TRANSCRIPT BY Jen Tunney BRIANMAY.COM
Times of Malta Editor Herman Grech interviews Brian May and Kerry Ellis
HERMAN GRECH: You’ve been playing Russia, Belarus, Latvia and now Malta. Are the people just clamouring for Queen songs here, or are we just talking about people justwanting to hear something different?
BRIAN MAY: Yeah, we don’t… people like Queen songs, but that’s definitely not what it’s about and we’ve been finding that I think with a strong internet community and twitter community and whatever, people do understand what we’re doing and they react really, really well.
HERMAN: Some people say you are – accuse you of taking the Queen legacy way beyond its sell-by dates. Is it doing it just for the money?
BRIAN: And why would…? We don’t need the money, we don’t need the fame, so why would we do it? If the Queen legacy is going on and on and on, it’s not because of us, it’s because people want it and just now and again it’s nice to give people what they want. I think that’s all I can say. I like it. I’m not… I don’t have to do it, and I certainly don’t want to do it all the time any more. We did it for 20 years or more and I like to have the freedom to do this, to do astronomy, you know, and try and change the world, animals and… (tails off) Speaking about writing “Mother Love”….
HERMAN:…Write lyrics for Freddie then….
BRIAN: Yeah it was a strange situation. This was the last thing we ever did together and Freddie was really quite ill and he’d have just moments where he was okay and he could prop himself up and sing. But he was eager to work. He loved to work, as always, you know, and it was the thing that really made him smile.
So we were in Montreux and I’ll tell you exactly what happened. There was this record called “Wicked Game” by Chris Isaak… wrote on the back of a piece of scrap paper, and they would write a verse at a time and sing it for him, because, you know, the song wasn’t really written at that time, so that’s the normal way we worked. I would demo it for him and he would sing it, and for each line he did four takes, and then we’d write another verse. And he would be like, “Give me what – a vodka”, you know – he always put a vodka down … gave him his strength. So another shot, so said : ‘Write me more. Give me more lyrics. More, more more. I wanna do this”, you know, “and then you can finish it off when I’ve gone”. You know, so he was completely focussed. He knew that he wouldn’t be there that long. So we got all the way through the middle eight, which was great, and I did the middle eight and he went “It’s not enough. We need to go higher. More, more more.”
Well Freddie, we had this discussion. We thought maybe we’re all …that’s what really we’re looking for. We wanna get back to that place where we were warm and snug and loved and secure. So the song was purely about that, but of course underneath, we’re talking about “Where’s Freddie going and where are we all going eventually”… [CONTINUES]
Times of Malta Editor Herman Grech interviews Brian May and Kerry Ellis
– http://youtu.be/qTZYsz5UGNw