Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury (11 page)

“1984 was purely an amateur band, formed at school, although
perhaps at the end we got fifteen quid or something,” was the way Brian would later remember it.

“We never really played anything significant in the way of original material—it was a strange mixture of cover versions, all the things which people wanted to hear at the time. This was about the time the Stones were emerging, and later we did Stones and Yardbirds things . . . I was never happy about it. I left because I wanted to do something where we wrote our own material.”

Explaining to his bandmates that his studies must come first, Brian withdrew and the band broke up. Brian and Tim Staffell, by now a student and cohort of Freddie’s at Ealing College of Art, kept in touch. Suffering musical withdrawal, they were soon discussing the logistics of starting another band. Together with Chris Smith, another Ealing undergraduate who was also a useful keyboard player, they agreed to have another go, deploying Smith on organ, Staffell on lead vocals and bass, and May on lead guitar. The only thing missing was the drummer.

With his baby-blond hair and deep blue eyes, Roger Meddows Taylor was almost too beautiful to be male. Norfolk-born but raised in Truro, heartthrob Taylor had already made a name for himself as a drummer in Cornwall with an outfit called Johnny Quale and the Reaction. The group won fourth prize in the local Rock and Rhythm Championship and attracted quite a following on the Cornwall circuit. When Quale ditched his band, Taylor was elected lead vocalist. Tightening their name to the Reaction, their popularity continued to swell, with a musical style based primarily on soul until they discovered the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1967. Roger headed for London that autumn to begin his dentistry degree at the London Hospital Medical School. He soon became the fourth flatmate in rented lodgings in Shepherd’s Bush, where his friend Les Brown from Truro already lived. Les was a year older, and like Brian May was a student at Imperial College. Already hooked on the dream of becoming a rock star but removed from his old bandmates in the Reaction—with whom he would reengage for a few ad hoc gigs during the summer break in 1968—Roger needed to find himself a new
band. Despite his Don Juan–ish reputation, he was shy, engaging, and popular with other guys. Eventually, with Les Brown on the lookout on his behalf, an opportunity arose at the start of the autumn term. Scouring the Imperial College notice board one day for something that might suit his friend, Les found a postcard advertising for a “Ginger Baker/Mitch Mitchell–type drummer.” This showed that Brian and Tim meant business: Baker had attracted a cult following with the Graham Bond Organisation, a “musicians’ group” who had recorded with the Who, before jumping ship to join Eric Clapton’s Cream. Mitchell drummed with the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Brian May’s was the contact name on the card. Roger called him immediately. Brian outlined what he and Tim were looking for, and soon the pair found themselves heading over to Roger’s flat for a jam session on acoustic guitars and bongos, because Taylor’s full drum kit was still at home in Cornwall, gathering dust. Shortly afterwards, the trio began rehearsing in earnest in the jazz club room at Imperial College. Not only did they play credible covers of other artists, Brian and Tim were now composing their own songs. More metal than minstrel, this early music rippled with classical undertones and borrowed from an astonishing range of influences. Part Elizabethan troubadour, part monster rock, Smile’s sound featured dramatic drums, insistent guitars, strong lead vocals, and intelligent harmonies, while their lyrics plundered the works. The overall effect was multilayered, embellished, and breathtaking. It was nothing if not the shape of things to come.

This was the true genesis of Queen.

“I could play you tapes of Smile which have the same general structures as what we’re doing today,” Brian said in an interview in 1977.

Queen chemistry was already being created, by very different personalities who complemented each other brilliantly. Brian, the quiet and gentle type off stage, was tall, lean, and angular. Irresistibly snake-hipped in his velvet loons, his unruly dark curls fell sexily into his eyes as he played. Tim was more rough and ready, and, in his torn denims, not exactly fashion-conscious. Neither was fun-loving Chris, the only
member of the group who was studying privately on the side for a music degree. Blond Roger, described as “a drummer both by name and by nature” and as “sex on legs,” was too pretty for his own good. It was his energy, enthusiasm, unfailingly upbeat and cleverly humorous attitude that drove the band. Those were happy, hopeful, carefree days.

“Brian May’s mum and I would ask each other, ‘Are they going to make it?’,” remembered Freddie’s mother Jer.

