Queen Unseen (9 page)

Later, in our hotel in the early hours, legless and fuelled by the moment, we raided our arsenal and ignited Armageddon in the corridor; rockets aimed at the far-end window, firecrackers under people’s doors and whirly flying things that burned the carpet and crashed into the ceiling before careering out of control.

We had already woken and seriously pissed off the guys who were on early call, when tour manager Gerry Stickells, having received many phone calls of complaint, stuck his sleepy, Uncle Grumpy head out of his door, shouting, ‘Quit it, you fucking guys – the cops are on their way!’

I heard the arriving lift door ‘ping’, and a hotel security guard emerged, immediately letting loose an enormous Doberman Pinscher into the hallway. I quickly snapped my door shut. I don’t like dogs.

The more Machiavellian among us would hold back some fireworks and stash them in our respective equipment cases, to be retrieved for maximum effect later in the tour. Often at sound check to amuse the band. Crystal, being Roger’s drum roadie, used some of the tubular chrome drum fittings as launchers for rockets and incorporated a sophisticated sights attachment and handles to grip it with, like a mini bazooka.

Trying to hit the hanging electronic scoreboards that are central to many sports arena venues was popular, but the combined displeasure of the house union officials and an irate tour manager curtailed this sport. The firework abuse was a classic example of men behaving badly and stupidly and without due consideration for others. However, part of me would love to do it all again.

The idea of young guys travelling around America conjures up romantic visions of Kerouac’s classic
On The Road
, or the film
Easy Rider
, but in reality for the crew it was often a case of travelling blind. Waking up on the bus, either outside or inside a vast concrete facility, daylight hours would then be spent in the dim interiors of these venues. After load out some 16 hours later, you would be back in the darkness, travelling
through the night. If somebody in conversation brings up a US town such as Kalamazoo, Michigan (highly unlikely, I grant you), then I can raise my hand: ‘I’ve been there.’

‘Really – what’s it like?’

‘Well – I don’t actually know.’

The only way of knowing where you were sometimes was when Fred took his first bow of the evening and greeted the audience: ‘Good evening ————, how you doing tonight?’

If the venue was home to a basketball or ice hockey team, then there would be visual clues as to the identity of the location.

The logical way to know where you were was from the tour itinerary or ‘book of lies’. This guide to your life for the next couple of months or more was careful to state at the beginning: ‘All information correct as of ————’ and the term TBA: to be advised or arranged. And occasionally to be avoided. The itinerary was issued to every member of the touring party and relevant company offices plus families and associates back home. Each member of the band and touring party was allocated a number, which was on your luggage tags, hotel reservation, room list and sometimes your stage pass. Guess who was No 1? No. To avoid arguments, usually there was either no number 1 or tour manager Gerry Stickells had it, so the band numbers started at No 2. So Fred was sometimes No 2. Not something he was used to being.

Verdi’s
La Donna e’ mobile
– The Woman Is Fickle – is pertinent to the most fickle rock mistress of all – America. After
The Game
album and tour in 1980, Queen were 
enormous in America; two number one singles, ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ and ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, which was number one in every music chart except country, and the song adopted by the Detroit Tigers football team.
The Game
album was number one and the very successful tour established them across the USA.

In 1982, following the
Hot Space
album, Queen asked Billy Squier, a rocker from Boston and an old friend, to open the show for them, which he was delighted to accept. Billy had already enjoyed a huge success with his
Don’t Say No
album, guided by the successful triple ‘M’ partnership of Munich, Musicland and Queen’s producer, Mack. As the tour got under way, he released the follow-up record,
Emotions In Motion
, which some of Queen had contributed backing vocals to. On paper, this was a promoter’s dream, which was sure to sell out, so working to tight percentages was not seen as a big risk.

Billy was a long-standing admirer of Queen and, though he could have headlined his own tour, he chose to get the high profile this large double bill tour would attract.

