Freddie Mercury (24 page)

Freddie had decided that he didn’t want to use photographs on the front of
Hot Space
because he thought it would be difficult to compete with and follow-up the cover for
The Game
which had been so
monotone. A few ideas were kicked around and then the idea of the four cartoons was put forward. What Freddie wanted was striking features, something for the fans to recognise in each of the four likenesses. He came up with the idea of the hair being the most distinctive feature and this was duly incorporated by the design team. At that time, short hair and moustache was Freddie’s trademark.

At the subsequent meeting when the draft cartoons were shown to the other three band members, I don’t remember them being particularly impressed although the idea soon grew on them.

You wouldn’t believe the amount of time that has been spent on each album, just on the letter Q. The style had to be acceptable to everybody; also, the size. There could be huge arguments over a fraction of an inch. Notice, how the Q changes on each subsequent album cover. Never in my life have I ever known one letter to have caused so much fuss. But that’s perfectionism for you. Frequently, up to ten different sizes of letter were produced on transparent overlays and yet only one of those was going to be acceptable to all four and even then only after each had changed their minds over their first choices.

For those of you who might be planning an album, do remember to set aside a month or two for decisions on artwork. Each Queen band member had to be given a duplicate of all written copy including lyrics and acknowledgments in case someone had been left out or a stray comma had been omitted. Try coordinating that operation while each person is six thousand miles apart. An album is the end product of many people’s input and work, from the tape-op to the printer of the cover.

Another thing that has to be taken into account which only comes with practice is visualising what the end product should look like. Colours on the mock-up sent out for approval are very often a few shades darker than that which will end up in the shops on the finished product. Here again, in order to achieve the required perfectionism, a wealth of experience comes into play. What the band sees is not necessarily what the album buyer gets. It is therefore a huge part of the art director’s responsibility to advise the band accurately what will happen to a colour during the commercial printing process. Strong colours are notoriously fickle when it comes to reproduction.

The cover for
The Works
was once again done in Los Angeles. Freddie jumped at the opportunity to be photographed by George
Hurrell. Hurrell had become famous for his use of shadow in his photography. The man was a legend in Hollywood having created masterpieces with Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford and of course Garbo. George Hurrell must have been seventy-five when he photographed Queen and he was still working every day.

It wasn’t the first time that the band had been photographed by a maestro. Lord Snowdon had turned his lens on them for the
Greatest Hits
cover but because of Freddie’s knowledge and love of the stars of the Thirties, Forties and Fifties, to be photographed by this master I think helped fulfil a dream. Freddie was being photographed by someone who had walked and talked with his heroes and heroines, the film stars of Hollywood’s heyday whom he had seen on the silver screen as he grew up. Freddie and his good friend Tony King started up what was to become an international game known to more than a few of his friends. The ‘B’ Moviestar game started in a bar in New York where we each had to name an actress who while being a known name had never made the ‘A’ list. The likes of Viviane Ventura, Laya Raki, Britt Ekland, Tania Elg, Viveka Lindfors – sorry, girls – but you were at the top of Freddie’s list. Even Joan Collins who has since become a household name due to her wonderful work on television.

The design team for
The Works
cover was changed and reduced in number to just one, Bill Smith. He came to the Pink House. Freddie must have got on with him. If he hadn’t, Mr Smith wouldn’t have had his name on the album cover. In any event, it was Bill Smith’s idea to use George Hurrell because on this occasion, Freddie’s starting point had been the idea of a photograph.

Freddie learned a lot about the fine art of the photographer’s brush, used to paint away any imperfections on the plate. Hurrell still used what appeared to be amazingly old cameras because he found that the results they gave him were still the best and they were achieved in his own studio in Hollywood. Many shots were taken to try out different effects with the band in different tableau arrangements. Perhaps only one or two shots were taken of each tableau which was re-set like they were shooting an old-fashioned movie or an up-to-date video. It was all to do with lighting and was, obviously, a completely different experience for each of the band from the usual click-click-click of less exalted photo sessions.

The session took place one morning. Hurrell wore cord trousers, shirt and waistcoat and Freddie behaved quite reverentially towards
his hero. For a change, Freddie was prepared to be led by Hurrell every step of the way. Everyone has their idols whom they look up to and admire from afar. Being able to meet one and work with one brought about a very different Freddie whom I observed that day although he did contribute several ideas. He was not for once in total control and yet was pleased to be so. It was very much like being a child again and sitting for a family portrait in the studio of the local professional photographer. Freddie was on his best behaviour.

The Works
was the last but one album to be toured and it was the responsibility of tour manager Gerry Stickells to commission the design for the touring set. I think the only brief a designer would have been given for any Queen tour would have been ‘…something spectacular and memorable’ which is what all Queen shows were.

An initial design was submitted for the band’s approval and if that was forthcoming, a model was made and also submitted. Changes always arose between model and final product and these, if problematic, were always ironed out with the help of Gerry’s silver-tongued diplomacy. These submissions were supposed to be made in committee but if one or the other of the band wasn’t available for joint consultation, a majority decision of approval was made with the verbal consent of the missing party. The first time the band would see the end product would be in the space where they were rehearsing. On this occasion, for
The Works
, the space was the film studios in Bavaria.

A Kind Of Magic
returned to the concept of an illustration on the cover which took the form of a caricature of the band. The art director was Richard Gray who was to remain with the band in this capacity until the end. Richard Gray worked freelance and commissioned Roger Chiasson. The characters Chiasson came up with were utilised in both the video for ‘A Kind Of Magic’ and also on the tour, when huge inflatable balloon versions of the caricatures were tethered on either side of the stage.