In October 1968, Brian was awarded his BSc Honours degree, the diploma presented by Her Majesty the Queen Mother at the Royal Albert Hall. He had already elected to stay on as a postgraduate tutor at Imperial College while working on his PhD thesis on the movement of interplanetary dust, with a long-term plan to become an astronomer. There was an ulterior motive: remaining at Imperial made gigs and rehearsals easier. Tim Staffell and Chris Smith were still at Ealing. Roger, meanwhile, dropped out of medical school after completing only half of his degree. Just two days after Brian’s graduation ceremony, the boys supported Pink Floyd at Imperial College, which is both remembered and disputed as Smile’s debut gig. They would go on to open for T. Rex, Yes, and Family. In February 1969, Smile asked Chris Smith to leave the group—which Smith himself has denied on the grounds that he had decided to quit, citing musical differences. A couple of nights later, the remaining members took their places at their first charity lineup at the Royal Albert Hall. A fundraising event for the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and Her Child, it was presented by the late DJ John Peel. Performing on the same bill as Joe Cocker and Free, little could Brian and Roger have known that, thirty-five years later, they would be collaborating with Free’s lead singer Paul Rodgers (who in the meantime would front Bad Company, the Firm, and the Law) on two acclaimed world tours, on
The Cosmos Rocks
—Queen’s first studio album for almost fifteen years—and on a live album and two live DVDs.

Early in 1969, Tim pitched up at a Smile rehearsal with his art college pal Freddie Bulsara in tow. The attraction was instant and mutual. Freddie was in his element among accomplished and experienced
musicians. More than ever, he was convinced that this was how he wanted to spend his life. Brian and Roger were equally entranced, falling irrevocably for Freddie’s image, dry humor, and razor wit.

As Roger’s friend Les Brown later recalled, “I don’t think I’ve ever met someone so outrageous since. He was very enthusiastic about everything. He once physically dragged me into a room and made me listen to a soul record he really liked. No one admitted to still liking soul at the time; it was all rock. I suppose he was showing his catholic taste.”

Soon a regular fixture at Smile gigs, Freddie took to making candid comments about how they should style themselves, passed remarks about their performance, and even started telling them how they should sit, stand, walk, and talk.

“He offered suggestions in a way that couldn’t be refused,” remembered Brian. “At that time, he hadn’t really done any singing, and we didn’t know he could. We thought he was just a theatrical rock musician.”

When Freddie graduated from Ealing College in summer 1969, he did not have a full-time job to go to. Nor did he have any intention of getting one. He and Roger Taylor (who had by now discarded the middle name “Meddows”) would run a tiny ten-pound-a-week “Kasbah” stall within three-storey Kensington Market, on the antiques trading alley known as “Death Row.” Most of the stallholders were flamboyant, jobless artists and writers. Their customers included Michael Caine, Julie Christie, and Norman Wisdom. To begin with they sold artwork by Freddie—mainly fashion sketches and drawings of Jimi Hendrix—and the work of fellow Ealing College students. They even sold Freddie’s college thesis on Hendrix. Although this would undoubtedly be worth thousands today, none of it was valuable at the time. They needed to make more money. Unashamed clotheshorses themselves, they decided to have a go at selling fashion. Dandy paraphernalia became their stock in trade: everything from exotic scarves and cloaks to jackets and fur stoles, all of which was little more than tarty tat and jumble sale junk, flogged at shamelessly inflated prices. They even started having
garments made up out of old fabrics and trimmings, and became expert at acquiring “job lots.” On obtaining a box of moth-eaten fur coats for £50 from a Battersea rag merchant, they sold them on at £8 each.

“Roger and I go poncing and ultrablagging just about everywhere, and lately we’ve been termed as a couple of queens,” Freddie wrote to student friend Celine Daley during that period.

Tim Staffell would later recall that Roger and Freddie reveled in their narcissistic “Del-Boy-esque” market trader profile.

“They really enjoyed being outrageous,” he said. “Freddie developed the camp side of his nature—he regarded it as an amusing part of his personality. At no time was it suggested that he was gay. He was never overtly sexual.”

Freddie, now an accepted part of their entourage, had started to travel with Smile on the road.

