XX-XX-1989 – Hard ‘N’ Heavy

Hard ‘N’ Heavy – Video Magazine – 1989 Volume 3
Interview with Brian May & Roger Taylor
Interviewer: Well, we’re here with two members of Queen, Brian and Roger, and welcome.

Brian: Thank you.

Roger: Hi, thank you, thanks.

Interviewer: This is your first time in a limo isn’t it!

Roger: Yeah we’ve never been in a limo, before!

Brian: First time in a limo, yeah. What is a limo?

Interviewer: Well, we’re gonna do something rather unique here, I guess, in that we’re gonna conduct this interview in the back of the longest stretch limousine I’ve ever seen, in my life.

Brian: The thing is ridiculous.

Roger: Yeah.

Interviewer: Yeah it’s like an apartment in here, isn’t it.

Brian: We could do a gig in here I think.

(Clip of “We will rock you” from Rio I think).

Brian: Memories of Sunset Boulevard?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Brian: I remember the first time we came to L.A…

Roger: Yeah, so do I, a long time ago.

Brian: and sort of did the gig. We did Santa Monica Civic the first time we ever came here, and played at the Rainbow, and thought “What a strange place this is”.

Roger: Played at the Rainbow?

Brian: No, not played, I mean played around at the Rainbow, not actually played our instruments.

Roger: Oh played, Yeah, yeah played. Yeah.

Brian: And thought my god “What a strange island of odd humanity this is”, and I didn’t think it was a place that I’d ever want to be again.

Roger: I liked it.

Brian: He loved it, and I hated it. Now I love it and Roger doesn’t normally want to come here, but I feel very at home in L.A. now, it seems.

Interviewer: You do?

Brian: I feel, always, one step higher, spiritually, in L.A. there’s something about it.

Roger: You’re the only one.

Brian: It’s very strange. A lot of people don’t feel that way, but I come here and I immediately feel, somehow, more central to what I’m doing, and I find I can ring people up, I can play with people.

Roger: You feel spiritually one step higher.

Brian: I love it, and I love the sunshine, it just does me good for some reason, gets me out of my depression.

(Clip of “Bohemian Rhapsody” from same gig in background)

Brian: I remember seeing a big thing up for Led Zeppelin, a billboard, you know, ’cause everyone used to have billboards and that was the sign of success, and we saw Zeppelin at the Forum at that time…

Roger: That’s right, yeah. They were great.

Brian: and I thought Jesus Christ, if we ever make this kind of thing… and that was widening our horizons ’cause we thought, or at least I thought in my naivety in those days, I thought, you know, if we play something like the Rainbow in London we’ve made it, and there isn’t anything else, and then suddenly to see these things… and I just thought, god it’s a world. If we ever get to that sort of state that’ll be it.

Roger: (Pointing out of window) I took a girl there once and she got her breasts out in the middle of a meal.

Interviewer: Is that right?

Roger: Yeah.

Interviewer: She got her breasts out?

Roger: Yeah, right in the middle of the restaurant, in the middle of the meal. That’s just a little aside there.

Interviewer: What occasion was this?

Roger: I can’t remember quite why.

Brian: Did you marry her?

Roger: No. I wanted to at the time.

(Clip of “I Want It All” video in background)

Interviewer: Let’s talk about the new album, “The Miracle”. A lot of people are extremely pleased to see Queen… I won’t say return to the old style, but certainly a harder edge, less dance music.

Brian: The way it came out very guitar oriented just happened, as far as I can see. It’s very strange.

Roger: Yeah.

Brian: It may have come about because we were actually doing more playing together. There’s a lot of live takes on there, So, you know, whereas we had got fairly machine oriented for a while, this isn’t.

Interviewer: No.

Brian: There’s a lot of technology, but it’s kind of after the event. It’s basically us playing as a band. So I guess it sounds like it. And no one’s more happy than I am. Having decided that we were going to credit every track to the four of us, as opposed to just one, everybody argued over every note…

Interviewer: Is that right?

Brian: Which is very healthy, and it’s much more of a cohesive group effort than we’ve done for a long time.

Interviewer: Now the song “The Miracle”, the title track…this is a real interesting tune lyrically, ’cause you… This is a real celebration of life, it’s a plea to stop war.

Brian: We got pasted to the wall for this in England. Everybody hated it, for some reason. It’s very uncool to be idealistic in Britain, I suppose, at the moment, and they said “How can they talk about peace”, and all that sort of stuff, then of course, China happened and everything. It seems very relevant to us.

Roger: In England ‘idealism’ is ‘naivety’, which is wrong, it’s not. There’s nothing wrong with idealism. Nick Lowe wrote that great song, great title – “What’s so bad about peace, love and understanding”, yeah, and what is so bad about it?

Interviewer: Was there a particular story that “Scandal”…that touched off the song “Scandal”?

Roger: (To Brian) I think this is yours.

Brian: Well, Yeah. I mean, it’s something which has affected us, individually, as members of the group recently. It’s very strange, ’cause we were fairly famous for a long time in England, you know the last fifteen years or whatever, but we didn’t become a prey to these kind of scummy papers until recently. And it’s not related to what you are doing, you know. They are not interested what music you play, or anything. They just want the dirt, and if they can’t find any they’ll invent it if they choose to pick on you. So we were all going through a lot of changes in our lives and suddenly it became a big problem, you know, in a similar way… you’ve heard about what they did to Elton, you know? These stories about Elton, and everything, which he sued them for and got a million quid (NB. slang for pound) off ’em. You know, great.

Interviewer: Yes.

Brian: Well they did very similar things to me particularly, and to a certain extent to Roger, and Freddie also had been through it a little while before.

(Lurid newspaper headlines)

Brian: But this thing is total.. you know, steam in and destroy someone’s life. They really are the scum of the earth. You can’t exaggerate it too much.

Brian: I think our best video is Radio Ga-Ga, really.

Roger: I quite like Radio Ga-Ga because it had a mood and a look and we used pieces of “Metropolis which was great.

Interviewer: Absolutely.

Brian: I am going to reveal something, which many people don’t know. If you listen to the record very carefully it doesn’t actually say “Radio Ga-Ga”.

Roger: All you hear is that it’s actually “Radio Ca-Ca”, which is French for shit.

Brian: That’s what it says.

Interviewer: Right, right.

Roger: And that’s what it says on the record.

Brian: That was going to be the title of the record.

Interviewer: I understand that there is some dispute amongst you all about touring. Where does it stand?

Roger: Don’t know about dispute?

Brian: Not exactly. As to where and when and how there is dispute, but I don’t think there’s any doubt that we want to get out there. I personally can’t wait. Once you adapt to the lifestyle and the discipline of it, I think it’s something which becomes part of your life, and when it’s taken away… like we didn’t tour for the last three years.. I found life really difficult, you’re suddenly back to responsibilities and you can’t think “Oh I can stick with this for the next couple of weeks, ’cause I’m going to be on tour soon.”, you think “This is life.” and it became very hard.