Freddie Mercury: The Biography (18 page)

Having embarked on this track, Mercury never went back, but there are those who wonder, even at this early stage, about how
content he was with his decision. Says Chris O’Donnell, ‘Freddie demanded so much of people and often too much, so that at
times they fell short of his expectations. He loved the adulation he received on stage, but in his personal life behind
the scenes I felt he wasn’t really enjoying himself, not deep down.’ If this is true, it wasn’t something Mercury cared to
admit, and indeed with disregard for his own health – and that of his countless one-night stands – he would continue to behave
recklessly for a long time.

Within a matter of months it became clear to Queen that managing themselves was not working out, and they turned to their
new accountant, Peter Chant, for advice on setting up a proper management structure. It was decided that Chant would be responsible
for the band’s business, accounting and tax. Jim Beach was persuaded to resign his partnership in the west London law firm
of Harbottle and Lewis in order to become Queen’s manager, heading up the newly formed Queen Productions Ltd. At the same
time, they created Queen Music Ltd and Queen Films Ltd.

No self-respecting band could hope to chart now without a pop promo. But the publicity videos were also proving more complex
and expensive to make. While they were financing their own videos, Queen’s idea behind setting up the two film and music companies
was to retain the all-important control of the video rights and license them to EMI for promotional use.

By now Queen were such high earners that British income tax regulations would cripple them if they were to spend more than
sixty-five days out of the year in the UK. On their accountant’s advice, the solution was to record and perform overseas.
The income could then legitimately be channelled through a different company from Queen Productions and would be tax-free.
So after the release of the single ‘Spread
Your Wings’ on 10 February, they embarked on a spring tour of Europe. While in Berlin to play the Deutschlandhalle, Roger
Taylor crossed Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin. While there, he saw a piece of graffiti that made such an impact on him
that it was to inspire his cover concept for their forthcoming album later that year.

The tour wound to a close with a few British dates. Mercury’s style was visibly changing. Always flamboyant, he had appeared
before his public in silver lurex bodysuits, black leotards, often with a diamanté-studded crotch, and other equally subtle
outfits. Now he favoured shiny black PVC. Prowling the stage, and extremely light on his feet, he once confessed, ‘I rather
fancy myself as a black panther.’ He also liked dressing from head to toe in leather. Both styles strengthened his manly stage
image, but many fans wondered if they liked the new biker image. In the late seventies, this was also a popular style among
gay men on the nightclub circuit – especially in America where Mercury had lately spent some time. Perhaps he viewed his new
look as a way in which he could fuse his two worlds.

With Queen’s heavy touring commitments, specific periods had to be timetabled in to allow them to get down to song-writing.
Mercury spent most of the summer with the other band members at the Super Bear Studios in Nice for this purpose. His contribution
to
News of the World
had been his least major to date, but this time he produced almost half of the thirteen tracks – the most controversial of
which was ‘Bicycle Race’. The annual Tour de France passed through the French Riviera when Queen were there, and the inspiration
for the number had come from Mercury’s appreciation of scores of hard-bodied young cyclists. He watched them race, crouched
low over their handlebars and poured into Lycra. The song was to back Brian May’s ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’. Together these tracks
would provoke a small storm of outrage.

With more extravagant budgets for their video promos, the temptation was to be even more risqué. Promoting ‘Bicycle Race’
and ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ gave them the ideal opportunity to indulge themselves. Deciding to stage a girls’ bicycle race, Queen
hired Wimbledon Stadium, sixty-five models and Steve Wood as director. There was one important detail: the girls were all
naked. It was all seen as a cheeky prank by those involved – except for Halfords, the company that supplied the bikes. They
were prepared to accept back the cycles afterwards, but refused to do the same with the saddles. Queen had to pay for sixty-five
new leather seats.

When the record was released on 13 October 1978, the sight of a naked rear on its sleeve caused an outcry. Accusations of
sexism were thrown at the band, and
NME
ran an unflattering photo of Mercury, with the caption FAT BOTTOMED QUEEN. According to Brian May, they received no complaints
from fans, but certain chain stores refused to carry what they considered to be a semi-pornographic poster. Later copies of
the single were sold wrapped, the cover model now modestly clad in a superimposed pair of briefs.

