{"id":350474,"date":"2026-09-18T19:47:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T19:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/350474\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T19:47:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T19:47:00","slug":"queens-roger-taylor-on-trump-what-is-happening-to-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/350474\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen’s Roger Taylor on Trump: ‘What Is Happening to America?’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAll Queen<\/a>\u2018s Roger Taylor is saying on his latest solo album is to give peace a chance \u2014 and maybe kindness, too.<\/p>\n

\n\tViolence Insane In a Beautiful World, out on Friday (Sept. 18), is the multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter\u2019s seventh album of his own; it comes five years after his last, Outsider, and 45 years since his first, Fun in Space. The 10-track set, recorded at Taylor\u2019s home studio in the U.K. and co-produced with Joshua J. Macrae, takes its theme from the\u00a0opening track, \u201cA Beautiful World,\u201d which extols the virtues of\u00a0the planet while acknowledging the challenges of current times, ending with the warning \u201cdon\u2019t f\u2013k it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s about how this is a beautiful world that we live in, and with all this terrible violence and everything let\u2019s not screw it up,\u201d the 77-year-old Taylor tells Billboard via Zoom from his studio. \u201cIt\u2019s a very simple point, really, but a fairly important one. We\u2019re in a bad state in most of the world at the moment \u2014 more wars, more needless deaths and insane violence. There are times when I despair for what we\u2019re leaving our children, our grandchildren, but I hope it gets better.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe song \u201cSpit In His Eye,\u201d meanwhile, posits an attitude of defiance \u2014 \u201cYou can never surrender,\u201d Taylor notes \u2014 while \u201cChump\u201d is a direct shot at a certain U.S. president with a surname that rhymes with the title.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c\u2018Chump\u2019 is fairly self-evident, what it\u2019s about,\u201d Taylor acknowledges. \u201cI mean, I hate to interfere with other countries\u2019 politics, but\u2026wow! Without being too rude, what is happening to America? It\u2019s such a wonderful country, but it\u2019s changing to the worse at the moment. [Trump] seems to be demolishing all the good things about it. The land of the free? Hmm, doesn\u2019t seem like it from the outside. And it\u2019s such a shame because we love America. It has so much to offer. Let\u2019s hope it\u2019s reversible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAdding weight to \u201cA Beautiful World\u201d and a reprise version (\u201cA Great Big Beautiful World\u201d) at the end of the album is the Ndlovu Youth Choir from Limpopo, South Africa. Taylor saw a video of the troupe\u2019s Zulu arrangement of Queen\u2019s \u201cBohemian Rhapsody\u201d and reached out to make it part of the two \u201cBeautiful World\u201d tracks as well as the dance club-flavored \u201cCome on Summer (It\u2019s Party Time).\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was very smitten with them,\u201d he recalls, \u201cwith these amazing costumes and fantastic choral arrangements and they were very happy to join me. It was really a two-way process; I would tell the choirmaster what I wanted and he almost telepathically provided it. They were very easy to work with, which made my life a lot easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe rest of Violence Insane \u2014 whose cover features a shot of the Earth and moon from the recent Artemis II space mission \u2014 cuts a wide swath of styles, from love songs such as \u201cI See You Now\u201d and a rendition of John Lennon\u2019s \u201cJealous Guy\u201d (which Taylor first performed on the BBC\u2019s Later\u2026with Jools Holland) to the vibey tone poem \u201cViolence Insane\u201d and the admittedly \u201csilly\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t Photographic Food.\u201d \u201cIf I just did one style of music all the time I think I would be deathly bored,\u201d explains Taylor, who played all of the instruments on the album. \u201cI always believed in eclecticism; we grew up listening to those incredible Beatles (albums) and the Beach Boys, where you don\u2019t know what\u2019s coming next. For me that\u2019s what keeps the interest alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTaylor and his band, which includes several musicians from the Queen + Adam Lambert lineup, will support the album with a quick six-concert swing through the U.K., starting Sept. 21 in Newcastle.