Re: I thought you Queen fans might like this interview

On Jan 26, 1:40 am, Mackenzie <jade_...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Interview with Brian May, guitarist for Queen:

Stevie:
Just to introduce us all. I'm Stephen Strahan and I'm here with Sam
Prosser and Paul Culmsee and of course Brian May. We're here on the
eve of the Australian leg of the Another World tour. How's the tour
been so far? Are there any standout experiences? And what can we
expect from you this time, the thing is it's been 22 years since you
were here last.

Brian:
Is that all? Yeah. (general laughter)

Paul:
Does it make you feel old?

Brian:
God yeah - I've met a lot of people who weren't alive at that time
who
were very enthusiastic about me being here which is great. I'm
surprised to find so much of a buzz here which is really nice, you
know, I didn't know if anyone would even remember who I was, you
know.
Tour's been going great, really good. The band is really hot and
everyone's in good health and it's been a lot of fun. It's very free.
You know we've changed things a lot as time's gone by so each show
has
had generally something new in it. And I suppose the standout part of
it for us was the new territories, like we did Prague for the first
time ever which was really good. We did Warsaw which I'd never done
before and St Petersburg in Moscow which was really outrageously
different and new.

Stevie:
You've had pretty much a reputation for breaking new territories, I
mean you did South America...

Brian:
That's right, In the Queen days, yeah and it's still a great feeling.
You know I was just thinking that at my time of life I am very
fortunate to be able to do something that I've always dreamed of and
break new ground. I think Russia particularly was very exciting
because they'd been Queen fans all that time and yet they'd never had
a chance to see any of this and I met people with tears in their eyes
saying they'd been kind of with us for the last 25 years and they'd
never dreamed that any of them would be able to see this.

Stevie:
That's kind of it for me too. I'd never actually got to see Queen
live.

Brian:
Is that right?

Stevie:
I met you in '82 but it was right at the very end of the Hot Space
tour and so I didn't get a chance and then the airfares were so
expensive and when you came here you were only on the east coast and
it was like $800 or $900 to get there...

Sam:
And I was pregnant at the time, so it wasn't really an option...

Brian:
Were you?

Paul:
And I just started primary school so I was out...

Sam:
We're showing our age now, we should stop this...

Stevie:
So those kind of things stopped me... so getting to see you now is
just a totally exhilarating experience

Brian:
But for me too, I'm very excited, it was a long shot for me. You
know,
you're sitting in London and you think, well what can we do kind of
thing and I said to our agent there I would really like to go to
Australia because we didn't manage to do it the our last leg of the
Brian May Band thing and he said "oh well, I don't think there's
enough interest, I don't think it would really happen" so we almost
didn't do it and it's only because Tripp, our sound engineer knows
Nick Pitts, who's permanently out here now, he's an old friend, used
to do Elton's tour and stuff and he did a couple of our tours and
Tripp said "I'll make a call just suss it out" and Nick said "no,
it's
absolutely, very possible, we can get some good offers for you here
and come, if you can!" So we went, yeah, well that's cool...

Stevie:
So, I mean everybody knows about Queen, but you've got your solo
career. How's your life and the solo career? Has it gone the way you
expected. I mean, it's changed a lot over the last 10 years or
whatever.

Brian:
Yeah, I don't know about expected. Nothing's ever how you expect it
is
it really? really nothing. I don't think I knew where I was going.
It's the same as the early days of Queen, I had no idea what would
happen to us really. We all had this great bravado and confidence on
the surface, but underneath we're thinking how far can we go with
this? Is there any future? Are we really as good as we think we are?
So I think when I started out as a solo performer I went through all
that again and I'm still going through it really.

Stevie:
So what's "Madison Square Garden" for you now? I mean you always said
Madison Square Garden was that first peak for Queen. What are you
looking forward to now?

Brian:
I don't know. I don't really want to repeat the Queen experience,
because we did that. I'm looking for my own place in the world I
suppose.

Paul:
Is that happening?

