Freddie Mercury: The Biography (12 page)

Life on the road was tougher than they’d been used to. The distances covered by travelling between cities were much greater
than in Britain, and, once there, things didn’t necessarily go smoothly. At the Farm Arena in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for
example, an argument erupted between Queen and the American band Aerosmith. They had both
been booked to play support that night, and bickered about who was entitled to go on stage first. With professional pride
at stake, neither side wanted to budge. But, essentially, such vanity was of little consequence.

Then something occurred unexpectedly to blight their entire trip. Three weeks into the tour they played New York City, with
six consecutive nights at the Uris Theatre. Halfway through, Brian May began to feel unwell, and after the final gig on 12
May he collapsed. Attributing this to fatigue, he was advised to rest before their next performance in Boston. But the first
morning he awoke in the city’s Parker House Hotel, it became clear his condition was more serious.

May turned out to have hepatitis, which came as a bombshell to Mercury. Besides his natural concern for May, he had been worried
that they might need to pull out of a couple of their imminent gigs. On discovering it was a potentially dangerous, certainly
contagious, illness, he realised that their first assault on the American public was over.

Dispatched back to Britain, May was hospitalised, while all those with whom he had been in contact were immunised against
the virus. Mercury refused to see developments as having ruined their chances in America, maintaining, ‘We did what we had
to do. Sure, a whole tour would have helped us more, but there’s no such thing as, “We lost our chance.”’ Encouraged by the
write-ups they went on to receive, he was convinced that their time there would come again. Reassuring May that he had not
let them down, the other three band members started to write some new material.

To put these ideas into practice, work began at Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire, early in June, by which time Brian May
had decided he was fit to join them. He spent most days, however, being sick and was visibly weak. When recording began on
their third album at four different studios the following month, his fragility culminated in collapse. Rushed to
King’s College Hospital, he underwent emergency surgery for a duodenal ulcer. Because of his need to convalesce, Queen’s planned
return to the States had to be abandoned.

Mercury was aware of how inveterate a worrier May was, and guessed correctly that while they were busy in the studio with
producer Roy Thomas Baker, he was convincing himself in hospital that the band would consider replacing him. So again he visited
him there to put his mind at rest.

Superficially jokey and quick to clown, privately Mercury saw himself as mothering the band. For years he had proved to be
a trusted confidant to friends, and he could as effectively heal a row within Queen as much as cause one. When it came to
health, he was acutely conscious of May’s needs. In response to press queries about the band’s reaction to their abortive
US tour, Freddie said, ‘Brian has got to look after himself in the future. We all want to make sure something like that never
happens again. So he’ll have to eat the right things and steer clear of hamburgers. I tend to worry about him a lot because
he’ll never ask for anything if he’s not feeling well.’

While they put the finishing touches to their new album at Sarm Studios,
Queen II
earned the band a silver disc. It had sold in excess of 100,000 copies during the first six months. This heralded an upsurge
in media interest: interest that they greeted with caution, considering the journalistic treatment meted out to them so far.
Brian admits: ‘I still had the naive belief that if you opened your heart to the press, they’d be fair to you.’

It had also been over six months since their only hit single, and a decision had to be made about which of the intended thirteen
new album tracks should be extracted first. As on the previous albums, Roger Taylor had contributed a track; John Deacon made
his songwriting debut with ‘Misfire’; and ‘Stone Cold Crazy’ was the first number to be credited collectively to all four
members. Brian May made his regulation four contributions, while the rest were Mercury’s, and it was one of his
songs that became their autumn single release. A fortnight later, on 26 October 1974, ‘Killer Queen’ raced up the charts to
number two, only blocked by the David Essex hit ‘Gonna Make You a Star’.

David Essex later considered Queen the best British band to have come out of the seventies: ‘Freddie’s voice was absolutely
unique. Image quickly took over from music, but with Queen their musical ability obviously had the staying power, where others
vanished.’

‘Killer Queen’, in particular, is Essex’s favourite Queen record: ‘With their stacked-up voices and guitar work, it was extremely
well produced and very clever.’