The Queen/Billy Squier package was an exciting prospect but somewhere it all went a bit wrong. The singles from
Hot Space
failed to penetrate and the album itself was not selling like hot cakes – more like soggy biscuits. While relaxing on our tour bus one evening before a show, I saw a recorded interview with Fred on local TV; a rare event, as Fred was not keen on doing solo interviews. During it he said he thought that the songs on
Hot Space
were good but the timing was probably wrong. That’s pretty fair comment as a lot of the content of the album had a disco and dance feel 
that had picked up from the phenomenal success of ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, and no doubt Fred was influenced by spending many hours in gay discos that pumped out music with
beat. Hot Space
, despite being well played and produced, was not what the American Joe Public wanted at the time from Queen.

Hot Space
and its dangerous rhythms was a turning point; and, while it’s easy to blame the record company, it turned out to be Queen’s last for Elektra Asylum in America. The tour ambled along but there were tensions as Billy Squier’s album was doing very well and his performances were also very well received. The US record-buying and concert-going public can have short memories and, though they are hungry for something new, they often resisted change in some areas they feel sacred.
Hot Space
was not
The Game
and the figures spoke for themselves. America likes its rock bands to
ROCK
!

So maybe lessons were learned, and, though the tour was not a failure, it had just not reached the very high expectations. The
Hot Space
tour finished in Los Angeles in September of ’82 but Queen still had an engagement in New York to appear on the prestigious
Saturday Night Live
show. There were several days’ break before the TV show, so, after organising splitting the equipment to go to Japan for the upcoming tour and New York for the TV show, I arranged to re-route my LA to New York flight via Seattle, and stay with an old ‘friend’ with whom I had reignited our friendship during that tour. I was given my per diem, and set off for a welcome break in Seattle. My gorgeous friend looked stunning when she picked me up from the airport in her
E-type
Jaguar.

It was like a scene from some sixties film as I leaped into the white open-top sports car, with a smiling pale-skinned, raven-haired beauty in sunglasses at the wheel. We roared off down the highway laughing, as the wind blew our substantial hair.

Austin Powers? My Arse!

But life is always throwing surprises at you:

‘Sorry, Peter, my head’s just not into sex right now.’

‘Oh! Right, but it’s not your head I’m interested in at this moment – well it is, but, well, you know what I mean… never mind, I’ll watch MTV.’

In Seattle, I discovered a Dobro guitar in a second-hand shop. The classic, metal acoustic was in need of minor repair and on sale for only a few hundred dollars.

I had dreamed of having a Dobro since seeing Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac on
Top Of The Pops
playing one on the opening to ‘Oh Well’. These guitars were later immortalised by Dire Straits who featured a photo of one on the cover of their
Brothers In Arms
album. Dobros are a rock icon.

My friend lent me the money and the guitar was later shipped to Queen’s office in Los Angeles. When I next arrived in LA, I took my new pride and joy around to show Brian May, having been invited to join him and his family for a day at the pool – very LA.

Brian was very excited by the guitar, saying that he had always wanted one, and knew how to fix the loose plate inside the body.

One of my employers wanted it – what could I do? In fairness, he could actually play it and do the instrument justice, and I wanted it for a whim, a trophy and a piece of
rock sculpture. I succumbed. This happened often, this guitar ‘divining’; I would sniff out rare or interesting guitars, buy them for myself, and Brian would then emotionally mug me for them!

After my Seattle sojourn, I arrived in New York, ready to resume my duties for Queen’s
Saturday Night Live
performance. Hosted by comedian and actor Chevy Chase, this mix of comedy, interviews and music was one of the highest-rated TV shows in America, and Queen did not disappoint; they did two spots and as the title says it was live – no mimed TV studio posing here. The NBC studios high in the Art Deco Rockefeller Centre building in central Manhattan were heavily unionised, so we had to tread very delicately with moving and setting up the equipment, officially being ‘consultants’ to the union TV and sound technicians. The warm-up act for the audience before the live show was a young and not yet famous Eddie Murphy.

As I was tuning guitars backstage, he paced up and down in front of me, practising his lines and jokes.

‘All right, mate?’

‘Yeah, man.’

Queen performed ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ and ‘Under Pressure’. Fred’s voice was suffering quite badly, due to an excess of New York, but he persevered as always and the band played well under a great deal of intensity and scrutiny as the show went out to tens of millions of homes across the continent. This was to be the last ever live performance by Queen in the USA.

