Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury (3 page)

What did we do with this “exclusive”? We did nothing. Wrote nothing. Only we knew.

Freddie and his crew were good people. It had been a fun night. He’d been honest. He probably didn’t trust us as far as he could have thrown us. He knew who we were, must have assumed we’d stitch him up. Perhaps he wanted us to, to prove a point: that reporters are always bad news. Freddie of all rock stars was used to being betrayed, especially by people like us. If we didn’t understand it at the time, his behavior now makes sense. Freddie may have had an inkling that his days were numbered. He was certainly living like there was no tomorrow. Maybe he just fancied lobbing caution to the wind at that point, imprisoned as
he was by fame. Because we knew he was expecting the worst from us, Tavener and I agreed to commit a sackable offense. We would not sell Freddie’s confidence for a cheap page lead.

Dawn began to shimmer over the snow-mantled mountains. True colors flecked the water as we faded back to our hotel. No one spoke. Nothing left to say. Tavener smoked his last fag.

*   *   *

“Rock music is vastly important,” declares Cosmo Hallstrom, a renowned consultant psychiatrist who has done four decades with the great and good.

“It represents culture as it is now. It’s big money, which makes it a desirable pursuit. It’s a phenomenon that can’t be ignored. It unifies, it creates a common bond.

“Rock ’n’ roll has immediacy. It’s about raw, unchanneled, early emotions and simple concepts, driven hard. It’s so compelling, you cannot ignore it. You cannot fail to be roused by it. You’d have to be deaf—and perhaps not even then. It speaks to a generation. It validates it, in a way that nothing else can.”

“Being an artist is a cry for help,” insists Simon Napier-Bell, the industry’s most infamous rock and pop manager, who should know: he wrote hits for Dusty Springfield, made household names of Marc Bolan, the Yardbirds, and Japan, invented Wham!, and transformed George Michael into a solo superstar. Simon never minces his words, especially not on this subject.

“All artists are terribly insecure people. They are desperate to be noticed. They are constantly seeking an audience. They are forced to be commercial, which they hate, but which I think makes their ‘art’ all the better. They all have the same story, too, which is key. Take Eric Clapton: when I first saw him, I thought, He isn’t an artist, he’s just a musician. In John Mayall’s band, he played with his back to the audience, he was so shy. But as he evolved, I saw that he
was
an artist. He had the missing father, a sister who was really his mother, a grandma he thought was his mum. Artists always have an abusive childhood—at
least in terms of emotional deprivation. So they have this desperation to succeed, to get love and attention. All the others just drop out eventually. Because I’m telling you: it’s
absolutely horrible
being a star. It’s nice to get a good table in a restaurant, but then you have people coming up to you every thirty seconds throughout the meal. It’s a nightmare. Yet stars are perfectly happy to put up with that kind of thing. It comes with the territory.

“They are usually utterly charming with new people,” he goes on. “But there’s a dark side. When they’ve taken everything they possibly can from you, they have no further use for you and they spit you out. I’ve been spat out, but I couldn’t give a toss. I understand these people, I know what makes them tick. It’s no use getting upset or angry about being treated unkindly or cruelly by some star. They are what they are. There is a certain psychological damage which runs through every one of them. I guarantee that if you look through their childhoods, you will find it. What else makes you so desperate to win applause and adulation? So desperate that you’ll lead a lousy life you can never really call your own? No normal person would ever want to be a star. Not for any money.”

“Freddie Mercury did the most important thing of all,” counters Dr. Hallstrom. “He died young. Instead of becoming a fat, bloated, self-important old queen, he was cut off in his prime and is preserved at that age for eternity. It’s not a bad way to go.”

This is his story.

1

By making this concert, we are doing something positive to make people look, listen, and hopefully donate. When people are starving, it should be looked upon as one united problem. Sometimes I do feel helpless. This is one of those times I can do my bit.

Freddie Mercury

It was the perfect stage for Freddie Mercury: the whole world.

Bob Geldof

T
here was
a time when politicians made great orators. The art has dwindled dramatically in this century. Rock ’n’ roll, of all unlikely disciplines, is one of the few remaining professions in which an individual or group can hold an audience in the palm of their hand, controlling a throng of thousands with their voice. Film actors can’t do it. Television stars don’t even get close. Perhaps it makes the rock superstar the last great compelling figure of our times. This occurred to me as I stood in the curtained wings at Wembley Stadium on Live Aid day with Who bassist John Entwistle and his girlfriend Max. We watched Freddie perform in sweltering heat for close to 80,000 people, and for a television audience of . . . who knows? A lot of figures have been bandied about in the ensuing years, but somewhere between “400 million in
around 50 countries via satellite” and “1.9 billion worldwide.” With nonchalance, wit, cheek, and sex, he gave it the works. We looked on, open-mouthed. The deafening roar of the crowd drowned out any attempt to speak to them. Freddie couldn’t have cared. The raw power that held his audience spellbound was so potent, you imagined you could smell it. Backstage, the most legendary names in rock paused to watch their rival stealing the show. Freddie knew what he was doing, all right. For eighteen minutes, this unlikely king and Queen ruled the world.

