Photo: Hulton Archive
Queen guitarist Brian May loves giving fans a glimpse of what happened behind the scenes when their beloved singer Freddie Mercury was still alive. And during a recent interview, he recalled a "not brilliant" idea Mercury brought to the band that was quickly vetoed.
"Deep down Freddie was one of the shyest people I've ever met," he explained to Queen biographer Mark Blake in an article for MOJO magazine, "but he was so full of bluster, you'd forget. Freddie would always be excited, and his excitement would take over. He'd be so full of excitement he could hard speak. Freddie’s ideas were off the wall and cheeky and different — and we tended to encourage them. Sometimes the idea he brought in was brilliant, and sometimes not brilliant."
So what was a not-so-brilliant idea? Mercury wanting the title of their 1989 album The Miracle to be Good. “He came in one day and announced, ‘I’ve got this amazing idea. You know Michael Jackson has just put out this album called Bad? Well, listen… What do you think about us calling our next album Good?’" May revealed. "We all looked at each other and said, ‘Well, maybe we should think about it, Freddie.' It wasn’t one of his world-shattering ideas, but looking back, maybe we were wrong..."
Speaking of Queen music, May recently addressed the possibility of recording new songs with drummer Roger Taylor. “I think it could happen,” he said. “Both Roger and I are constantly writing and coming up with ideas and doing things in our studios. I could have the beginnings of a Queen song right there in front of me now. It’s just whether the idea reaches maturity or not. It’s whether that seed can grow.”
Queen's last album was 2008's The Cosmos Rocks with singer Paul Rodgers.