John Deacon statement in INNUENDO video

Bohardy wrote:

The DJ's got the wrong end of the stick, surely.

It's well documented that the directors wanted to represent the four members of the band using a different artistic style for each. And for all four, you can clearly tell that existing footage was used as a basis for the animations. So to say that John 'isn't in the video', is absurd, as he's in the video to the same extent that the rest are. It's just that his animation is more extreme, and further removed from the original footage than is the case for the others.

To complete the list of styles:

Freddie - Da Vinci
Brian - Victorian etchings
Roger - Jackson Pollock
John - Picasso

Well, i don´t think it´s absurd at all! You can look at it in any way you want, but the truth is John is the only one not featured in the video.

The fact that footage was used for the animation process - wich i can agree with - doesn´t mean he is in the video to the same extent that the rest or the members are.
If you take a picture of Queen´s characters and put it side by side, John´s pic is the only one you don´t recognize as being human.
In fact, John´s character is the only constant in the video. Freddie changes from Wembley to various videos, and Brian the same. With John´s character you not only have a cartoon to portray him, you don´t even see him in diferent environments like the other three - apart from the IWIA video intro (where he is with the other three). Brian´s character appears in various environments where you can clearly spot the video where it came from.

I´m not challenging the concept, but now that i look at it, it doesn´t make sense that it ended up this way, because the artistic decision meant that ONLY one Queen member would not be recognizable - and i don´t think the creators would take chances in creating a concept that could piss one of the Queen members off. In this case, John!

Why didn´t they choose Freddie? - Because Freddie is the face of Queen.
Why didn´t they choose Brian? - Because they wouldn´t dare to pitch Brian something like this, where he would be unrecognizable. So, i don´t think they would present it to Roger or John either. ALL Rock band members have egos and John isn´t any different.

The concept may have been there since the beginning - John being portrait in Picasso style - but even in Picasso´s palete you could come up with something where John would be recognizable. There are lots of portraits that picasso painted that still had human characteristics in it. You could distort his face or body in picasso style and still recognize John.

In this case, you have a mask with no one behind it. Very "inhuman" in a way. But i´m not complaining, i still think that this is one of the most brilliant, artistically videos EVER made.

I want to thank everybody for the input.

Nonesense John is clearly in there in the style of Picasso, and if you are aware of even a few of Picasso's paintings then you can see his influence in the animation. Either way John os most definately in the video throughout. No had they chosen Jackson Pollock then you would have struggled to see him as human...

Togg wrote:

Nonesense John is clearly in there in the style of Picasso, and if you are aware of even a few of Picasso's paintings then you can see his influence in the animation. Either way John os most definately in the video throughout. No had they chosen Jackson Pollock then you would have struggled to see him as human...

Ok then, so take the bass from the picture and tell me one feature that identifies the character as being John. I know John wasn´t blonde for example.

I´m not challenging the Picasso style.

In every animation video you see from rock bands, the members are easily identifiable from the features of the character (the Beatles for example you have hair, moustache, clothes, etc), in here i don´t see one single feature that says it´s John - unless you´re going to point it out for me. And in that case i thank you!

What i´m saying is that if you could take John´s cartoon and placed it behind drums and tell it was Roger in Picasso style, then the cartoon doesn´t represent John - it represents whoever they say it represents as long they say it´s Picasso style (and in fact, the character is more look alike like Roger than John).
You put the bass on his hands and it´s John, you put him on drums and it´s Roger. If this same cartoon was used to represent Brian they WOULD have to put hair on it -otherwise people wouldn´t buy the concept, and if it represented Freddie they would have to make it believable too.

In this video it´s "just" a cartoon" playing bass, and that´s why people buy the concept. It represents John, but it isn´t John.

I understand what you are saying, They chose the style of piccaso
because John didn't give them permission to use his likeness.

Mr.QueenFan wrote:

Hello, fellow Queen fans,

There´s something that i wanted to ask this forum for quite a while. So, i have heard on the Portuguese radio (two times already!), when the DJ announces Innuendo,

I there! I'm portuguese. Which radio station are you talking about?

If we could have some kind of evidence that the DJ used as his thinking for this, that would be helpful.

Seeing as John appeared in person in all the other later videos from the 'Innuendo' album, I'd actually be more willing to believe it's the opposite of what you say, and that John WANTED the 'Innuendo' video to feature them 'in the flesh', but the others refused a 'live action' shoot in favour of the artistic version we got. To be honest I don't believe this either, but to me it's more likely that your/the DJs version of events.

emrabt wrote:

I understand what you are saying, They chose the style of piccaso
because John didn't give them permission to use his likeness.