*   *   *

We make luck in random ways. Bob Geldof, scribbling in his diary in a taxi one day: that was lucky. This was in November 1984. From the depths of his brain, a “battleground of conflicting thoughts,” as he later described it, came rudimentary bits of lyrics that would soon enough rock the world. It happened shortly after watching Michael Buerk’s terrible bulletin from famine-wracked Ethiopia on
BBC News
. Horrified by television footage depicting suffering of biblical proportions, Geldof felt at once shocked and helpless, his gut telling him that he had to get involved. He had no idea how. He could do what he did best: sit down and write a hit single, the proceeds of which he could pledge to Oxfam. But his Irish punk band the Boomtown Rats were by then in decline, having not enjoyed a Top Ten hit since 1980. Their zenith, a Number One with “I Don’t Like Mondays,” had been and gone in 1979. Music fans, he knew, would flock to buy a charity single provided the artist was big enough—especially at the Christmas-single time of year. It was a question of finding a sympathetic star to record one. How much better if he could persuade a whole galaxy to join in one song.

Bob spoke to Midge Ure, whose band Ultravox were appearing that week on
The Tube
—a Channel 4 rock and pop show hosted by Geldof’s then girlfriend (soon to be his wife), the late Paula Yates. Midge agreed to set Geldof’s lyrics to music and to orchestrate some arrangements. Bob then went to Sting, Duran Duran singer Simon Le Bon, Gary and Martin Kemp of Spandau Ballet. His galactic list stretched as time ticked on to include, among many, Boy George, Frankie Goes to Hollywood,
the Style Council’s Paul Weller, George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley of Wham, and Paul Young. Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt of Status Quo went in willingly. Phil Collins and Bananarama followed suit. David Bowie and Paul McCartney, who were otherwise committed, made contributions remotely. These were sent to Geldof to be dubbed onto the single later. Sir Peter Blake, world-famous for his iconic artwork on the Beatles’ album cover
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
, was recruited to design the record sleeve. Band Aid was born, the name a pun on a common brand of adhesive bandage. This was to be a “band” that would “aid” the world.

“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” was recorded free of charge at Trevor Horn’s Sarm West Studios in Notting Hill, West London, on 25 November 1984, and was released just four days later.

At Number One that week was knockout Scottish singer Jim Diamond, with his sublime, timeless ballad “I Should Have Known Better.” Although Jim’s group PhD had scored a hit with “I Won’t Let You Down” in 1982, he had never had a solo hit. The music industry was therefore gobsmacked when big-hearted Jim gave an interview about his chart success.

“I’m delighted to be Number One,” he said, “but next week I don’t want people to buy my record. I want them to buy Band Aid instead.”

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Geldof. “As a singer who hadn’t had a Number One for five years, I knew what it cost him to say that. He had just thrown away his first hit for others. It was genuinely selfless.”

The next week, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” went straight to Number One in the UK, outselling everything else on the chart put together and becoming Britain’s fastest-selling single since the chart’s inception in 1952. A million copies were shifted in the first week alone. The record held the Number One slot for five weeks, selling more than three and a half million copies. It went on to become the UK’s biggest-selling single of all time—ending the nine-year reign of Queen’s magnum opus, the “ba-rock” “Bohemian Rhapsody.” “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” would only be outsold in 1997 by Elton John’s double-A-side
charity single “Candle in the Wind/Something About the Way You Look Tonight,” rerecorded as a tribute to the late Princess of Wales.

“Queen were definitely disappointed that they hadn’t been asked to appear on ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?,’ ” admits Spike Edney, a session musician who toured with Queen as the band’s fifth member, contributing on keyboards, vocals, and rhythm guitar, and who had made his name playing for the Boomtown Rats and a string of big-name acts.

“I was out doing a Rats tour with Geldof, and I mentioned this to Bob. It was then he told me that he was hoping to get a show together, and he was definitely going to ask Queen to play. I remember thinking, Bollocks. He’s nuts. It’ll never happen.”

The industry’s reaction to what Geldof had achieved so far suggested otherwise. Hot on the heels of the British chart effort came America’s contribution, in the form of supergroup USA for Africa and their single “We Are the World.” Written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, produced by Quincy Jones and Michael Omartian, the session brought together some of the world’s most legendary musicians. It was recorded at Hollywood’s A&M Studios in January 1985, and boasted a stellar cast, Diana Ross, Bruce Springsteen, Smokey Robinson, Cyndi Lauper, Billy Joel, Dionne Warwick, Willie Nelson, and Huey Lewis among them. In all, more than forty-five of America’s top artists took part. A further fifty had to be turned away. When the chosen ones arrived at the studio, they were confronted with a sign instructing them to “please check your egos at the door.” They were also met by an impish Stevie Wonder, informing them that if the song wasn’t up to scratch nor down in one take, he and fellow blind artist Ray Charles would be driving them all home. The record sold more than twenty million copies, and became America’s fastest-selling pop single ever.

It was after Queen’s challenging
The Works
outing that Geldof took his aid campaign up a notch, announcing plans to create the most ambitious rock ’n’ roll project of all time. Because they had been ignored for the single, Queen did not consider themselves an obvious choice for the concert lineup. That seems an irony now. Despite their fifteen-year
career, a matchless back catalogue of albums, singles, and videos, royalties into the multimillions, and having landed most music awards going thanks to musicianship which embraced rock, pop, opera, rockabilly, disco, funk, and folk, Queen’s star appeared to be in the descendant. The band had been away from home for a considerable period between August 1984 and May 1985 promoting their album,
The Works
, during which they took part in the Rock in Rio festival in January 1985—performing live for 325,000 fans. But the tour had been beset by problems. There was talk of them going their separate ways.