink along with the press and most of the music world of London, desperate for a piece of Bruce’s time. Shortly after, Bruce’s manager came over and asked John if he would like to come and say hi to Bruce.

‘Sure – love to.’

We were led back into one of the many rooms off the backstage corridor, which was empty save for a few chairs, a massage table and the smell of athletic massage fluid. We were given a beer and told ‘The Boss’ would be along shortly. Bruce opened the door unaccompanied, and the three of us then sat and chatted over a beer for ages, while outside the whole of London’s music world clamoured to see him. He was a truly nice guy and pointed out that he had a masseur to help keep his body toned for the gruelling schedule he undertook. There appeared to be mutual musical respect between him and Queen, as Roger, who had been to Bruce’s show the previous night was granted the same audience.

A year or so later, I was in the Sunset Marquis, a quieter, low-key apartment hotel in Los Angeles, and passing through reception when I saw Mr Springsteen coming in. I caught his eye and he came straight over, shook my hand and said it was good to see me again and asked after the band. I was stunned!

He must constantly meet thousands of different people, yet 
he remembered a humble roadie he once met briefly while accompanying his bass guitar-playing boss. Top man.

Roger had houses in London but his preferred residence was in the Surrey countryside at Mill Hanger (dubbed Coat Hanger) complete with the rock-star lifestyle: swimming pool, go-karts, pinball machines, snooker table, juke box and bar were all available. One of his neighbours was Rick Parfitt of Status Quo, who had a small studio incorporated into his country seat. An impromptu session was arranged with Rick, Rog and John, so I drove down with John and his guitars in the splendour of a Ford Transit van. Rick had his Porsches parked in front of his house, which he called his ‘Giant Tonka toys’. After some ideas were put on tape, he suggested we went off to his local pub for refreshment; the route on foot had us negotiating crop fields and small country paths. The centre-piece of the pub’s bar was a gold Status Quo album. Rick was a regular. He beckoned Rog and John over to meet his landlord: ‘See these two guys here?’ Rick whispered closely to the guy behind the bar. ‘They’re almost as famous as me.’

Later, while I was driving John back to London in the van, we were apprehended by a sole policeman, who had been concealed in the shadows of a Little Chef diner. John, who had been drinking, seemed a bit nervous but I was completely sober, and as it was me driving I told him we had nothing to worry about. I was also used to being stopped by the Old Bill and dealing with them. The cop was concerned by the pungent smell he claimed was dope, and 
inspected the van’s ashtrays thoroughly. The smell was just the van’s dodgy old heater, with its singed rubber signature. He never searched us…

Fred’s magnificent house, Garden Lodge in Kensington, was a testament to his superb taste. It was full of wonderful antiques and art tempered with personal knick-knacks, Mercurial
objets
and photographs, but despite its grandeur it had a homely feel. There was no obvious visual evidence on display at Garden Lodge of Fred’s day job. All the hundreds of platinum, gold and silver albums, plus the awards, plaques and statuettes, were tucked away out of sight.

On one wall of his kitchen was a large, modern, forgettable but expensive oil painting that Fred had picked up on tour in South America. It was very big, and I had suggested strapping it into the lid of the Steinway grand piano case to ship it home. Fred thought this was a good idea as he could get his new piece of art back to London quickly: ‘But what about all those customs men and things?’

‘Don’t worry, Fred – if they ask, I’ll tell them a fan gave it to you. They’d find it hard to believe you actually paid money for it.’

I was rewarded for my insolence with the Fred frown.

Visiting Brian’s house in a quiet area by the Thames, I was offered the usual cordial cup of tea. While sitting in the lounge, I noticed a new addition, a semi-circular shelf, positioned halfway up the wall that it dominated. I asked if it was reserved for an item of beauty he had purchased or some newly won award. No, the shelf and its small orange velvet cushion was set aside for Squeaky, Brian’s tortoiseshell cat, to sit on. Brian explained this as he brought in the tea and biscuits, balanced in 
a drawer from a kitchen cabinet! Apparently, he had builders in and couldn’t find a tray. A guitar-playing scientist is hardly going to be the model of domesticity after all.

John lived quite modestly and, as the most anonymous of the band, he managed to keep a degree of privacy, which he wanted for his family. However, when he moved to a big Victorian house to accommodate his growing clan, I teased him that it looked like the layout of the Cluedo board. You always got a good cup of tea at John’s.

One of the more unusual gigs I did for Queen, or rather for Fred himself, was when he appeared with the Royal Ballet for a charity show at the London Coliseum in late 1979. Fred’s circle of friends included Wayne Sleep and Wayne Eagling, both highly respected classical dancers, and Fred was delighted to join them for this one-off performance. As to be expected, Fred would only accept the invitation if he was fully rehearsed. I was summoned, as Fred’s performance for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ involved him singing while lying on his back, carried over the heads of the other dancers as they glided across the stage.

‘But how can we do it, Ratty?’

‘
We
, Fred?’

‘You know, you know, the microphone and cable and all that – it’ll get in the way, won’t it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So what then?’

‘Don’t worry, Fred,
we
can get a radio
mike
for you.’

‘Oh yes – very good.’ 