Bingo! That´s exactely what i´m saying.
Man, you should have replied earlier so i didn´t have to write big posts :-)

That´s what i´m saying! It doesn´t mean that the theory is correct, but if one looks at it more closely (after the DJ pointed out) then it becomes obvious that something isn´t right about it.

Of course i know about the "official" story about the video. The point of my thread wasn´t to challenge that story, because that story is true, i just got the idea that it´s incomplete. As you pointed out so beautifully, i think that they chose this style, because there wasn´t any other option. They could have used Picasso style over John´s footage and make John recognizable, but the Portuguese DJ said John refused to have his footage used for the video.

I was just hoping that others may have heard this story before. One thing i´m sure is that this DJ in particular didn´t invented it. He probably read it in one of his sources of information (rumour or not!). I mean, i´m pretty sure the majority of Queen fans never noticed the absence of John´s in the video until someone pointed out.

Thanks for the reply.

On which radio station was it? I'm portuguese btw.

cmsdrums wrote:

If we could have some kind of evidence that the DJ used as his thinking for this, that would be helpful. .

In fact, i wasn´t looking for the evidence of it. I just wanted to know the first half of the story, because that´s the thing i missed both times. I´m not expecting evidence of something that contradicts the "official" story.
In case it exists, that´s great!

But for now, the only goal here is to know what was John´s motivation to ask for not being included in the video (in case it happened this way).

cmsdrums wrote:

Seeing as John appeared in person in all the other later videos from the 'Innuendo' album, I'd actually be more willing to believe it's the opposite of what you say, and that John WANTED the 'Innuendo' video to feature them 'in the flesh', but the others refused a 'live action' shoot in favour of the artistic version we got. To be honest I don't believe this either, but to me it's more likely that your/the DJs version of events.

WTF man, if you don´t believe it why write it in the first place?
So, according to you the guy that wanted to be in the video is the one not featured in the video!?
At leat reply with something that makes sense!!

I don´t know why people get so defensive over this. The fact that John entered all other videos has nothing to do with this one in particular. This was a one-off decision. John was showing is dissatisfaction with something (maybe the Golf war (?) for example). If i knew why i wouldn´t have opened this thread in the first place.

This was just to let Queen fans know that there is this rumour going around about this issue in particular. It´s something new to discuss. So, for me personally, the fact that there is an official story doesn´t mean it´s case closed. Not until i hear the first part of it - why did John asked for this? (in case it happened).
Then i will reach my own conclusions, but i´m not naíve to expect official confirmation of this.

What i can say after looking at the video with more attention, is something doesn´t seem right with John´s character compared with the other three.

In fact, i don´t believe any creative team in the world would pitch this character to a band member, when you could put him side by side with the other three and make it appear as a clown (as artistic as that is!). And that´s why i still entertain the idea that they did what they were told to do, not what they thought would work, taking the risk of offending the member of one of the biggest bands in the world - Ever!

Viper wrote:

On which radio station was it? I'm portuguese btw.

I will answer tomorrow, because i´ll have to ask my brother. I heard it in his car, and i personally don´t listen to radio.

It was on a saturday afternoon - this year - in one of the big stations where they run the top´s of different years in the past.
For example, top 10 in the spring of 1991 in UK, Europe, USA.

In this case in particular it only got my attention when the story was already in the middle. But i will ask my brother for the radio sation´s name.

P.S- To Viper.

Last year i heard the exact same story, maybe it was the same show on the same radio. But it was before the Innuendo song came in.

Hi, first I would suggest you to re-read the post of cmsdrums, it was a serious post, but you don`t have to take it THAT seriously ;)


There are tons of options why they decided to do such an video...

At that point they may belived it would be Queens last Video because Fred was told by the Doctors that time was running out for him....

With the "Headlong" material they had a video in the back ( unreleased at that point) that shows the band in full flight...

A simple lost in translation accident....

Actually Freddie didn`t want to be filmed...but he changed his mind with "I`am going slightly mad"

The statement could have been made for tactical reasons...to put Freddie out of the tabloid focus...

and on and on...

Mr.QueenFan wrote:

Viper wrote:

On which radio station was it? I'm portuguese btw.

I will answer tomorrow, because i´ll have to ask my brother. I heard it in his car, and i personally don´t listen to radio.

It was on a saturday afternoon - this year - in one of the big stations where they run the top´s of different years in the past.
For example, top 10 in the spring of 1991 in UK, Europe, USA.

In this case in particular it only got my attention when the story was already in the middle. But i will ask my brother for the radio sation´s name.

Ok thx. M80 radio station uses to do those top lists.

.....i wouldn't regard anything a Portuguese DJ says.

You would think that a guy who posted 1000 times would not say a rubbish as "John is not in the Innuendo video". Nonsense. I think the Portuguese DJ was only trying to play the guy well-connected or simply showing-off.