Freddie Mercury: In His Own Words documentary
As a rock star, it’s hardly surprising that Freddie Mercury led a colourful life on and off stage. But even his Queen band members remember the late singer trying to shock them personally. This week’s episode of Queen The Greatest live features new interviews with Sir Brian May and Roger Taylor looking back at the star’s flamboyant and often outrageous behaviour, especially when it came to his show costumes.
Sir Brian May: “The clothes are part of it, and no one was more aware of that than Freddie. Freddie really pioneered a lot of stuff and we came out of an era which was called glam, where people in rock groups realised that they could dress up and look fancy and make a big splash. But it was all very kind of random.
“And what we tried to do was, I guess, call on the traditions of opera and other art forms and make the costumes speak for us, make them part of the storytelling. So Freddie, with his little wings on his suits and all his crowns and paraphernalia, also the black and white stuff, which we got into, and it’s all designed to be dramatic. It’s designed to accentuate our movements and accentuate the moods of the songs.”
“We were lucky enough to work with some great designers. Zandra Rhodes was the first one we really worked with, and we had these very, very dramatic kind of pleated efforts and that was really helpful to us because it made us more aware of our physicality on stage, made us speak with our bodies as well as our hands and voices.” Queen’s collaboration with Zandra Rhodes resulted in some legendary outfits, but Roger would get really fed up with them.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/deFR-4cBcgA
The drummer said: “At the beginning, many years ago, there was this big thing, you know, that we wanted Zandra Rhodes to do everything. Well, she made me a costume. I wore it once. It was so bloody hot I never wore it again. It was completely impractical.
“And I don’t really like the word costume because with ‘costume’ I think of kids, or I think of pantomime or, you know, and this isn’t costumes, this is meant to be rock and roll. So I don’t really have a costume. And also, being drums, it’s pretty sweaty. You need something where you can move that is not hampering you in any way. And I leave it to… I leave it to the sort of those people out the front, whoever they are, to ponce around in their frilly dresses.”
Indeed it would be the late singer who would go out of his way to get the biggest reactions from the rest of Queen. Roger continued: “Freddie, he didn’t always tell us. I mean, when he first turned up in the ballet thing, I think he slightly looked like Kermit, and the ballet pumps as well. I mean, we were absolutely tickled. It could have gone the other way. You know, we could have gone ‘Don’t be so ridiculous’, but because it was Fred, It was ‘Yeah, come on. That’s brilliant.’ You know, why not?”
“And if you’ve got the balls to get… and let’s face it, we’ll be able to see them, you can get away with that. Yeah, let’s go. I mean, it was a great talking point. I remember several musicians’ faces, sort of jaws dropping in astonishment that this guy could come on, and they could play some serious rock n roll, you know?”
Sir Brian said: “I think Freddie preferred to shock us. I do remember him appearing in the red sequinned shorts. Swimming trunk type efforts and we went ‘Freddie really?’, and he went ‘Darling? This is what I do.’ Yeah, he was pretty outrageous. And he did like to shock us all – those cat suits and everything.”
“But it’s all great. You know, he took so many chances, did Freddie. And I think because physically he was in such good shape as well, he could carry it off. And a lot of people would look ridiculous in those kind of leotards and stuff. But he looked like Nijinsky or whatever because he was physically at that point.”
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