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn Queen I never really wanted to be the frontman \u2014 obviously with Freddie [Mercury], I was never going to be better than him, right? I don\u2019t really have a hankering to be out front at all,\u201d Taylor says. \u201cBut I guess if you\u2019re writing the songs and singing them and delivering them, you\u2019re kind of the frontman, so there it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTaylor isn\u2019t sure yet about whether he\u2019ll do more shows of his own \u2014 \u201cI feel very content to keep it in the U.K. right now,\u201d he says \u2014 while Queen + Adam Lambert has been quiet since its early 2024 dates in Japan. Although guitarist Brian May is \u201cin pretty good shape\u201d following some recent health scares, Taylor is \u201cnot sure he\u2019d be up for doing the whole grueling tour. I\u2019ve always loved touring. I think [May] loved it up to a point, and then not, up to a point.\u201d Nevertheless the two, who reside nearby and \u201csee quite a lot of one another,\u201d are looking at other ways to present Queen in the future.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019ve been thinking about using some kind of technology to present some kind of show, fairly revolutionary,\u201d Taylor says, citing the lauded ABBA Voyage virtual concert as well as Sphere in Las Vegas, which he and May have both visited \u201cand were pretty blown away by that. It gave us a whole new outlook about what possibly could be achieved, not necessarily involving live playing. We\u2019re just banging ideas around at the moment \u2026 We talk about it a lot, and we\u2019re gonna get there, I hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the meantime, Queen will be releasing a new concert film, Queen Budapest, in theaters on Oct. 7<\/a>, documenting the group\u2019s landmark July 27, 1986 concert in Hungary \u2014 its final filmed performance with the late Mercury. DVD and Blu-ray formats, as well as a live album, are set to follow on Oct. 30.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was pretty crazy,\u201d Taylor says of the stadium date, for which Queen worked up an acoustic version of the Hungarian folk song \u201cTavaszi Szel Vizet Araszt.\u201d \u201cThere were about 80,000 inside and about 45,000 outside, listening. We didn\u2019t know how much they knew \u2026 then we realized and they told us they had gotten our music on illegal cassettes and the black market, so they knew, and it was very memorable. They took our 35mm film to Peter Jackson\u2019s people [Park Road Post Production in New Zealand] who made it look so fresh, bright and clear. I can\u2019t wait to see it in IMAX.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs for other future projects, Taylor says he\u2019s \u201cabsolutely not\u201d thinking about another solo album \u2014 yet. \u201cI\u2019m 77; maybe there won\u2019t be a next one \u2014 but I hope there will be,\u201d he says. \u201cI just love to work. I think if you\u2019re in a creative industry, work is precious, and I think it keeps you going. The idea of retiring and doing nothing is anathema to me. It\u2019s nice to think you might be slightly relevant, in a tiny way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe tracklist for Violence Insane In a Beautiful World includes:<\/p>\n

\n\t1. A Beautiful World \u2013 Feat. The Ndlovu Youth Choir
2. Violence Insane
3. What Really Matters
4. Don\u2019t Photograph Food
5. I See You Now
6. Chump
7. Spit In His Eye
8. Jealous Guy
9. Come On Summer (It\u2019s Party Time) \u2013 Feat. The Ndlovu Youth Choir
10. A Great Big Beautiful World (reprise) \u2013 Feat. The Ndlovu Youth Choir<\/p>\n

\n\tRoger Taylor\u2019s U.K. tour dates:<\/p>\n

\n\tSept. 21\u2014Newcastle, O2 City Hall
Sept. 22 \u2013 Edinburgh, Usher Hall
Sept. 24 \u2013 Birmingham, The Alexandra
Sept. 25 \u2014 Manchester Opera House
Sept. 28\u2014London, Roundhouse
Sept. 29 \u2014 Swansea Building Society Arena<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All Queen\u2018s Roger Taylor is saying on his latest solo album is to give peace a chance \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[13379,9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-350474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-genre-rock","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}