Queen and America deserved each other – needed one another maybe. Both were big, flamboyant, ambitious and uncompromising and it’s a great shame their relationship faded like it did. In 1984,
The Works
album was not supported by a US tour; the first time Queen had made such a brave but ultimately suicidal decision. The rest of the world was toured and
The Works
was very successful, but not in the big one – America. Maybe both thought they were bigger than the other? A mistress needs to be worked at and wooed. In short, effort has to be made. Because you’ve seduced her in the past does not mean she’ll welcome you warmly just because you’ve been away a while.

You should have kept in touch – and kept the fire burning.

L
os Angeles – City of Angels. No. City of
Angles
– very oblique angles. Los Angeles is technically part of America, but it is unlike anywhere else. Anywhere. Once God had finished creating the world, they say, he picked the globe up and shook it a few times and all the loose bits ended up in southern California. Parts of Hollywood (Hollyweird), Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and the
Valley
are home to some of the strangest human beings on (or off) our planet.

There is a smell to Los Angeles that is unique. The moment you arrive at LAX airport it hits you: a mix of dry heat and automobile fumes. A sweet, acrid smell that catches in the throat. The other smells that make up LA are those of money, decadence and seared skin at the plastic surgery clinics. Oh, and the overriding whiff of bullshit. My introduction to LA and its beautiful people was abrupt. I’d
heard about the wild women, parties, swimming pools and sunshine in LA, and couldn’t wait to taste it all myself. I’d even fantasised about meeting and wooing a glamorous female movie star. The closest I had previously got were akin to Rin-Tin-Tin or Champion the Wonder Horse.

The Continental Hyatt House Hotel – the Riot House as it was more commonly known – situated on the famed Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, had a reputation for wild and crazy times among resident rock bands. Yes, I’m really here and it’s great! Night falls and the ‘strip’ crackles into life in paint-by-numbers neon. It never feels like night-time in LA – there is a constant glow wherever you are. Electric twilight. It was only a short drive down Sunset to The Rainbow Bar And Grill, the gathering place for rock ’n’ roll’s participants and disciples. Later, suitably happy and chemically balanced, we returned to the Riot House with some new female friends. A group of us gathered in a room and were sampling some California Gold grass, when I was asked by my companion if I would like to try something special.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ I answered with youthful gusto. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s really wild! You snort it – it’s crystallised embalming fluid…’

I started laughing. And my companion joined me, asking, ‘The grass – pretty strong stuff – got to you, has it?’

‘Yeah – it must have. I thought you said crystallised embalming fluid…’

‘I did,’ she said with sincerity.

‘Bloody hell!’ Just what did this stuff do to you? I had no wish for me or any of my parts to be preserved in some experimental science lab jar. This was the entrance to a level
of drug experience – along with Monkey Tranquilliser, Angel Dust and the ‘big one’, Heroin – that I did not wish to scale up to. Thank God. A can of carbonated root beer, a large pack of Wise potato chips and a night in front of the telly watching
Happy Days
and
Gilligan’s Island
will do me nicely, thanks. On my very first evening in LA, I decided this town was sick. For a young country boy, it was all too much to take. But I kinda liked it though, man.

I got my first dose of the clap in LA. Although Americans prefer to call it a social disease, there was nothing social about what I felt – it was like pissing razor blades. An occupational hazard, and keep the receipt for insurance purposes. I tried to work out if it had been Evelyn Embalming Fluid or Roy Rogers (a young lady who dressed in a red satin, fringed cowboy shirt and trousers and rode me like Trigger –
Yee-Hah!
) who had initiated me into the Clap Club. I didn’t learn and continued to entertain many of LA’s Rock Chicks at the Continental Hyatt House.

Early one morning in 1976 in the foyer of the Riot House, I saw Paul Kossof, the guitarist with Free, with his current band, Back Street Crawler. I was a big fan of Free and quite excited to see one of my heroes in the flesh. Tragically, a week later Paul Kossof died on a flight from Los Angeles to New York.

