Interview with Brian. Also talking about Adam. Quite a long interview. I posted the Adam and QAL parts here, but check out the full piece on the site:
Queen @queenwillrock
"...I had all these 3-D pictures that I’d taken over the years."
www.newsweek.com/brian-may-queen-3-d-adam-lambert-653101 … #Queenin3D #brianmay
QUEEN'S BRIAN MAY WILL ROCK YOU WITH 3-D BOOK, ADAM LAMBERT TOUR, ASTROPHYSICS, ANIMAL RESCUE....
And since 2011, former American Idol finalist Adam Lambert has been the guy in the frontman role. His powerful vocals and flamboyant stage presence work well with Queen’s music. The first tour billed as Queen + Adam Lambert was in June 2014, and a few weeks ago, the band wrapped up the U.S. leg of its latest tour, which will head to Europe in November before reaching New Zealand and Australia in mid-February 2018. (Here’s the full tour itinerary.)
In concert, May is still very much a guitar hero. At the Queen + Adam Lambert show in Newark, New Jersey, last month, he launched into a lengthy solo, and I noticed some licks from “Brighton Rock,” the blistering leadoff track on 1974’s Sheer Heart Attack. “There’s a little bit of that in there,” Mays tells me. “It’s always different. It’s just what I feel, really.” During that portion of the show, visual effects made it seem as if May was soaring through outer space.
There’s a reason for that.
The man whom many call Dr. May—and whose father built him not only a guitar but a telescope as well—received his Ph.D. in astrophysics from Imperial College London in 2007. Eight years later, he became involved with NASA as a science team collaborator with the New Horizons Pluto mission, and he even used his stereoscopic photography skills on images of that planet.
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In his conversation with Newsweek, May also sheds light on his animal welfare work (when does this guy sleep?), including his efforts to stop fox hunting in the U.K., and the significance of Frank, the robot on the cover of News of the World (and on the T-shirt May is wearing during our talk). Frank makes a number of appearances at each Queen + Adam Lambert gig, which makes sense since this year marks the 40th anniversary of that amazing album.
How did Adam get the job?
Well, the funny thing is we didn’t look for him. Then one day somebody rang me up and said, “There’s this guy on American Idol, and he’s just done ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ and you’ve got to see him because he’s the guy who should go out and sing for you.”
What was your first reaction?
As you do, I looked on YouTube and thought, Hmmm, yeah. And at the same time, somebody had told Roger [Taylor, Queen’s drummer/singer]. Then we got a phone call from American Idol people saying, “Will you come over and play with the two finalists?” And so we did. Adam was one, and Adam did not win [on American Idol].
What was so captivating about Adam’s singing and stage persona?
It’s kind of funny looking back on it. The other guy [Kris Allen] was great too. But I think it was obvious that Adam had that kind of special, indefinable thing going for him, something unique, and almost scary. He’s on the edge, a bit like Freddy was. Some people could take him, and some people [couldn’t]. And everybody deifies Freddy now, but if we’d been sitting here 40 years ago, people were all out to get him. They were all like, Who does he think he is?
So Adam’s a bit like that. A lot of people look at Adam and think, What the hell does he think he is? But when they see him in concert, they get it. They fall in love with him. I think because he has this insane confidence, but also a humility. It’s like he has both ends of the spectrum. And it’s genuine, you know? He’s very respectful. But he also knows what he can do, and that’s a powerful thing.
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I attended the Queen + Adam Lambert show in New Jersey recently.
Tell me about the show.
The stage reminded me a little of Queen’s stage on the 1978 Jazz tour, which I attended at the Nassau Coliseum [in Uniondale, New York].
Wow, all right! It is an interesting little vehicle we built there. I’m very proud of it. For the first time, we actually put nine months of preparation in before we set foot on the stage, and I think it shows. In the past, we would throw a couple of ideas at the set designers and then arrive in the rehearsal room with a look on our faces like, “Oh, what should we do now?”
This time, we thought it through more. You want to be conscious of the past, but you want to be conscious that it’s an organic thing, a new thing, and you have a new generation to play to. There’s so much new video and sound technology. They’re all new toys. We were always a band that embraced every toy we could lay our hands on because it’s fun to do that.This time, we thought it through more. You want to be conscious of the past, but you want to be conscious that it’s an organic thing, a new thing, and you have a new generation to play to. There’s so much new video and sound technology. They’re all new toys. We were always a band that embraced every toy we could lay our hands on because it’s fun to do that.
Queen continued to progress on News of the World. In Queen’s recent concert, the robot on the cover of the album makes quite an appearance.
Frank is named after his creator, Frank Kelly Freas. We’re always on the lookout for connections. And Roger [Taylor] is particularly good at this stuff. Roger picked up a science fiction magazine called Astounding Science Fiction, from the ’50s, and on the front of it is a picture of a robot, this guy, and in his hand, he’s got blood on it, he’s picked up a soldier…. And this robot is a character who looks very fearsome and frightening because he’s huge and he’s mechanical, but actually what he’s done is he picks up this soldier and he’s injured him by accident or he was already injured, I don’t know. But he’s not picking him up because he wants to harm him, but because he wants to fix him.
It was a very appealing idea to us. It connected to some of the things we were into. So we got in touch with the artist, Frank Kelly Freas, and said, “Will you re-create this robot for us and make a cover for us?” And he did. Frank’s got me in his hands, strangely, enough, and Roger—he’s dropping him.
The audience was thrilled when Frank appears onstage. He picks you up in his hand. And Adam sits on his head, and says, “This guy gives great head!” Perfect!
The Queen archivist was saying to me, “Look, this is the 40th anniversary of News of the World.” Then we picked up this album, and I went, “You know what, it would be so great if we did theme [parts of the show] on this anniversary.” And look at this guy, wouldn’t it be great if he came to life?” I thought, Wouldn’t it be great if he picked me up? In his hand. And they were like, “Yeah, we can make that happen.”
Frank is there in people’s minds the whole time, and we love it. It gives the show a kind of theatrical overtone. And I know Freddy would’ve loved it. He loved all that theater stuff.