During a recent Q&A session, Brian May talked about why he initially doubted Freddie Mercury as Queen’s singer.
“When we first worked with him, it was a little unnerving, because he did a lot of running around the place and screaming his head off. So we thought, ‘Is this going work?’” the guitarist said of the late singer’s character.
He went on, “And not everybody liked him, to say. A lot of people found him kind of abrasive, but they all thought he was interesting and entertaining. At that point, though, he wasn’t the singer that we all got to know as Freddie Mercury.”
“What happened was, we went into the studio, and it happened during those first demo sessions we did in De Lane Lea [Studios]… As soon as Freddie heard his voice coming back, he went, ‘Oh, I don’t like it. I’m gonna do that again,’” May recalled.
The rocker added, “And he would go back, and back, and back until he got it the way he wanted it. So, he became instantly, very aware of what he sounded like, and incredibly quickly fashioned himself into the singer he wanted to be.”
“In many cases, I’d say, ‘Oh, yes, yes, yes, I can do this, darling. Just give me a chance; just put me in there, and I’ll do this,’” May also said of his late bandmate in July. “[Freddie] was always very upfront; he had an amazing amount of drive, optimism, and energy. He was very helpful with my insecurities – and he kind of chose me as his guitarist in the early days.”
The musician continued, “Even when Freddie was nothing and nobody, he was Jimi Hendrix in his mind. And I enabled him to have that at his fingertips. He always said, ‘You can do anything anyone can do, Brian. You can do this for me.’ That sounds like I’m making him out as big-headed, but he wasn’t; it was just this enthusiasm of, ‘We can do this together. We can be the best thing in the world.’”
Although Brian had initial doubts about Mercury, he had a huge role in Queen’s success in the following years. The singer recorded fifteen albums with the band.