{"id":389944,"date":"2026-11-01T18:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T18:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/389944\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T18:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T18:10:08","slug":"brian-may-isnt-ruling-out-a-live-return-with-queen-im-on-a-break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/389944\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian May Isn’t Ruling Out a Live Return with Queen: ‘I’m on a Break’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tQueen<\/a>\u2018s Brian May<\/a> has been spending a lot of time in his studio lately, from his work<\/a> on the score to June\u2019s Masters of the Universe (out soon on vinyl) to a collaboration with William Shatner. After decades of touring, he\u2019s enjoying time at home, so he\u2019s not anxious to play shows right now \u2014 but in a recent Zoom chat with Rolling Stone, he again made it clear that he\u2019s not ruling it out. He also talked about Queen\u2019s scores for Flash Gordon and Highlander, the newly restored Queen Budapest concert film, and more.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe composer Daniel Pemberton, who worked with you on Masters of the Universe, told me you\u2019d sit and think for a while and then play fully formed parts.
Yes, that\u2019s the way I tend to be. If I can\u2019t hear it in my head, I can\u2019t play it. \u2019Cause to me, the guitar is a voice, and if you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re gonna say, it\u2019s pointless opening your mouth, really. You can wheedle, wheedle, wheedle endlessly because things happen when you pick up a guitar, but that\u2019s not really playing the guitar with a purpose. And to me, yes, I always wanna hear it in my head, whether it\u2019s the \u201cBohemian Rhapsody\u201d<\/a> solo or it\u2019s a piece of Eternia which we haven\u2019t visited before.<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of my favorite bits on the Masters of the Universe album is the rock version of the Eternia theme that you put together with the Darkness<\/a>. How did that one happen?
I got it into my head that I needed somehow to do the definitive version of what I heard in my head as the Eternia theme. Daniel uses it throughout the movie in different forms. So I wanted to gather them all together and build it up as a rock track, as if it had all come from inside my head instead of his.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo I reconstructed the whole track, pulled everything in that I could find, with the help of Daniel. And then I thought, \u201cWouldn\u2019t it be great if we could get the Darkness on this as well? It would bring it to life.\u201d And I wanted a bit more vocal anyway, to tell a bit more of the story. The Darkness were already involved in the project \u2014\u00a0they\u2019d done the end-title theme.<\/p>\n

So I rang them up. They are really dear friends of mine. Dan came down first, Dan Darkness, as I call him \u2014 Dan Hawkins \u2014 and he came along and played bass, which I actually wasn\u2019t expecting, but he just instantly said, \u201cLook, I have to play bass on this.\u201d And I said, \u201cDo you think we can talk to your brother about doing some vocals?\u201d And Justin immediately said yes. He was brilliant, Justin, \u2019cause they were already on tour and halfway around the world, and what he did was take a copy of the track and a little handheld, well, an iPhone I suppose, and just sang into it in his hotel room and sent it over to me, and it was good enough quality for me to put on the track.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tI already wanted Rufus Taylor to play drums. That\u2019s the way I heard it in my head. I think Rufus is just a wonderful drummer, a great musician. I\u2019ve known him since he was knee-high to a grasshopper and he\u2019s a wonderful boy. He really is a beautiful player. So he did that for me, and we recorded it in his dad\u2019s studio, in Roger\u2019s studio. So then I had pretty much all the Darkness on there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Queen did Flash Gordon in 1980, that was something genuinely new \u2014 a rock band scoring an entire film.
The truth is no one had done it, and they told me it couldn\u2019t be done. So yes, you hear freedom, but you hear disbelief really, \u2019cause they said, \u201cNo, you can\u2019t do a score with guitars and rock groups.\u201d And I said, \u201cLook, I can hear it in my head. I believe that we can do it for this, and I think it\u2019ll work atmospherically.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMy favorite story, although it hurts me still, is \u2014 well, we saw the rushes, and we all, the four of us in Queen, went away and made little sketches, ideas that we thought we could contribute to the film. I had a few bits and pieces, including the main title \u201cFlash\u201d thing, which I thought would be great to bookend the film and to give it its character. And we reconvened after we\u2019d made these demos of these ideas in Trident Studios with the director Mike Hodges and the producer Dino De Laurentiis. A big, big, big, big, big movie mogul producer.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tSo he sat there at the control room looking very big and very imposing, and listened to it all, and went, \u201cYes, yes, yes.\u201d He\u2019s Italian. He doesn\u2019t speak much English, not many words. And finally we got to my title theme, and I played it to him, and he sat there, and he didn\u2019t move a muscle. His face was like stone. And at the end of it he said, \u201cYes, it\u2019s very good, but it is not for my film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat was it. So my heart sank, and Mike Hodges, who\u2019s next to me, whispers in my ear. He said, \u201cDon\u2019t worry, I\u2019ll fix it. It\u2019ll be fine.\u201d And it turned out well, and when we got to the film premiere, Dino came up to me at the gathering after the movie, and he said, \u201cYou did a beautiful thing for my movie. I\u2019m very happy.\u201d So that was nice.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat was that about?
The problem was that Mike Hodges and Dino had different images in their heads as to what the movie should be. Mike Hodges saw it completely as a retro pastiche, if you like. Kind of tongue-in-cheek comic book epic. Whereas Dino saw it as a very serious major film, in the style of King Kong, something rather serious. He didn\u2019t really see the humor of it and the lovely kind of light touch that was in the original, the Buster Crabbe originals which we\u2019d all seen.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo it\u2019s a good story. It ended happily.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou did Highlander a few years later, and people are more familiar with the songs than the score.
Yes, although we did quite a bit of scoring as well, and I personally did a lot of stuff with [composer] Michael Kamen, which I will forever be very proud of. Some of those battle scenes, there\u2019s music behind there which you would never expect, and it was new in those days. I mean, these days people pick up tricks and it\u2019s become commonplace. But in those days, battle scenes were always accompanied by kind of raucous music. Michael Kamen did this beautiful piece for the biggest battle of the movie, which was really low-key and very sad and drawn out, almost like slow motion, and put against the action. It was riveting. It\u2019s the most amazing scene, I think.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo I played on that with him, and he played a few other things. He contributed, although we were sort of the main composers for the movie, what he called the Highlander theme, which not many people know about.And when we did \u201cWho Wants to Live Forever\u201d together, he did the orchestration for that and did a beautiful, monumental job. And if you listen very carefully, you will hear the Highlander theme woven into that.<\/p>\n