Brian:
Yes. Most of the gigs that I've been doing on this tour have been
theatres and occasionally clubs. This is a large club tonight, isn't
it? I haven't seen it yet but everyone says it's wild. And I think,
you know in the beginning, there's a part of you that's, well, I had
to make a choice really you know, because there's always offers for
John and Roger and myself to go out and do anything. You know, it's
like 'name your thing' you can do football stadiums around the
world... and for a moment you're tempted but I really made my choice
that I didn't want to do that and so I thought, OK, I'm really going
back to those early days in Queen where you go into a place and
you're
not quite sure what you're going to get, you know. But almost without
exception, 99% of the gigs that I've been doing have turned out
really
great because there's a certain intimacy. And, I mean we have a big
load of gear. We have a big production, big lights, big sound,
everything, everything's done to the max, the way I believe it
should,
as always. So in places like these 2000 seaters you can do in the old
days, like in the old days you could totally envelope people, take
them over and blind them and deafen them but in a strange way that
gets lost in the arena gigs, you know the stadiums and everything and
I enjoyed all that stuff. I had a great time doing that, but there
was
always that slight feeling that you couldn't do the sort of
devastation job on the audience that you could in a smaller one.

Stevie:
Yes, I think that's what the Rolling Stones found with the club gigs
on the Bridges to Babylon tour and now they're going out on the No
Security tour next year and shrinking it down again.

Brian:
It's an odd thing, I mean if I tell you the truth, all kinds of
things
go through your mind. There's that old kind of pioneering spirit
thing, or sort of waging war kind of spirit. You know you think, well
if we do a 2000 seater and it's great we'll come back and do a 4000
seater next time. So you feel like you're building it. So I'm trying
not to slip into that mentality, I'm trying to enjoy what I'm doing
and I'm realising that some of what we're doing is actually the
optimum. There was one very big gig in England that we did in one of
these sort of aircraft hanger type places and I thought 'oh great',
I've sold lots of tickets, this is going to be great but it was by
far
the least enjoyable gig of that whole tour. I just didn't feel enough
contact I couldn't see people's eyes, I couldn't get the sound I
wanted. But having said that, we played a big gig in Moscow, about
8000 or something and it was great. There was that feeling of 'this
is
what we should be doing'

Stevie:
I guess too, somewhere like that where it's a new territory, they're
so, like we are now, so totally wrapped in the experience of seeing
you again, or seeing you for the first time that it makes a big
difference.

Brian:
It's a weird thing. I also don't really want to trade on the Queen
thing absolutely. I don't want to go out as that Queen guitarist and
I've tried to keep that off the posters. I'm very proud of Queen, in
every way, but it's nice to feel that you're moving on and I don't
want people to expect to see Queen, I mean it's different, it's very
different as you will see.

Paul:
Does that cause an issue where the promotional people and the people
who are responsible for getting people in and making it and that sort
of stuff. Do they want to push that angle?

Brian:
Occasionally, yeah. I mean in fact in Russia we gave in because they
said none of us have ever seen Queen, so what are you going to do
here. You know this is the closest anyone's ever going to see so let
us do it. So we in fact did. We let them do it there. We had a Queen
tribute band as well as the support band which was pretty strange. I
didn't actually see them which was probably a good thing.

Stevie:
Look on each of your solo albums I've noticed you've written a
message
to the fans. And it kind of feels like an on-going conversation with
us. How do you feel about all that?

Brian:
The fans? The reason that I do this is that contact thing I think.
(Burst of laughter from Sam and Stevie as Paul reaches out and prods
Brian in the arm)

Brian:
What happened?

Sam:
When you said contact he reached out and touched you...

Brian:
Ohhh ( looks at Paul oddly).

Brian:
But actually it's been great here in Perth, everybody that has come
up
to me has been really nice. That's what it's all about. It's great to
talk to people and see the look in their eyes.Autographs are OK when
there are a few, but sometimes it feels like that people aren't
interested in you at all and simply want you to sign your name.
Sometimes people come up with a stack of record this high
(indicates).
You know they are collectors and they want you to sign absolutely
everything and can't understand why this sometimes cannot happen.
It's
like I cannot look up and talk to anybody, just sign my name.

Paul:
Do you have any problems with fans?

Brian:
No, generally not, but sometimes when 300 people want to meet you
it's
a bit scary.

Paul:
Do you use the internet much?

Brian:
Well, I have it in my studio and I got into it for a couple of
months,
but then I got kind of bored with it when the novelty wore off. It's
like I get all these messages and I think, oh God, I'm not going to
answer all of them. I only correspond with 6 or 7 people.

Paul:
Have fans ever managed to find out your email ...

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Any man who pursues Queen is a ***... And you know that's true,
too..


IBen Getiner
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