Los Angeles was an important centre for Queen as, along with their record company, Elektra, and later Capitol, our US office, run by tour manager Gerry Stickells and his GLS Productions, was based there – at Crossroads Of The World on Sunset Boulevard. Only in LA could you get an address like that! Elektra Asylum Records was on La Cienega
Boulevard and only a few minutes’ walk from where we usually stayed. Bryn Brydenthal was one of the rare breed of record company executives who made a big effort to be friendly to everybody on tour – especially me and Crystal. So, when we were in LA, she would invite us to the Elektra offices and ply us with albums, cassettes and other swag from the stable of artists on the label at the time, including The Eagles, Jackson Browne, The Cars, The Doors and Warren Zevon. We had no sway with the record company side of Queen, but Bryn always showed us great hospitality – and we reciprocated when we could.

LA was a good place to bring the family, so Brian, Roger and John all bought houses – sorry, homes. (Nobody lives in a house in America; they live in a
beautiful home
.) Fred could only take LA in small doses, preferring New York and all that the intense east coast metropolis had to offer, so, although we did a lot of tour rehearsals in LA, the only Queen recording sessions were on
The Works
album at the Record Plant studios on 3rd Street. It was in the control room of the Record Plant that Fred said the most profound thing I ever heard from him. He was clearly feeling down when he arrived for the session and his mood didn’t seem to lift, and it was clearly due to his love life once again. When somebody tried to cheer him up, he snapped. Standing sharply from his chair at the sound console, he shouted at the room and directed his comments towards Brian, Roger and John: ‘It’s OK for all of you – you have your wives and families – I can
never
be happy!’

Apart from the initial shock, I thought it was a terribly sad thing to say and I felt for him tremendously. Freddie had so
many genuine people who cared for him and indeed loved him, but he still thought he could never be happy. However, I believe he did find some happiness in the last few years of his life.

During those Record Plant sessions, Canadian musician Fred Mandel, who lived in LA was invited to play on several tracks on
The Works
album. Fred had been Queen’s
back-up
keyboard player on the previous
Hot Space
tour in ’82, and was highly respected as a musician and a person by all of the band, Mack and the crew. He was a phenomenal talent who worked with such speed and seemed to make his job look easy. It wasn’t. The main ‘Fred’ was very impressed with ‘Fred 2’ and later invited him to play on his solo project
Mr Bad Guy.
Fred Mandel also played on other Queen members’ projects, but his input on
The Works
was notable. He played the synth intro and solo on ‘I Want To Break Free’, and his keyboard skills contributed greatly to ‘Radio Ga Ga’, plus sections of ‘Hammer To Fall’ and ‘Man On The Prowl’.

Two men often on the prowl were Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck, who came along to the studio one evening and started jamming with Queen – great stuff. Some of the best rock music comes from casual spontaneous sessions where nobody is under pressure or out to impress – though rarely does it get released. Rod had met Queen before and, as he and Fred were both good friends with Elton John, he suggested that the three of them form a trio and call themselves: Hair, Nose and Teeth! Rod used to hang out with
his cronies at The Coronet pub around the corner from the Record Plant and we took refuge there too.

Another nearby escape from the tedium of studio life was Oskos on La Cienega. It was a very famous disco of grand proportions, but diversified on some evenings – with female mud-wrestling bouts. Other times while in LA, we got some relief from recording or rehearsing – by going to see other bands! At the downtown Sports Arena, we all saw The Who: Me, Crystal and Jobby and all of Queen, including Fred. It’s the only time I have ever seen Fred in an audience! The band sat in the middle of a general audience area on the floor of the Sports Arena. They were not surrounded by minders or security – quite remarkable. They really wanted to see The Who. Who wouldn’t? I saw The Cars at the Sports Arena with John, and with various combinations of John, Brian and Roger we went to The Forum to see Robert Plant, AC/DC, Supertramp and several others.

Despite all its shallowness and hype, there are some great things about LA: beaches – didn’t go, got up too late. Movie studio tours – never made it. Disneyland – yes! I loved it. A lifelong ambition was fulfilled as the ban on men with long hair entering Disneyland had been lifted. In early 1977, we drove to Anaheim and I got to see Mickey and friends, plus an interesting encounter in the caves on Tom Sawyer’s island – when the girl I was with started to interfere with my trouser area. Uncle Walt would certainly have disapproved, and must have turned in his grave, liquid nitrogen or wherever his final resting place may be.