This is a view endorsed by Oscar-winning lyricist Sir Tim Rice, who a decade later would become personal friends with Freddie
Mercury: ‘I hadn’t particularly liked “Seven Seas of Rhye” at first, although I got to like it better when I knew the band,
but it was “Killer Queen” which really turned me on to Queen. The composition of its lyrics was quite sophisticated, particularly
for its time. I have absolutely no doubt about Freddie’s immense talent as a songwriter.’

Mercury was proud of what he dubbed the ‘bowler hat, black suspender belt number’. ‘People are used to hard rock, energy music
from Queen,’ he declared. ‘Yet with this single you almost expect Noël Coward to sing it.’ With a number two hit to their
credit, the public assumed that Queen had reached the big time. But although ‘Killer Queen’ was a turning point in their career,
they were still impoverished, as the state of some of their living accommodation proved. But the illusion of success had to
be maintained, and for this Mercury’s gift for exaggeration came in useful. Without a scrap of modesty, he would say proudly,
‘The reason we’re so successful, darling? My overall charisma of course!’ Years later the tables turned when, genuinely wealthy,
Mercury annoyed the rest of the band with boasts that they were all ‘simply dripping with money’.

As Zandra Rhodes reflected, a large part of Queen’s initial success lay in their look. But it was a visually challenging time,
with each act adopting a gimmick – be it Leo Sayer dressing up as the French pantomime character Pierrot, or Mud in their
zoot suits and brothel creepers. At a college dance one night Mercury was struggling with an ancient microphone stand when
its heavy base suddenly fell off. Left with only the top half of the chrome shaft, he realised it wasn’t only much lighter
to manoeuvre, but easier to move suggestively over his body and face. By the time he sang ‘Killer Queen’ on
Top of the Pops,
twisting the shiny rod skywards, his fingertips groping their way sensually up its length, this had become as much his hallmark
as his long black feathercut hair and scoop-neck leotards.

Mercury’s stage act was a polished extension of his image on the college-band circuit, when his performance was heavy with
homosexual overtones. A lead singer usually has his strongest on-stage affinity with the band’s lead guitarist, and Mercury
was fond of sliding his shoulder up against Brian May’s right side, apparently deriving an ambiguous pleasure in the process.
At the height of the glam era, he wasn’t the only one perpetuating a bisexual image, but whereas Sweet, for example, were
taken to be joking, Mercury’s intentions were less clear.

He wanted to reinforce this image when Queen embarked on a European tour at the end of October. From Manchester to Barcelona,
the trip had been arranged to replace their abortive return to America. Undeterred by their experience in Australia, the performance
included an impressive light show, with an experimental fireworks display. Fans loved it, but music-press critics were quick
to dismiss it as pure theatrics.

Pure showbiz probably most accurately describes Mercury’s approach to performance, and he would have stormed the Edwardian
music halls. He saw no reason to apologise for his enthusiasm for expression. At times, especially during the punishing US
tours, that enthusiasm would be tested, but
performing came as naturally to Freddie Mercury as breathing. His desire to draw the very last ounce of response from his
audience drove him to establish a unique emotional bond with the fans, sometimes to a dangerous extent.

Nine days into the tour, fans at Glasgow’s Apollo Theatre were chanting and waving, just below the footlights. In a second’s
mistiming, Mercury got too close, and in a flash, a sea of hands had pulled him off stage and into the hysterical mob. Security
guards plunged after him and retrieved him, breathless and frightened, but unharmed. Learning that Mercury was in their midst,
however, fans at the back had surged forward in a stampede that turned ugly. With Mercury rescued, frustrations erupted, and
fights broke out, resulting in a few bruises, and damage to several rows of seats.

That same day, 8 November, saw the release of Queen’s third album,
Sheer Heart Attack.
Four days later it went on sale in the States. Then the following week they returned to London’s Rainbow Theatre. Originally
just one gig had been planned, but the huge demand for tickets had ensured a second consecutive date, and it was also decided
to film, as well as record, them. If nothing else, this could provide a live album later.

Queen left for Gothenburg soon afterwards to commence the European leg of their tour, playing sell-out gigs and reaping the
rewards with rising album sales. Although it was difficult to deny their increasing popularity – voted by
Sun
readers as Britain’s Best Live Act of 1974 – their old adversaries continued to confront them. It got to be a no-win situation.
Given their track record, all four band members were wary of talking to journalists they felt were ready to trap them. The
press in turn took this lack of compliance as further proof of Queen’s conceit. And Mercury, in particular, with his provocative
posturing and pronouncements, remained their biggest target. He was close to refusing interviews, which was a problem for
Tony Brainsby.

‘Over the years a myth has grown around Freddie, that from the start he rarely gave interviews,’ says Brainsby. ‘That’s not
true. In the very early days, of course he did them. Any aspiring pop star has to, otherwise they don’t get their name known.
Freddie, for example, did tons of stuff for
Jackie
and the teeny-bop magazines. He’d wave and throw around a few “my dears” and really give out his great fruity laugh. One
of the things I remember most about Freddie is his rich resonant laugh.

‘There were no set preconditions, but every time Freddie was asked about his background he’d toss back an answer, without
really answering. For a long time no one in the press had a clue even what his real name was. Freddie avoided at all costs
mentioning Zanzibar, I think because he thought it might make him look a bit too Asian. It wasn’t meant in a prejudicial way.
He just didn’t think it fitted the image. He desperately didn’t want to be thought of, or seen as, an unlikely rock star.’

As 1974 drew to a close, on the band’s return to Britain, they became involved in another round of frustrating talks with
Trident. There had been salary disagreements for some time, and with a third album out and their popularity growing, Queen’s
horizons were higher than ever.

Mercury and Mary Austin were still living together in Kensington in reasonable comfort. Home for Brian May was a dingy room
in the basement of a rambling old house, while John Deacon had become engaged to his longtime sweetheart, Veronica Tetzlaff.
They hoped to start married life in something more salubrious than Deacon’s current home.

The band was also concerned about mounting debts for lighting and sound services. This was not peculiar to Queen, and indeed
it became no better for many later bands. Queen had no intention of standing still, however, and when the Sheffields proved
impervious to their pressure, they hired music-business lawyer Jim Beach to examine their contracts for a way out of their
association.

Glad to escape this tense predicament, Mercury anticipated the new year ahead. He had recently declared the need for a break
but added, ‘You’ve got to push yourself. We’re at a stage in our careers, my dear, where it’s just got to be done. I shall
be resting on my laurels soon.’

On 17 January 1975 their fourth single, ‘Now I’m Here’, written by May while recovering from his operation, was released.
In early February, at last, Queen’s first headlining tour of America and Canada began, followed closely by their first tour
of Japan. They were set to kick off on 5 February with a gig at the Agora Theater in Columbus, and Tony Brainsby fully understood
why they felt nervous.

‘Queen’s effect on America had been slow,’ he admits. ‘But this happened with most bands. It goes back to the sixties, when
US bands couldn’t get arrested in their own country. Only British bands counted, and, I think, come the seventies, that it
was simply a backlash of this; that Americans, in simplistic terms, got their own back by being downright cool to any English
band.’

Steeped in hard-rock machismo, US audience reaction to Mercury’s foppishness, too, was hard to gauge. Certainly one bemused
TV presenter declared Mercury, ‘One of life’s originals!’ adding, as a camera trailed him sashaying through a deserted shopping
mall, casually flicking a bull whip, ‘So far Freddie Mercury shows no signs of succumbing to conservatism!’

‘Killer Queen’ had reached number five in the US charts, and this success was mirrored by demand for tickets at each scheduled
gig, with extra dates being squeezed in to accommodate the band. Yet many rock critics compared them unfavourably to Led Zeppelin.
But, according to Brian May, this wasn’t the whole picture. He claims that what he calls ‘the Anglophile element and the new
A&R generation’ had already made them heroes, adding that on the whole it was the only place they got good reviews.