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EXCLUSIVE: Queen Says Freddie Mercury ‘Would Have Loved’ Adam Lambert, Talks Upcoming Summer Tour
Entertainment Tonight
27 January 2017
After hitting the road together in 2014, the legendary rock band Queen and singer Adam Lambert are launching another tour this summer. ET’s Carly Steel caught up with the artists, who opened up about why they work so well together.
“I think it keeps happening because it’s fun and people like it. Simple as that,” Lambert tells ET. “We have a good time on stage. Audiences are over the moon every show we do.”
Lambert first performed with guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor during the American Idol season finale in 2009, where Lambert was a finalist. The group performed “We Are the Champions” for a stunned crowd who had been asking for this merger ever since hearing Lambert belt out “Bohemian Rhapsody” at his Idol audition.
“We didn’t plan it. It just happened really,” May says. “Along came Adam, out of the blue. We saw him on American Idol and we’d already had an avalanche of messages saying already, ‘This is the guy you need to sing for you! You should do this!’ We felt good about it, so organically, suddenly, we were a band again. We’re like family. It’s amazing.”
Of course, Lambert is filling a spot left vacant by music icon Freddie Mercury, who died in1991. Despite having a new lead singer, Mercury’s spirit is still embedded into the fiber of the band.
“Freddie is actually featured in our show, and I think Brian and I continually feel his presence because we grew up together and he’s a part of our mental wallpaper,” Taylor explains. “I think it’s important that it comes over that we’re actually enjoying playing together, but Freddie would have loved Adam. No doubt about it.”
“I wish I had been able to meet him,” Lambert says. “[He was] so inspiring. Seeing footage of Freddie in live set-ups is particularly liberating as an artist stepping into the situation, because I feel like because he was so bold and fearless, he gives me so much permission to sort of take it wherever I want to take it. He didn’t hold back at all.”
While Lambert carries the torch for Mercury on tour, Rami Malek will play the singer-songwriter in the upcoming biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody. Eight years in the making, the film will be directed by Bryan Singer after a long search to find the right person for the job.
“We all feel it’s a big job and it has to do Freddie justice,” May says. “We get one shot at this.
Queen’s 24-city tour with Lambert kicks off June 23.
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Queen announce tour, tease new album – https://youtu.be/agWRBGbIevY
AP NEWS
North American rhapsody: Queen, Lambert tour; no record yet
By WAYNE PARRY
27 January 2017
Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen announce US tour with Adam Lambert as frontman. (Jan. 27)
Queen has clearly found somebody to love in Adam Lambert. Since joining forces with the “American Idol” runner-up for a series of shows in 2012, the band that ruled rock radio in the 1970s and early ’80s has enjoyed tremendous success, with audiences embracing Lambert as the heir to Freddie Mercury’s onstage legacy. They’ve been selling out areas around the world for five years now, and have just announced a 25-city North American tour beginning June 23 in Phoenix. But there’s one thing they haven’t dared try yet: recording a studio album of all-new Queen songs. And despite their effortless box office success, it might not happen soon, if at all.
“We get asked that question constantly, but we really haven’t had much of a conversation about it internally,” said Lambert, who maintains a solo career between Queen tours. “It’s totally possible. But what is it? I would never re-record a song that Freddie recorded because that would be sacrilege. If I were to record something brand new, would it be called ‘Queen?’ Would we have some supergroup name?”
Lambert said he and founding members Brian May (guitar) and Roger Taylor (drums) have not recorded demos of any new material.
May said the band took its cue from the ho-hum response to a studio album it did with Bad Company singer Paul Rodgers in 2008, “The Cosmos Rocks.” “The world kind of turned a blind eye to it, and I think we subconsciously absorbed the message that people wanted to hear Queen with Freddie,” May said. “That’s what they expected; they didn’t want to hear anything else. I don’t know if that’s a correct conclusion or not, but that’s kind of the message we got, so I think we turned our attention to live.”
Taylor said recording a new studio album “seems like an obvious thing to do, but really, we don’t plan ahead that much or that far. The band is working beautifully, so we don’t want to stop that until it’s not working beautifully.”
May is more receptive to the idea of a new album now with Lambert on board. “If the moment came up, if there was a real reason to make a new recording, a new song, if the right song came up, we would go with it in the snap of a finger,” he said. “But at the moment, we’re very happy touring.”
That entails staging an entirely new show from scratch, with a new set list, lighting, video screens — and the way the band interacts with the audience. Mercury’s give-and-take with the crowd, including daring them to match his a cappella vocal acrobatics, and May’s acoustic sing-alongs on “Love of My Life” and “39” became integral and enduring parts of a Queen concert.
When Mercury died in 1991 of complications from AIDS, “Brian and I thought everything was kind of over,” Taylor said. “But Adam Lambert is an extraordinary talent and just fits in perfectly with us.”
“It was good when it started, but now I feel like it’s more second-nature,” Lambert said. “I feel like I’ve crawled into these songs and can run around in them now.”
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Links continued below video:
VIDEO:
Queen & Adam Lambert Discuss Joining Forces Again For Their New Tour
– https://youtu.be/IE8lxe7R0GU
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