Queen’s Brian May has revealed that Freddie Mercury was “pretty out of control” while recording the band’s seminal hit ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.
During an interview with Rick Beato (via Ultimate Guitar), May was asked about the process of recording the track and how Mercury evolved during his time in Queen.
“[Freddie’s] a self-made man. He went in the studio when we first went in and he’d been singing with us live, we’d been rehearsing and writing, and everything,” he began.
He continued: “And he was pretty out of control, I have to say. Even he knew it. He’d run around screaming and posing, and whatever, but the vocals would be all over the place.”
“He went in and we laid four tracks down, and Freddie said, ‘I’m not having this, this is not good enough. I don’t want to sound like that.'”
“And he went in again and again and again, and worked on it, listened to it, kept coming back, and moulded himself into that singer. So by the time he’s on ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ he’s phenomenal.”
May continued on to describe the “incredible” way that Mercury was able to use voice.
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“After ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ the record after that is [1976’s] ‘A Day at the Races.’ if you listen to a song called ‘You Take My Breath Away,’ he does an introduction for that where he’s multi-tracked all himself,” he said.
“And it’s so close, it’s all phases, he’s so accurate, so in tune. It’s incredible. That’s not an effect, there is no effect on there whatsoever,” he continued.
“You listen to it, and it’s all just delicately phasing with itself, all the separate parts. It’s beautiful, I’ve never heard anybody do that quite to that degree of perfection.”
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Check out Brian May discussing Freddie Mercury with Rick Beato:
