Freddie Mercury: The Biography (10 page)

‘We said on air that this was a really good track from a really good album, but we’d no idea where it came from and that same
night, I think during the transmission, someone from EMI furiously got in touch and told us it was their white label of the
debut album of a band called Queen.’

Whistle Test
presenter Bob Harris vividly recalls first listening to
Queen.
‘I absolutely loved it,’ he says. ‘I especially thought “Keep Yourself Alive” was wonderful. Personally I was very enthusiastic
about them.’ The band’s association with
OGWT
and Harris, in particular, became a strong one, spanning several important years and providing them with valuable exposure.

‘
Whistle Test
concentrated on sound first and foremost rather than vision,’ explains Michael Appleton, ‘which was peculiar to us in broadcasting
in those days, and I think Queen appreciated that and in turn reciprocated by being very professional to work with.’

Throughout Queen’s career, although it would later start to level out, Mercury dominated the band’s songwriting. Half of each
of the first four albums were his compositions, and of the seventeen tracks on Queen’s
Greatest Hits
album, ten were by Mercury. This first album would feature five of his songs, which had been around for at least a year.
Two were follow-up singles, both of which would do substantially better than ‘Keep Yourself Alive’.

The enthusiasm of the
OGWT
team was a boost to the band’s morale, but the general public didn’t share it, and initial sales were disappointing. Trident,
though, kept their nerve and booked them into Shepperton Studios, Middlesex, to make their first promotional film, for what
they hoped would be worldwide distribution. They also enlisted the PR services of Tony Brainsby, one of Britain’s top publicists.
Brainsby, with Paul McCartney, Steve Harley and Chris de Burgh at one time among his clients, had worked with numerous EMI
artistes. He first met Queen in mid-1973, when Mercury in particular made his mark.

‘My first impressions of Freddie were that he was strong-willed, gregarious, very ambitious, charming and striking,’ says
Brainsby. ‘He was also such a raving poofter, I couldn’t believe my eyes! He wore red velvet skintight trousers, had black
varnish on his fingernails and long hair, and of course all those teeth. God, was he touchy about his teeth! He never allowed
himself to be photographed smiling and would automatically cover his mouth whenever he burst out laughing.’

According to Brainsby, in addition to Mercury’s naked ambition, there was an unusual quality to the entire band: ‘Of all the
groups I’ve handled, I’d say only two made an instant impression on me. One was Thin Lizzy, and Queen was the other. They
knew what they wanted and knew they’d be big – it was just a question of finding the way. In my experience that’s not normal,
but it’s a huge advantage for a PR consultant when a group has that depth of belief in themselves. It’s also that edge that
was going to make them stars.’

Catching one of Queen’s live gigs at a London polytechnic only confirmed his professional instincts about the band and marked
the start of a profitable working relationship between them. Although Mercury invariably stood out from the others, he looked
for no special preference. ‘Freddie never lorded it as the star of Queen,’ states Brainsby. ‘It was always a group, and
from the start we were all made very conscious of the importance of treating them equally. Of course, with Brian’s guitar
sound and Roger’s high falsetto voice, each one had a Queen sound to add.’

But there was one aspect that he feels did relate specifically to Mercury: ‘When I first knew Freddie he was inwardly a very
aggressive and angry man. He knew he should be a star, and he wasn’t, yet. To Freddie stardom was his by rights, and he could
get extremely frustrated at the time it seemed to be taking other people to recognise this. He didn’t like too many people
to see it, but he had an incredible need for acceptance, and in my view he was very much the fight in the band.’

Brainsby’s task to get them as much exposure as possible was greatly aided at the outset by the story behind Brian May’s homemade
guitar: ‘It was a heaven-sent introduction into all the music magazines, because it became a huge talking-point, which started
to get them noticed,’ he recalls.

They were already being noticed in other ways that mattered. When they set to work on their second album, downtime was a thing
of the past. Then, on 4 September,
Queen
received its US release on Elektra Records. The album attracted enough radio play to enter Billboard’s Top 100 Chart; an
achievement for a new British band. But once again the single ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ failed to ignite interest.