Impatient at the pious uproar, Queen quit Britain soon after for another US/Canadian tour. By now they were almost as famous
for the salacious entertainment laid on at their after-gig parties as for their music. At one of Mercury’s private gatherings,
an army of dwarfs ran around with bowls shoulder-high containing thousands of pounds worth of the finest cocaine for his guests.
Certainly the goings-on at Queen’s Halloween bash in New Orleans made the newspapers coast to coast in America – and beyond
– and went down in Queen folklore as one of their most infamous. Parties often lasted days, but this time they had a gig in
Miami on 3 November, and so made do with a twelve-hour orgy of excess. This featured such exotica as a nude model served up
hidden in a huge salver of raw liver, semi-naked girls dancing in bamboo cages suspended from the
ceiling, as well as female mud wrestlers and topless waitresses, all for the delectation of the most bizarre cocktail of people
imaginable.

Publicist Tony Brainsby had clashed with Mercury in 1975 for his presence on a Wings tour, instead of going on the road with
Queen. After a three-year absence, he was back to handle the band’s PR, and he remembers this particular party well: ‘It was
a pretty wild night. I took a party of press over. We flew from London to New Orleans, partied for twelve hours solid and
staggered back to the airport, still not having been to bed. They’d hired a huge hotel ballroom, which had been made to look
like a swamp. There were trees, masses of hanging creepy vines, dry-ice smoke pumping everywhere and snakes, not to mention
strippers. All in all, a first-class party!

‘I don’t recall seeing Freddie take coke that night. Mind you, he was discreet that way, and, anyway, in those days, rightly
or wrongly, doing cocaine wasn’t really seen as taking drugs. It was more a trendy thing to do.’

What Brainsby did see Mercury do was to sign his autograph for a stripper in an unusual place: ‘I’ve got a photograph of Freddie
signing his name on a stripper’s botty as she slightly bends over a table.’

Continuing to indulge his fad for PVC, in shiny black trousers, a short-sleeved checked shirt and braces, Mercury may not
have wanted to be seen taking drugs that night, when he circulated as the life and soul of the party. But, afterwards, it
could have been a different story, as Brainsby recalls. ‘Freddie would regularly go straight off to a club to hang out, and
God knows what he got up to then,’ he says.

This party had doubled as pre-launch publicity
for Jazz,
their forthcoming album, which was released in Britain on 10 November. Meanwhile, the tour went on. Regardless of the outrage
at home, Queen had included a free graphic poster of the nude bike race with the album. Like the British shops,
though, American stores considered it pornographic and banned its inclusion in Stateside copies. Probably stung by this, during
the band’s two-night stint at Madison Square Garden, several naked ladies on bikes were arranged to join them on the New York
stage. During ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ they circled Mercury, defiantly ringing their bells. The continuing controversy did them
no harm.
Jazz
went to number two in the charts, and Queen received the Gold Ticket award in recognition of their performance before more
than 100,000 fans at the Garden.

Flying home for Christmas, Mercury barely had time to touch base before he rejoined Queen in January for yet another European
tour. The treadmill of recording and touring was beginning to get to him. Nevertheless he was cheered to learn when they reached
Brussels for their gig at the Forest Nationale that, back home, the new single ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ had received two very good
reviews.

Fatigue was setting in. Throughout Holland, Switzerland, Yugoslavia and Spain, with two return trips to Germany, they gigged
nightly to enthusiastic fans, some of whom were fanatical enough to trail the band. When Queen reached Paris for the last
three nights at the Pavilion de Paris, Mercury recognised faces that stared up at him from the front row. On the final night,
he barked, ‘Fuck sake! Are you lot here again?’ But he was delighted by their devotion and proudly dubbed them ‘the Royal
Family’.

On occasions, as their personal manager, Pete Brown envied the fans. At least Mercury showed them his appreciation of their
loyalty. Brown was experiencing problems with the band again. ‘Wherever Queen went,’ he explains, ‘it was my job to make sure
that the style and size of their accommodation was exactly equal. Their idea was that that way no one would have anything
better than the other, but trying to put theory into practice was often near impossible.