I rented a radio microphone system, which in the far-off days of ’79 were temperamental to say the least. I located the very best available and went to visit the sound technician at the Coliseum to check the place out and see if there were any ‘dead spots’ or if they had experienced problems using wireless in the theatre. It all seemed to work fine and a 1/4 tape was specially mixed at the Townhouse Studios to be ‘dropped in’ during the opera section of ‘Bo Rhap’. Fred would then sing live to the remaining backing track. The rehearsals went well and all were in good spirits backstage at the Coliseum on the Sunday night.

I’m sure Fred was nervous, but I was shitting myself. No matter how good the technology of musical equipment becomes, you should always get a spare. In this case, there was no spare available and I was not on stage to solve any problems, as I was in the mixing booth at the back of the stalls, charged with the task of mixing Fred’s voice with the ambient orchestra and dropping in the tape at the vital moment.

Oh shit, he’ll kill me if something goes wrong. How did I get dragged into this – stupidity or loyalty? The biggest headache was that the mixing booth was enclosed behind glass, and the sound only audible through small monitor speakers. This was certainly not rock ’n’ roll – I needed to hear it from source. The house engineer in the booth with me changed into an elegant black velvet evening jacket with satin lapels to mix the show, while smoking cigarettes from a long ‘Noel Coward’-style holder.

No – not rock ’n’ roll. 

By the time of Fred’s performance, I had smoked my way through at least half a pack of Bensons, and then as he began to sing I rushed out of the booth and through the auditorium doors to hear it for real. It seemed fine but pretty quiet, compared to what we were used to. After a standing ovation for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, Fred began to whip the dinner jacket and evening gown crowd into a frenzy with a version of the freshly released ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ single.

At the end of the concert, I went backstage to retrieve the microphone from the dressing room. I was pleased but hugely relieved that Fred’s bit had gone well.

Fred’s dressing room was overflowing with flowers, champagne and theatrical ‘luvvies’ as I squeezed through to retrieve the forgotten (and extremely expensive) mike that was left lying forlornly on a side table. I wanted to see how Fred was, but he was in his theatrical element, surrounded by baying admirers and so no acknowledgement or thanks were forthcoming. Nor was an invitation to the after-show party at Legends club in Mayfair.

Ah, well – it was my job.

Fred enjoyed several non-gay London nightclubs in the ’70s and ’80s; apart from Legends, he would frequent The Embassy in Bond Street, Maunkberry in Jermyn Street and Xenon in Piccadilly, where on 5 September 1984 he held a party for his 38th birthday after one of the run of Queen shows at Wembley Arena. Earlier at Wembley, Fred had commandeered an extra backstage dressing room into which he put several of his ex-lovers, who had been invited. He then left them to get on with it… that mischievous old Mercury! 
His birthday was tainted by the publication that day in a tabloid of details about Freddie’s private life. The beans had been spilled by a former employee. It was a shame that some who worked for him took advantage of his generosity.

Due to the decline of the British film industry in the 1970s, the film studios around London were being utilised by other forms of modern entertainment culture – notably rock bands. Being there when Queen made the seminal video for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ at Elstree Film Studios, north of London, was in retrospect quite exciting; and so was being in and around film studios generally. At that time, Queen were starting their new management era with John Reid, who also managed Elton John, Kiki Dee and Kevin Ayers. A shared warehouse with Elton John’s equipment was available for Queen at Elstree Studios, but not long afterwards was commandeered by director Stanley Kubrick to be used as the kitchen in his movie
The Shining.

It was a coincidence I maintain, but I was once asked quite firmly to move my Transit van, as I had parked in Mr Kubrick’s private space.

‘Here’s Ratty!’

Lots of the sets for
The Shining
were at Elstree along with those from
Star Wars, Superman
and other big screen movies of the time. Great stuff.

After being turfed out of our second Elstree storage space, we moved Queen’s ever-growing collection of sound and stage gear to Shepperton Film Studios, west of London in Middlesex, where we rented storage space from The Who and 
their company ML Executives. Whereas Paul McCartney and Stanley Kubrick had bought parts of Elstree Studios, The Who had invested in Shepperton.

It was becoming common for bands to rehearse at film studios, as the sound stages gave all the space and production facilities required for a major touring show. It was a surreal experience, as long-haired rock ’n’ rollers ate in the canteen alongside ‘aliens’ and other actors and extras in their costumes. Pinewood Studios was a very special place to rehearse, as it was home to the enormous 007 stage that featured all the giant sets used on the James Bond movies. And I think we all liked to imagine we had a bit of ‘Bond’ in our alternative lifestyles – shaken but not stirred, with a definite licence to thrill.

Although the video for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was regarded as a seminal piece of promotion for a new era of the music business, Queen did not take every video they did so seriously. The music video became a necessity, but also at times an inconvenience. The follow-up single to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was done during rehearsals for the
A Day at the Races
album at Ridge Farm in Surrey. Bruce Gowers who had directed ‘Bo Rhap’ was brought in to film ‘You’re My Best Friend’. The location was the barn we were using to rehearse in. It was the blistering hot summer of 1976 and the barn had no ventilation apart from leaving all the doors open. So it probably wasn’t a good idea to have a video that included hundreds of candles as ‘mood’ lighting. People were literally passing out from the heat and smoke, as everybody fled the barn between takes. The best song (in my opinion) on
A Day at the Races
and released as the first single was the superb 
and still to this day outstanding ‘Somebody to Love’. This video was back to Queen being creative and innovative, using footage shot at Wessex recording studios in Highbury during the recording of the album, and editing with live film from the ’76 summer free concert in Hyde Park.