For the cover of his own album
Barcelona
, he used the fashion and portrait photographer Terry O’Neill whom he had met several years earlier when the band were managed by John Reid. The shoot was at Terry’s studio and lasted all morning. Freddie and Montserrat arrived, had a quick discussion with Terry to discover what it was he was attempting and then the hard part for the pair began. “What should I wear?” I’d brought an assortment of clothes from Garden Lodge, everything from a full evening dress suit to various less formal clothes.
Several bow ties had been thrown in. Montserrat and her niece Montsy had brought half-a-dozen different outfits and there was at least one change of clothes as can be seen in the accompanying CD booklet. During the ‘hard work’ that Freddie and Montserrat went through deciding what to wear, Terry’s two assistants were put into various poses for at least an hour so that when the stars came out after hair and make-up had been put on by Terry’s crew, they simply adopted the positions already decided.

The Miracle
heralded a sea change in the band’s idea of itself. All the tracks were credited as being written by the band as a whole which I think might have led on to the idea of creating the one face on the front of the album. Morphing as such was a very new concept and this computer generation once again ensured Queen were in the forefront of graphic design in the music industry.

In the last couple of years of Freddie’s life, Jim Hutton bought him a water colour paints set and Freddie did use them a couple of times. However, he was so ill that he didn’t want to start anything that he wouldn’t be able to finish. The cover design for
Innuendo
was therefore Roger’s discovery which he found along with others of Grandville’s work in a magazine. The ideas contained in the collection were extended and used in the videos and again on the live album recorded on the
Magic
tour. The surreal content of Grandville’s work appealed to Freddie’s sense of the bizarre. Grandville must have been rather
avant garde
for his time, surrealism being, in the early nineteenth century, completely unidentified as an artistic genre.

Freddie’s own taste in art was eclectic. His tastes varied and in the time I knew him, they ranged from Japanese woodcut prints through Erte and Dali to his last passion which was Victorian artists’ work, ending with the pre-Raphaelite painters. This was the context in which he met Rupert Bevan, the frame restorer whose expertise was often called upon to refurbish the frames of pictures Freddie bought at auction. Rupert’s expert touch was also used in renovating gilded and jesso-ed French furniture which had to have care lavished on it to restore it to its former glory. Very, very public school, Rupert and Freddie got on very well and Freddie enjoyed his friendship enormously. Freddie had great respect for people who had been through the British public school system, who spoke authoritatively. He saw that system as a perfect grounding for whatever expertise the person later developed.

Freddie’s artistic endeavours weren’t solely to do with his recording and touring work but embraced his whole life. He spent his life collecting, whether it was people or pieces of art. Each had a place in his grand design. The culmination of a great deal of dedication was Garden Lodge. It was not only a home. It was a canvas upon which he painted his life and surrounded himself with his image of beauty. He put in a huge amount of work to the design aspect of the house to bring it back to its former glory.

Once the house had been completed to his satisfaction, he then had to fill it with splendid objects and furnishings to complement the decorative scheme. His attention to detail was exhaustive and demanding on those who had to execute, for example, the mahogany and maple woodwork on the gallery overlooking the drawing room which was exquisite. This spirit of perfection was maintained throughout the house which was a masterwork. In a way, his masterpiece.

Although Freddie bought Garden Lodge in 1980, it was a longtime in its transformation. When he first saw the house, it was in a sorry state, having been split in two in order to be occupied by separate households. It was his aim to restore it to one grand house, making his personal alterations along the way. I shall try and give as good an account as I can remember of how Garden Lodge looked in its heyday although I’m sure that it must be very different now.

Garden Lodge started life as a two storey, eight-bedroomed property. There was a large room upstairs which the original owner’s wife – a sculptress – used as her studio. This, and two other rooms, Freddie transformed into his suite of bedroom, mahogany panelled and mirrored dressing room and twin bathrooms en suite. Into the dressing room and one of the bathrooms, Freddie incorporated his version of the ceiling in the Rainbow Room at Biba in the old Derry and Toms building, where I had first seen him. The rainbow effect was created by three hidden switches which when turned on operated concealed strip-lighting covered with various coloured film gels. The intensity of colour was varied by twiddling the knobs.

This lavishly appointed suite was accessed from the raised landing via the dressing room through a normal-sized door. From the outside, no one would have had a clue what was to come. It could have just been a door to a cupboard. Once inside, with the door closed behind, the dressing room displayed a series of mahogany panels, each of
which was a door to either the bathrooms, closets or mere shelves. In the centre of the room there was an octagonal ottoman upholstered in a cream moire satin. It was impossible to know which of the panelled doors led to the bedroom except that opposite the entrance were the two largest panels and when slid back, the entrance to the bedroom was revealed. This room, with its balcony directly above the sitting room, overlooked the rose garden at the front of the house and the wisteria-covered pergola.

Freddie had two bathrooms adjoining the dressing room, the smaller of which he used most. It was finished in the same wooden panelling as the dressing room and was the only room in the house which had no outside window. He used some Japanese tiles that he had found on one of his numerous visits to Japan which were randomly placed in the tiling around the bath. The walls were covered in a sage-green steamproof wallpaper.

The second bathroom, opposite, was the larger which was finished in cream marble. This room contained the Jacuzzi which was recessed in a pillared alcove to which access was gained by a raised step. This bathroom also housed one of Freddie’s ill-fated showers as well as two oval hand basins set into a specially made vanity surface. Brass taps and fittings set the seal on the style. Gold taps didn’t figure too highly on Freddie’s scale of taste. Had it ever worked, the shower would have been a splendid affair. It was built into the corner of the rectangular room. The walls were of cream marble although the base was, strangely, a fibreglass tray. There was a large central brass shower rose and there were three brass pipes running vertically on the walls through which water jets also sprayed. Talk about sensurround! The sensation was truly Brut-al: “Splash it on all over!”