In April 1969, the band performed at London’s Revolution Club, where they met the head of Mercury Records’ European division, the late Lou Reizner. Lou had brokered David Bowie’s American deal and would later achieve fame for having produced Rod Stewart’s first two solo albums. He also produced the orchestral version of the Who’s rock opera
Tommy
and Rick Wakeman’s
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
. A Chicago-born former singer himself, he offered Smile a one-single deal for the United States only, which they signed on the spot. Nothing much happened until June, when the label booked Smile into Soho’s Trident Studios.

It was an auspicious beginning. Trident Studios, at 17 St. Anne’s Court, a Soho alleyway in the heart of London’s West End, was the brainchild of Norman Sheffield, former drummer with sixties group the Hunters, and his brother Barry. The Sheffield brothers’ “relaxed attitude to audio-engineering” and the studios’ state-of-the-art recording equipment made it a magnet to many top artists. At other facilities such as EMI’s Abbey Road Studios, engineers still went about their business in white coats. Another, not inconsiderable Trident attraction was its already legendary Bechstein piano, at which Rick Wakeman had labored
lovingly for many a session, and the keys of which still echoed with the chords of Paul McCartney’s “Hey Jude.”

Offering the most advanced technology then available, the studios’ first major hit had been Manfred Mann’s “My Name Is Jack” in March the previous year. The countless beloved albums recorded at Trident include Lou Reed’s
Transformer
, produced by David Bowie, who recorded his own masterpieces there, not least
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
. Rick Wakeman was the in-house session keyboard player in those days: he features on Bowie recordings such as “Changes” and “Life on Mars.” Trident exists to this day and has welcomed many revered artists in its time, including James Taylor and Harry Nilsson. Legendary status was conferred for having hosted the Beatles in July 1968 for the recording of “Hey Jude”—more than seven minutes long and at the time the longest single ever to top the British charts. Tracks for the White Album and
Abbey Road
were also cut at Trident.

Despite recording several tracks in St. Anne’s Court, not a single release date was set. A deal with the Rondo talent agency kept them in gigs throughout the summer. That August, Mercury Records released the single “Earth/Step on Me” in the States, where, due to lack of promotion, it sank without a trace. The label being reluctant to waste a band with potential, and aware that Brian and Tim had cowritten a wealth of material, a possible album or EP was discussed. The band were dispatched to De Lane Lea Studios at Engineers Way, Wembley—not to the De Lane Lea branch at 129 Kingsway, as stated elsewhere. At De Lane Lea, founded in 1947 and famous for its work during the sixties on albums by the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, Pink Floyd, ELO, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Smile worked with late producer Fritz Freyer on two original songs and one cover. But the EP was not released, and the recordings were consigned to the vaults. They would not resurface until around fifteen years later, by which time Queen were superstars. The EP was eventually released in Japan, where fans can never get enough of curiosities.

By the end of the year, the band were dejected and on the verge of
walking away. Indeed, Tim Staffell did so: weary of the drudgery and poverty of life on the road, he quit, giving the excuse that Smile were not the right group for him.

“I was beginning to get a rather jaundiced view of the music we were doing,” he later said. “Then I heard James Brown and thought God! . . . Basically, I had changed musical tracks completely.”

Tim joined Colin Petersen, a former Bee Gees drummer, in a lineup dubbed Humpy Bong. One single, one TV apperance, and the band were has-beens. Tim settled eventually for a career in special effects, and would enjoy fleeting limelight as creator of the model trains for television’s
Thomas the Tank Engine
.

Without their lead singer, their label concluded that Smile were no longer a band. Roger and Brian were released from their contracts. Although dejected, they were not ready to give in. A further recording session came their way when Smile met former Blackburn club DJ Terry Yeardon through a friend who may have been Christine Mullen, Brian May’s first wife-to-be. Yeardon was now a maintenance engineer at Pye Studios in London’s Marble Arch, famous for having nurtured Petula Clark and for the work, particularly for television themes (
Crossroads, Neighbours
) of husband-and-wife composing team Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent. Pye also produced Hendrix’s “Hey Joe” and the Troggs’ “Wild Thing” in 1966, and had welcomed the Kinks, Richard Harris, and Trini Lopez. The studios had even boasted Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones as session musicians before they teamed with Robert Plant and John Bonham to form Led Zeppelin.