Brian May, Roger Taylor and Adam Lambert sat down in a London hotel for an interview the afternoon of Friday 15 April 2016, with Virgin Radio Italy’s Andrea Toselli [aka Andrea Rock], Queen + Adam Lambert summer tour concert in Padua, Italy, June 25 2016 at Anfiteatro Camerini Piazzola del Brenta (Padua). This interview is newly released, but is from an earlier round of interviews in London, when the Q+AL Summer European Tour was announced.
TRANSCRIPT by Jen Tunney, Brianmay.com – E&OE
Queen + Adam Lambert Interview ahead of Padua concert
– https://youtu.be/TMWsYfD_7B4
[virginradio.it]
ANDREA TOSELLI [aka Andrea Rock] [VIRGIN RADIO, ITALY]: Welcome to Virgin Radio in Italy. It’s an honour to have you once again in our country. What can we expect from this year’s show from the last year’s show. Does anything change, maybe the set list or relationship with the three of you.
BRIAN MAY: The set list will be a little different but we haven’t it yet. We haven’t even started. We haven’t started doing the set list but, you know, the world is our oyster. We can do whatever we want and this guy can sing anything, so we’re looking at some new ideas.
ROGER TAYLOR: It’ll look different too… more spectacular. BRIAN: It’s a big show, a big show. We know each other better now.
ADAM LAMBERT: Yeah! BRIAN: We’ve evolved as a band. I think we have much more confidence and ease with each other now.
ANDREA: I can only imagine how much can be difficult to playing on a set list which .we gotta cut off this song.
ADAM: You have to put the hits in. That’s the trick I think, and they have too many hits.
BRIAN: Too many hits.
ADAM: ‘cos Queen’s, you know, iconic, with all their hits. You gotta put them all in there and figure out a way to ‘What, we’re gonna put them in.’ It does matter. It’s not random. You know, there’s thought put into it, I think, which has been so great.
ROGER: Yeah, we talk long and hard about which works, and then one night it didn’t work so well and then we’d swap it the next night. Yeah.
ANDREA: Which is your favourite song to sing to perform with them?
ADAM: I don’t really… I can’t name a favourite because they’re all the songs are so great and they each one has like a different thing that makes it great. I mean when you go into like ‘Radio Ga Ga’ for example, there’s this amazing audience participation moment, that there’s nothing like it in the show except for ‘Radio Ga Ga’, and the audience is like so energised by the choreography they’re all doing together, and I’ve been running out onto the audience during that song, which is really exciting. You know there’s the drama of ‘The Show Must Go On’ or ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’. There’s ‘Killer Queen’ (which} is super campy and silly and ridiculous and theatrical. Yeah, I love ’em all, for different reasons.
ANDREA: We saw you and we read that there are sentences about the fact that you play fit together in a perfect way. Everybody is asking if there’s gonna be some new material with you singing.
ADAM: You never know, yeah. You never know.
ROGER: I mean, I think it’s a really interesting idea. It’s … could be a great idea. Yeah.
ADAM: You never know.
BRIAN: Yeah.
ANDREA: So touring is to continue the legacy, because it’s all about that.
ROGER: I think, you know, so far we’ve done a lot of shows now together. We just enjoy the excitement of the shows, we haven’t even got around to actually thinking about that really, or talking about it.
ADAM: Yeah, I mean all the stuff we’ve done, the audience have been like ‘through the roof’. They’re so excited that we’re there on stage. They know every word to every song. These songs are like woven into people’s lives, you know, and to be able to get up on stage and perform them for an audience like that, there’s nothing like it. It’s amazing.
ANDREA: Think about what happened in the ’70s and the ’80s for Freddie. I think it’s way different right now to be able to come out with your sexuality also in public, so I think that this could be maybe the biggest difference that we have nowadays. Do you think that the tolerance he was asking for is now something that is actually present in nowadays work?
ADAM: It is different. It is a different world right now. It would be interesting to get Freddie’s take on it. You know, I wonder if Freddie were here today, I wonder how he would feel about all that. I wonder if he would be, you know, open about that, or if there’s something he would still want to keep private, ‘cos either one is fine, you know, depends on the person. It is interesting. It’s a different world we’re in.
ROGER: It’s a better world in that sense, I think.
ADAM: Yeah, but in a way you know the other thing that’s interesting about the 70s, people weren’t really asking the question and today’s world it’s like it’s become an obsession what someone’s sexuality is. And I think exciting thing is now, having gone through the past seven years, you know, in the public eye and been asked about my sexuality non-stop, what i’ve realised is the media is more obsessed than people are. [laughs] And so I think we’re actually entering a time right now where it’s gonna become sort of a passe topic actually, because I think more and more people, young people that are coming up into the world right now are kind of going ‘It doesn’t matter. Who cares?’ It doesn’t matter.
ANDREA: Maybe it’s the tolerance we were waiting for.
ADAM: Yes, it’s like old News.
ANDREA: Yes. Thank you so much for your time. We can’t wait to see you in Padua. Italy loves you.
BRIAN: Thank you.
ANDREA: So come back any time you want.
ROGER, ADAM, BRIAN: Thank you. Great. ANDREA: Chow.