‘I tried my best, but that European tour, it didn’t matter what I did, it wasn’t right, and I’m sure it was a record that
I managed to upset all four at the same time.

‘My problem was that I could never develop a thick skin against it. It hurt me a lot sometimes, but I don’t regret it. We
had some good times.’ Just as when Pete Brown forgave Mercury for assaulting him in a fit of temper, so once more he blames
the hectic schedule: ‘It was definitely the pressures. I guess you would have had to experience it to understand.’

The pressures could only have worsened during their subsequent third visit to Japan, this time for a much longer tour. It
was a professionally fruitful visit, with numerous awards for top single, top album and top group. As summer approached, free
time was scarce as recording commitments meant a confinement in Mountain Studios, Montreux. The complex was now up for sale.
For tax reasons it suited Queen to own it, and Jim Beach approached the shareholders on their behalf with an offer to buy
them out.

It was at Mountain that they were invited to write the music for a new feature film,
Flash Gordon.
Directed by Mike Hodges and starring the former American footballer Sam J. Jones, Max von Sydow and Topol, everything about
the film version of Alex Raymond’s 1930s comic-strip adventure was intended to be lavish. Certainly Danilo Donati had come
up with impressively grand sets, and the film’s producers felt that a pounding rock score by Queen would be a perfect complement.
All four band members would contribute tracks; in Mercury’s case, five of them, including ‘Ming’s Theme’, ‘Vultan’s Theme’
and ‘Football Fight’, which would partner Brian May’s ‘Flash’ as a single at the end of the following year to coincide with
the film’s release.

Summer saw a rash of Queen releases, starting in June with
Live Killers
and the single ‘Love of My Life’, both recorded at various recent gigs. Then, because EMI received the 1979
Queen’s Award to Industry, the record company decided to launch a 200-copy limited edition of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, pressed
on blue vinyl. By now the band was busy writing new material, this time at a different location – Musicland Studios, Munich.
It was here they would begin work on the film score, and here, too, where they would first meet record producer Reinholdt
Mack.

Queen had never lacked a strong sense of their own importance; indeed Brian May has said that ‘Part of you believes that the
group is the most wonderful thing that the world’s ever seen.’ Almost proudly, May admitted that life could be difficult for
outsiders around the band, declaring, ‘We don’t compromise with anyone else. If someone else comes along, he gets kicked out
of the door very quickly or else can’t stand the heat. It was pretty hard for anyone to sit with us as a producer or whatever,
and the ones who managed it, managed it by having very strong personalities.’ But, having already worked with many top groups,
Reinholdt, known simply as Mack, had no need to be intimidated by Queen. He was to become the first outside producer since
Roy Thomas Baker to work regularly with the band.

The only break in recording for four months was Queen’s brief return to Shepperton Studios to rehearse for an open-air gig
scheduled for August. At the Ludwigsparkstadion in Saarbrücken, Queen headlined with Voyager, the Commodores and Rory Gallagher,
as support. Then it was back to Musicland Studios.

Munich was to play a big part in Mercury’s future. While he was there he became close friends with Mack and his family. Because
the star would go on to make the city his home for some years, he eventually bought himself an apartment there, but in the
meantime he preferred the luxury of a suite at the Munich Hilton. It was here, while soaking in the bath, that he wrote an
unusual song for Queen, but one that would give them their first American number one.

Mercury could compose a song in minutes, conjuring up melodies off the top of his head at a piano. Few can deny that Mercury
was a one-off, unique in every way, including his style of songwriting. But, when he wanted, he could also be an incurable
mimic, and ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, the jaunty number he knocked together in record time, was a distinct pastiche
of Elvis Presley. Perhaps this partly accounted for its strong appeal to the US public.

‘It’s not typical of my work,’ Mercury said, ‘but that’s because nothing is typical of my work.’ Recorded at Musicland, Mack,
who had expected the whole band to turn up for the session, was surprised when, on the first day, Mercury arrived early and
alone, anxious to get started. Apologising to Mack for the fact that he wasn’t too adept on the guitar he was slipping over
his head, Mercury clearly wanted to establish a particular sound before the rest of the band had the chance to turn it into
a typical Queen number.