An LA highlight has to be cruising in a big American car down the palm-lined streets with your arm out of the window taking in the warm Californian sunshine. In the summer of 1980, I was doing exactly this in a hired station wagon one late and lazy afternoon down Santa Monica Boulevard, with the radio tuned to KLOS, my favoured FM rock station on 95 point something. I was on my way to pick up an extra complimentary 4x12 Sunn Amplification speaker cabinet for John Deacon from a store that dealt in Sunn equipment. Feeling good with the world, I lit up a cigarette and tossed the match. Soon, I was aware of the familiar sound of LA police sirens and in my rear mirror a black and white cop car was indicating that I should pull over. Now I had seen all the US TV cop shows so I knew what to do: stay still, be calm and keep both your hands on the steering wheel. After all, I was innocent – right?

The LAPD version of John Wayne sauntered up to the open window, bowed down, removed his mirrored sunglasses and drawled, ‘Was that your cigarette you threw out of the vehicle, sir?’

‘No – no I, I did, no it was, was not…?’

Then, looking down, the cop saw my burning fag in the ashtray.

‘Oh, I see it was the match then, was it, sir? Are you aware that’s an offence in the state of California?’

At this point, I decided to play the stupid and apologetic foreign tourist, so replied in a false cut-glass English accent, ‘I am most terribly sorry, officer, I just did not realise.’

‘Well, sir, we have big problems with forest fires in our dry climate. It’s state law.’

‘Yes, of course, officer, I perfectly understand.’

‘Can I see your driver’s licence, sir?’

‘Yes, certainly – it’s right here in my bag.’

I leaned over and urgently delved into the shoulder bag lying on the bench seat.

CLICK!

I looked around and saw that, about six inches away, a large handgun that was standard LAPD issue had intruded into my space.

‘Nice and slowly, sir.’

I handed over my licence and the cop looked at it, turned it over, looked again, turned it around once more and then rubbed his action-hero chin.

‘Mmmmm – English, huh?’

‘Yes, correct, I am actually.’

‘Well, sir, may I suggest you use your ashtray in future.’

With that pearl of wisdom, he was gone. I then waited for my tense bottom to disengage itself, before selecting ‘D’ on the automatic gearbox and carefully driving on down the boulevard.

As an American driving licence was a handy form of ID and a Californian one a particularly cool item to flash from your wallet down the pub back in England, on the advice of John Deacon, I decided to get one. When I first went to America, I wasn’t legally old enough to drink in some states and was regularly being ‘carded’ for my ID. There was also the added bonus of using it to rent cars outside of America and not being nicked for parking tickets. I set a time in our LA schedule to take the test in my rental car, but had not planned on going out on the razzle with John Deacon, ending 
up at The Playboy Club in Century City, the night before a 9.00 am driving test. I spent a lot of time talking and drinking with an actress from
The Loveboat
TV show – who I think was slightly famous – but who isn’t in LA?

After a little sleep, I blearily drove to the Department of Motor Vehicles, joined the line for the multiple-choice test paper and duly paid my 30 bucks. If you fail this written test, you just join the back of the line, pay again and try once more. ‘What should your course of action be if a person holding a white stick or a cane walks into the road in front of your vehicle?’ Two of the suggestions were: swerve wildly on to the opposite side of the road or kerb to avoid them, or wind your window down and shout at them to get out of the way!

I had the required number of ticks in the right boxes and for the road test I was told to drive my car into the street outside the building and wait for my examiner. I was still feeling hazy from the previous night when my very large examiner came out of the building towards me, looking bemused. She approached the open car window and informed me I was facing the wrong way in a one-way street!

With the examiner installed in the passenger seat, she then explained in a serious and scripted voice how the test was fair, equal and I would not be tricked in any way. I nodded compliantly and set off with my 100 driving points intact. As the test progressed points were deducted for driving errors; a minimum of 70 points being required to pass. The driving part of the test took about ten minutes and I literally drove around the block a few times.

Approaching a cross street, I was asked to ‘turn left here please’.

I waited for the oncoming traffic to pass, and then turned perfectly into the street. My examiner just stared at me and said, ‘You just turned on a red light.’

I had completely missed the hung traffic light.

‘I thought you could turn on a red light in California – if it was safe to do so?’

‘No, sir, that’s a right turn, and by the way, your accent, are you from England?’