\n\tI spent so many happy hours with Michael. He\u2019s one of these people who can read music if you just put it in front of him, but he can also compose out of nothing. Usually people are one or the other. My dad could play anything by ear. You would sing it to him, and he\u2019d sit down at the piano and play it, but he couldn\u2019t read a note of music. His sister could read any piece of music that you put in front of her, and if you took the music away, she had nothing. I find a lot of musicians fall into one of those categories. I mean, really, I fall into my dad\u2019s category, \u2019cause my reading of music is very limited. I\u2019m mainly a person who hears things and speaks according to what he hears. But Michael had those two things, and he was wonderful to work with. I really miss having him around. Incredible musician.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Highlander score has never come out \u2014 you released the songs on the Queen album A Kind of Magic instead. You\u2019ve talked about someday putting out the actual score.
We did, and yeah, very often that subject\u2019s come up. I would love to do it someday. We skirted around \u2014 we avoided doing the soundtrack album, which wasn\u2019t really my decision, but it was a group decision. We thought it would be better to have a Queen album out there rather than a soundtrack album. But yes, there\u2019s a lot of lovely stuff which I would love to see on a CD sometime. Do they still have CDs?<\/p>\n

\n\tThey\u2019re on a bit of an upswing, actually. Kids are buying them to collect, some without owning a CD player.
It\u2019s nice to have something that you can touch and feel and hold.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo people were under the impression recently that you swore off touring with Queen.
Oh, yeah, I got kind of misinterpreted, slightly misquoted there. I never said we\u2019ll never tour again. I don\u2019t know how I could ever say that. I couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\n\tI feel like I\u2019m on a break, and I\u2019m enjoying my break, and I\u2019m getting to do all the things which I dreamed of doing when there was no time all those years on the road. So I\u2019m getting to see my kids, I\u2019m getting to see my grandchildren, getting to do a lot of projects on the side which I\u2019ve dreamed of doing. I get to do more astrophysics. I get to do more animal welfare and animal campaigning work. And all round, it\u2019s been a good decision for me so far.<\/p>\n

\n\tMaybe one day I\u2019m gonna wake up and think, \u201cAh, maybe we should get out on the road.\u201d But I don\u2019t think I will be committing to nine-month-long tours again. I think I\u2019ll be happy just doing \u2014 I mean, at the moment I get to play just when I want to, which is not a bad deal really. I just played with Andrea Bocelli at the Starmus Festival. It\u2019s great fun. It\u2019s a different kind of challenge altogether. And I played with Benson Boone, which I really enjoyed, and I get to do loads of stuff in the studio.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat about the Sphere? You were fairly warm on that idea when we last spoke.
Yeah, I don\u2019t know what to tell you about that. I don\u2019t even know where we are on that. I really don\u2019t. Things change so fast.<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m still very much caught up with the idea of this 360-degree surround environment for music, and particularly for us in some kind of retrospective. It wouldn\u2019t be like the ABBA thing. Everybody says, \u201cOh, you\u2019re gonna do what ABBA did.\u201d But no, it would be something different from that, because we have a different history and a different path or whatever. And I still have a template in my head of what we could do, but I don\u2019t think we\u2019re progressing very fast on it for various other reasons. So you\u2019re kind of getting \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d from me.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou told me you\u2019d played around in the studio with Adam Lambert to try some new Queen music. Is that still a possibility?
Well, it was a long time ago. That was very early in the relationship. We did try it once. I think it was in Nashville. Went in for a night, and it seemed to be an interesting avenue, but we didn\u2019t really feel it was quite happening, and we never returned. That\u2019s all I can tell you.<\/p>\n

