Credit: Sun Records
Sat 5 September 2026 22:30, UK
How do you ever replace a singer like Freddie Mercury? It’s a pretty impossible task for anyone, but Paul Rodgers made it work.
Brian May knew that he wanted to keep making and performing music with Queen. The band lived and breathed music, and while losing Mercury was a massive blow, they didn’t want that music to stop being blasted around arenas as a result of it. The biggest issue was working out who could replace such a dominating presence.
But then, when Brian May saw Paul Rogers perform, he knew that he was the right person for the job, possibly because he wasn’t trying to be a carbon copy of Mercury but was a great frontman in his own right and was ready to step into the massive shoes that the former had left behind.
“He’s a real frontman. He always was,” said May, “You can see him at the Isle of Wight concert [from 1970] with his three mics taped together, and he was a giant, even in those days. It just works like a dream, and I know he’s enjoying it, having that kind of power and cohesiveness behind him. We’ve blended. It’s pretty thrilling, I must say.”
The other reason why Rodgers worked so well within the band dynamic was because he was a fan of them. He didn’t underestimate just how gigantic the responsibility he was taking on was. The band had power, and a sound that he was adamant was “crystal clear”, as he called it. Whether it was the vocals, the guitar, the bass, the drums, they all came together to make something well and truly special.
“I always admired Queen from afar,” said Rodgers, “They had such a good sound. Every word from Freddie and every note from the band was crystal clear”.
There were a number of great songs by the band that he loved, a lot of which he enjoyed speaking about. For instance, he thought that the heartbreaking ballad ‘The Show Must Go On’ was one of the most passionate that the band ever put out, both with Mercury’s voice and the unwavering guitar tone of Brian May. He also spoke about the song ‘All Right Now’ and said that the massive chord sound was next level. However, none of these tracks he thought represented Queen at their best, which was an honour he reserved for ‘I Want to Break Free’.
Further reading: From The Vault
This was a track that Rodgers felt so in awe of that every single night when the band played it live, he would take time out of his set to watch them perform. It didn’t matter where they were playing or how the gig was going, as this was a song which represented Queen at their peak, so much so that he was excited to never miss a show.
“When I heard ‘I Want to Break Free’, the guitar solo was mouth-watering, so good,” gushed Rodgers, “When we played that song together live, I would always turn around from the end of our 30-foot thrust in the centre of huge arenas and watch and listen. Every time it just blew me away.”
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