It became clear to Jack Nelson that Queen needed to be seen on tour. They were not yet headlining material but securing a
good support slot was vital. Nelson knew Bob Hirschman, manager of Mott the Hoople, and through him he secured for Queen the
job of backing them on their forthcoming UK tour. Initially this wasn’t straightforward, as matching support bands to headliners
isn’t easy. An established band often won’t risk being upstaged by too good a support act, and it’s equally undesirable to
be backed by a dull performance that leaves the audience restless. Hirschman hadn’t heard Queen play and it was proving a
difficult sell. A £3000 contribution to sound and lights helped to ease his qualms and give Queen the job.

Queen hadn’t played live for several weeks, so Nelson organised half a dozen gigs for practice. Starting off at Golders Green
Hippodrome on 13 September, the band had dates abroad in Germany and Luxembourg, before returning home for three London venue
performances. The last two of these were in early November with a return to Imperial College. A former fellow student recalled
that Queen were the loudest band on the planet that night, and journalist Rosemary Horide gave them a glowing review.

The twenty-three-date Mott the Hoople tour, which stretched from Edinburgh to Bournemouth, began on 12 November at Leeds Town
Hall. It was Queen’s first real taste of life on the road, playing every night in a different city, and proved an invigorating
experience. For Mercury the adrenaline was still pumping when the first gig was over. Instead of getting some sleep before
heading to Blackburn the next day, he sought out a bit of nightlife, as one now famous nightclub owner, Peter Stringfellow,
recalls:

‘I first met Freddie when he came into my Cinderella Rockerfella club in Leeds, and I thought he was a really nice bloke,
obviously not a mega star yet and so he had no entourage surrounding him. He sat at my table, and we had a laugh and a few
drinks. I had a Polaroid camera and asked if I could take his photo. As I say, Freddie wasn’t a star, but what a performance
it turned out to be! I thought to myself, “This guy is certainly different!”

‘I went through two packs of film before Freddie decided that one shot was all right to keep. He promptly insisted on destroying
the others. His vanity was out of all proportion, but the way he scrutinised each photo and discarded it until one came out
just right I suppose, with hindsight, was a lesson in professionalism. Apart from that we had a good night.

‘I had absolutely no idea that Freddie was gay then. There was nothing in his behaviour to remotely suggest it. But I’d say
that was the first and last time I had a truly enjoyable evening with him. Later on he was always completely mobbed.’

At this point the only crowds Mercury saw were those that turned up for Mott the Hoople. But with each gig his confidence
was building. There were no passengers in Queen, though it is true to say that with Roger Taylor hemmed in behind his drums,
and John Deacon and Brian May being naturally retiring, the onus was heavily on Freddie Mercury to electrify each performance.
It is something he perfected to a fine art in later life, but even in these early days Queen were beginning to draw their
own reaction, as Tony Brainsby confirms: ‘I also handled Hoople, and both bands had met for the first time in my office when
it transpired they were to go on the road together. That tour was one helluva experience. You came out of gigs just breathless
with it all.’

Someone else who recalls Mercury at this time is his ex-Ibex friend Mike Bersin. Queen were appearing at the Stadium in Liverpool,
and Bersin had gone to see him for old times’ sake: ‘I went backstage to the dressing room,’ he says, ‘and found Freddie pacing
up and down muttering. “What can I say? Give me something to say!” I wasn’t sure what to make of it, then someone handed him
a copy of the
Liverpool Echo,
which he flicked through while he was still pacing. Suddenly he stopped, peered at an article and snapped the newspaper shut,
saying, “OK. Got it.”

‘I went out front to watch, and Freddie walked up to the mike and said, “Good evening, Liverpool,” adding, “Nice one, Kevin!”
– which was a reference to Kevin Keegan, who’d scored a vital goal for Liverpool Football Club. Nobody had been sure of him
at first, with the way he was dressed and that, but suddenly the place erupted, and they were all completely on his side.
That
was typically Freddie. It’s that amount of attention to detail which made him different.’

