Re: a request for Kes; the peter jones interview
Post by Kes » Sun Nov 30, 2008 6:27 pm
Hi there. Don't really want to go over old ground, but the Q&A session was submitted for post under certain conditions, those conditions weren't followed by everybody on the board, so in the most part the thread got removed by myself. Peter Jones is a close friend now, and I really don't want to run the risk of him, or any his family coming on this site and finding it's bad news bear week over an issue regarding him. I vowed not to repeat my mistake by ever re-posting it, and intend to keep my word on the matter. Sorry if this pisses anyone off, but I don't like going out on a limb (doing something THAT time intensive), and then having somebody laughing away as they cut the bloody branch off that I'm sat on. :oops:
. . . . . . in truth, Freddie, the frontman, the most prolific member, the writer of most amount of songs, the writer of most of the hits, and the person at least 50% responsible of why Queen sounds like Queen...and the person 100% responsible for name Queen, and the logo Queen...and the overall public conception of what Queen is/was....
Not exactly.
Smile had the guitar sound, the drumming style, the embryonic song writing style (early Queen) the harmony structures and Roger and Brian's combined vocal sound.
Not taking away any of Freddie's talent but he was not 50% of what made Queen .
He was the singer they needed, he was the front man they needed he was a great song writer, but most of what you hear on the early albums, sound wise can be traced back to Smile.
i found the questions page 21459 archived, but in only has some bits :
"Did you get on well with the other members of Queen?
Yeah, very well. I probably got on better with Roger really. We would go back to the hotel and Freddie would normally have a number with him. At one point, before Peter Freestone turned up, I would have to share… well, in Munich, we’d all have the Presidential Suite, which would be a bedroom one end, a bedroom the other end, with inter-communicating doors, and a sitting room and dining room and all the rest of it… he’d have his room and I would have mine, but then I’d be on call 24 hours, I couldn’t get away from it. It suited me to let Freestone get his foot further under the table, cos it took the pressure off of me, you know, he’d be calling on him, instead of me. So when we went back to the hotel, there was always millions of bloody tarts about, you couldn’t fight them off with a stick! And we’d either go back to my room or we’d go back to Roger’s room, and many a night we’d go back to Roger’s room and oblige the ladies and then see them off! And then Roger would be going on about when he first met Freddie; how Freddie was always sort of hanging around… he painted quite a sort of vivid picture about him not really being wanted around that much at the time. But Freddie would push himself... until the perseverance paid off. And the market stall thing, according to Roger, Freddie used to go and hang around there and that type of thing. So Roger and I really did have some deep conversations, which you do when you’re bombed out of your head… you sit and talk for hours about the silliest and sometimes most personal of things. I think that’s probably why he got on better with Freddie, than Deacy or Brian did. He was able to open up. He was a lovely guy, a really lovely guy. I’m sure if we met again now it wouldn’t be any different to what it was... we’d pick up from where we left off… but really I think that’s all water under the bridge now.
"Which three words would sum up Roger best for you?
(Peter looks skywards!)
Another wine dear!?! That would be it, I think. He’d know what I mean. "
"Was there any music that any of the other band members wrote that Freddie really disliked?
Yeah, There was one of Brian May’s soft ballads! (laugh) I can’t remember the title. But he said “How does he expect me to sing this old shit?!” He sang it anyway though, and to the best of his ability. "
"I must admit, it was only when he met me that he started smoking… that didn’t do his throat any good.. neither did s****** c*** probably either!"
So we might narrow it down to Dreamers Ball, Leaving Home Ain't Easy, Sail Away Sweet Sister, Las Palabras de Amor, Is This the World We Created...? and maybe Who Wants to Live Forever, although it's just outside that 1978-85 time frame. I know Brian sang 2 of those but it's possible there are versions with Fred on vocals. My money's on Las Palabras. And I'll bet Fred hated singing that dirge TMLWKY.
That was my guess too. Although I can imagine Freddie loved the universality of singing that kind of song, perhaps he reacted against it because it wasn't a homo-robot dance track?
So we might narrow it down to Dreamers Ball, Leaving Home Ain't Easy, Sail Away Sweet Sister, Las Palabras de Amor, Is This the World We Created...?
Also 'Save Me' and stuff that may not have made it to the albums at that time, including 'Let Me in Your Heart Again'.
Excellent observation. If it's true Brian wrote that song about Fred, who knows how Fred might've reacted. Maybe he wasn't in the mood to take onboard Brian's concerns about Fred lifestyle at that point.
So we might narrow it down to Dreamers Ball, Leaving Home Ain't Easy, Sail Away Sweet Sister, Las Palabras de Amor, Is This the World We Created...?
Also 'Save Me' and stuff that may not have made it to the albums at that time, including 'Let Me in Your Heart Again'.
Excellent observation. If it's true Brian wrote that song about Fred, who knows how Fred might've reacted. Maybe he wasn't in the mood to take onboard Brian's concerns about Fred lifestyle at that point.
Hmm, worth pondering indeed.
But Brian has said he and Mercury more or less co-wrote the song. I doubt Mercury would've given it the time of day if he didn't want to.
my guess is all dead all dead, hence the brian may version got released.
That would make sense verbally - "all that old shit" being "came without a FARTHING a babe without a name... SO MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING is what she tried to say.
SO MUCH ADO my lover
...FLEETED SUMMER,...etc"