\n\tAre you still in touch with Adam? If there\u2019s a project, is he the singer, or is that open too?
We\u2019re in touch. I went to see him when he came over. I enjoyed seeing his show when he was over here at the Roundhouse. We haven\u2019t talked about doing anything. I suppose I\u2019m not in that place, really. I don\u2019t want to be a touring animal at this point, and I don\u2019t want to retrace those steps. Again, I can\u2019t say never. How could you ever? So yeah, it\u2019s a sort of open question[s].<\/p>\n

\n\tYou said you\u2019ve been doing a lot in the studio instead. What\u2019s come out of that?
I love taking up a challenge. I like being offered a gig in the studio, in a sense. So I did this track with William Shatner, which I think is stupendous. I just love it. You know, the guy\u2019s 95 and he\u2019s decided to make a heavy metal album, and I was very happy to contribute to that track, which I think is actually very significant. It\u2019s based on Dylan Thomas. And it\u2019s very well done, I think. So I kind of put my producer\u2019s hat on as well, and decided to do a few things with it.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut that\u2019s a thrill. I\u2019ve worked with my grandson. We have a new track, which is, I think, coming out in a couple of months\u2019 time. That\u2019s an interesting track, completely new, and he plays most of the guitar, to be honest, which is great. I have a grandson who can play guitar, and write songs, and be in a group. Who would have thought?<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd Graham Bonnet came with a track which is a dedication to Rory Gallagher, a great hero of mine, so we did it together. Very happy with that. I\u2019ve just seen the first cut of the little video that we\u2019ve been putting together about that. Very satisfying for me, \u2019cause Rory was such a massive influence on me. And as the song said, really nobody played anything in memory of him, so now they have. This is a commemorative track to him.<\/p>\n

\n\tWho else?
I\u2019m also working with a guy called Noel Fitzpatrick. I don\u2019t know if you know him, but he is the Supervet on TV. He\u2019s the guy who can repair animals that nobody else can fix. And he can do things with dogs and cats which people can\u2019t even do with humans, like growing new limbs. It\u2019s quite incredible. He\u2019s become a very dear friend of mine, and his whole mission in life is to bring medicine together, animal medicine and human medicine together, rather than animals being experimented on in order to make medicine for humans. He says everything should march forward together. We are all basically one species when it comes down to it. So he\u2019s a great guy to work with. We have a track which we\u2019ve been working on, which kind of says all this.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo what does he do musically?
He writes most of the lyrics \u2014 I think probably all of the lyrics. He has a band. And he plays guitar. Now, he took up guitar about probably 18 months ago, and I gave him one of my guitars to encourage him. And we spent some time together, and I had no idea that he would really take it that seriously. I mean, he\u2019s one of the world\u2019s greatest veterinary surgeons, but he\u2019s up between three and four AM practicing every night, and he now is a guitarist. So they do some gigs, and they\u2019ve written this bunch of songs, and I was very drawn to this particular one, which I\u2019ve now played on, and I\u2019ve actually sung it as well now, as tends to happen sometimes.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo I\u2019ve been a busy boy, really.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe restored Queen Budapest film is out. What did seeing it bring back?
What the hell do I say about this? You open that box, and there we were in this kind of touring bubble, and the ever-increasing position of Queen in the world, and we\u2019re doing our first ever stadium tour. We\u2019re kind of flying high, and Freddie\u2019s in wonderful form physically and mentally. We\u2019ve just done Wembley Stadium, two nights, packed, sold out, wonderful, a year after Live Aid, when we\u2019d sort of made our first appearance at Wembley Stadium. We\u2019re now back out in Europe, in Budapest, behind the Iron Curtain, where no rock group has ever been able to play, and it\u2019s a monumental moment. It really is.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo to go back into that \u2014 and it was well filmed, very well documented by the top cinematographers of the time, who happened to be pretty much all Hungarian. And it was beautifully edited, and they filmed us in the city. There\u2019s all sorts of little insights into what we were doing offstage as well as onstage, and I think it\u2019s beautiful, and it was great to be able to restore it sound-wise and visual-wise. The wonderful people in New Zealand did the restoration of the visuals, the people who do Lord of the Rings and stuff. And we did the sound restoration, and it\u2019s beautiful.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tRoger and I went to the premiere, as it were, the first showing in the IMAX, and somebody asked Roger how he felt, and he said, \u201cI feel exhausted.\u201d And that\u2019s exactly how you feel \u2014 because you get emotionally dragged through that whole thing. It\u2019s almost like you\u2019re there and you\u2019re still worried about, did you make a mistake or did that sound right, and you\u2019re back in all those personal issues that you had at the time. It is an exhausting experience for us to look at it.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut I feel proud. Detaching yourself, I think that it\u2019s a good band, very well in touch with each other, very well-oiled machine, and it\u2019s a great moment. I\u2019m glad it was captured.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queen\u2018s Brian May has been spending a lot of time in his studio lately, from his work on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[664,9,24,63,666,122,124,123,673,141015],"class_list":["post-389944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-brian-may","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queen","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-roger-taylor","tag-the-darkness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389944","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=389944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}