Bowie famously teamed up with Queen for 1981’s ‘Under Pressure’, but now Queen guitarist May has teased further collaborations between the two iconic acts.
Bowie famously teamed up with Queen for 1981’s ‘Under Pressure’, but now Queen guitarist May has teased further collaborations between the two iconic acts.
A new conversation with Taylor and Brian May in a special one-shot edition of Record Collector dedicated to Queen reveals that further recordings exist from those sessions, including covers of songs by Cream.
“If we look to the archives, yeah, there’s probably stuff,” says Taylor. “We would do the odd thing like covering old Cream songs. I remember we did NSU and I Feel Free, just for a laugh really, and then we decided, ‘Let’s write one for ourselves.’”
According to Radio X, May says that Bowie and Queen frontman Freddie Mercury “locked horns” during the ‘Under Pressure’ sessions and that further material was recorded.
“It wasn’t easy because we were all precocious boys and David was very… forceful, yes,” May recalls. “Freddie and David locked horns, without a doubt. But those are the things that happen in a studio, that’s when the sparks fly and that’s why it turned out so great.”
“[They locked horns] in subtle ways,” May adds, “like who would arrive last at the studio. So it was sort of wonderful and terrible. But in my mind, I remember the wonderful now, more than the terrible.”
"Freddie and David locked horns, without a doubt. But those are the things that happen in a studio, that's when the sparks fly and that's why it turned out so great.
"[They locked horns] in subtle ways, like who would arrive last at the studio. So it was sort of wonderful and terrible. But in my mind, I remember the wonderful now, more than the terrible.
"And not all of what we did in those sessions has ever come to light, so there's a thought..."
After Freddie died in 1991, Queen were advised to hire George Michael as a replacement frontman, but despite the late 'Careless Whisper' hitmaker's powerful duet with them on 'Somebody To Love' at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness in 1992, Brian insists it would "never have worked" with the singer.
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Billy Bragg will unveil a plaque for David Bowie at the site of the Trident Studios in Soho, where the star recorded his multi-million selling albums Hunky Dory and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust.
Bowie’s backing band The Spiders From Mars will also be commemorated at Hull’s Paragon Station – from where they took the train to meet the Thin White Duke in the 1970s.
