Brian May reveals he was surprised by what he heard when he dug out some long-abandoned tracks for the ‘Queen Forever’ album, which will give fans three completely new songs featuring their lost frontman Freddie Mercury.
The band have released a trailer (see above) for the album, which contains three brand new tracks - a song they recorded with Michael Jackson, ‘There Must Be More to Life Than This’, a pared down version of Freddie’s solo hit ‘Love Kills’ and a song that Brian reveals has never been heard before, because he only came upon it by chance.
The new album will be “Queen - but pared down, not the pop and rock side,” says Brian. “I like it”
“It’s called ‘Let Me in Your Heart Again’ and it just happened to be there,” he tells HuffPostUK. “It was abandoned at the time for various technical reasons, but I was able to transfer it off the analogue multi-tracks and do some repairs, so it worked from beginning to end.
“But basically you’re hearing the four of us together as a band from 1984 or so, playing a song that nobody’s ever heard, so that’s a thrill.”
Freddie with Michael Jackson, who recorded a song with the band which will only now be heard
Brian tells me he was moved by how well the four original members – himself, Freddie Mercury, John Deacon and Roger Taylor – sounded, even back at the beginning of their decades of performing together.
“It’s still surprising to hear how well the four of us played together,” he marvels. “There were no clicks in those days, no fixing stuff with ProTools.
“It’s absolutely naked, four musicians playing together and it really does hang together like glue. I feel quite proud of us in those days.”
Brian May and his Red Special - still loving it, four decades on
These songs, as all of Queen’s ridiculously deep well of an archive, will feature the distinctive sounds of Brian’s homemade guitar, the Red Special, and we’re chatting ahead of the launch of a brand new book all about the long journey he and his guitar have been on, beginning with the day he and his father got together to build it. Its nickname ‘the Fireplace’ comes from the fact that the wood on the neck came from an 18th century fireplace, just one of many idiosyncrasies lending the instrument its renown.
“I was 16 at the time, and we made it because we couldn’t come close to affording a guitar,” Brian remembers.
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