The tour ended on 14 December with two gigs at London’s Hammersmith Odeon. Elated by the experience and at having established
a strong rapport with Hoople, Queen’s performances were exceptional enough to leave their audiences wanting more. The six-week
tour had proved a success, something unfortunately not echoed in the music press. The media either criticised the band or,
worse still, ignored them. Tony Brainsby is blunt about this and says: ‘They accused Queen of being a hype band, when in reality
they resented that their management put a lot of money behind them, and I was successful in getting them plenty of exposure.
They chose to overlook the fact that Queen had a big following before their first single. When a band is receiving fan mail
that early, then you’ve obviously got something special on your hands. And Freddie was an easy target for any journalist out
to make a name for himself.’

For all Mercury’s antics, which grew wilder the more journalists went for him, Brainsby confirms that for as long as he knew
him, the star never admitted that he was gay. ‘He never said, “I’m gay.” In the early days, in fact, he’d make a point of
telling people that he had a girlfriend called Mary. But their love lasted throughout his entire life, which was quite surprising
in the circumstances. It must’ve been very hard when Freddie later became overtly gay. I mean he was always obviously campy
and had that iffyness about him. But that was different to being gay, and he only ever referred to being bisexual. But he
and Mary had an unusually strong bond, and, I’d say, the way it lasted showed that Freddie had a true depth to him that wasn’t
perhaps obvious to many. Later he flitted from one gay relationship to another, but Mary was always the rock.’

Shutting out the critics, Mercury focused instead on Radio One recording sessions that Queen had booked with Bob Harris; sessions
that still stand out in Harris’s memory: ‘Freddie was so special. He always gave 100 per cent. To give an example: one Monday
morning early – and hard after probably the
busiest time of their lives right then, when they might’ve been forgiven for perhaps coasting a bit – I was watching from
the control room, and there was this pin spotlight on Freddie. And there he was, giving so much to his performance that the
veins were literally standing out on his temples and neck. I thought, how much more can you give?’

As to why Queen elicited such a poor response from the music press, Harris suggests that: ‘It possibly stemmed from their
inability to label Queen and because of their own inadequacy they took it out on the band. When Queen were huge, and they
still attacked them, it was the same old thing. The British press love to build ’em up and knock ’em down. They just don’t
or can’t recognise achievement and leave it at that. You sometimes get the feeling that they feel duty-bound to smash holes
in people. Part of it, of course, stems from a worry that they could be accused of sycophancy if they constantly admire anyone’s
work.’

After the stint with Hoople, Queen played four more gigs to the year’s end; the final performance of 1973 taking place on
28 December at Liverpool’s Top Rank Club in support of 10cc. It was the last show Ken Testi was to book for Queen: ‘By then
I was working in a shop in Widnes,’ he recalls. ‘Brian had phoned to ask if I wanted to become their personal manager. Naturally
I was thrilled, and I asked what the money would be like. I hated having to ask because for myself, I wouldn’t have cared
but I had a mortgage to meet. Queen were now getting £30 a week each, and I was offered
£25,
which I thought was good, but I had to say no.

‘It was everything that my life had been leading up to, and I had to turn round and refuse. But on that money I couldn’t make
the payments on the house, and I also had to look after my mother and sister. One can’t live on what-might-have-beens but
I’ve regretted it to this day.’ Queen’s final link with the man who had done so much for them came at the Top
Rank Club, when they featured on a bill that included a local band, Great Day, in whose line-up was Ken Testi.

For Mercury, although they had released a single and album in Britain and the States, it was still only the beginning. It
was too far from the eternal spotlight he craved more than ever. The Liverpool show ended their most successful year yet,
and on the strength of the UK tour, Mott the Hoople invited them as support on their tour of America. The music press had
enjoyed dubbing Queen, ‘Britain’s Biggest Unknowns’. If Mercury had his way, they would soon be proved wrong.

Queen’s drive to reach the top shifted up a gear in 1974. The band played twice as many gigs as in the previous twelve months
and by autumn had reached the number two slot in Britain with their single ‘Killer Queen’. But the way up proved to be something
of a minefield. The band was booked to headline in January at the open-air Sunbury Music Festival in Melbourne, but Brian
May had unfortunately been taken ill. After inoculations for travel to Australia, his arm had swelled up and become gangrenous
from a dirty needle. Rehearsals for their first headlining foreign tour suffered as a result, but it was not to be the only
disruption.