Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May recently celebrated Queen’s fortieth anniversary, and has just made the documentary Brian May’s Brief History of 3D for Sky Arts. He’s now touring Anthems, the album he made with ex-We Will Rock You star Kerry Ellis.
Freddie Mercury’s the best musician he’s ever worked with.
I‘ve been fortunate to work with wonderful people – too many to mention – but the most talented and inspiring would have to be Freddie. He was an enormously, unusually talented person, and so clear in his visions that it was impossible not to get fired up working with him.
He briefly taught maths.
I spent a year teaching maths at Stockwell Manor Comprehensive, the first time I did my PhD. It was tough. A lot of students had knives, even in those days, and most of them didn’t want to be in school. You had to keep a very strong sense of humour, but I still hear from some of those kids.
He assumes people don’t know who he is.
When I meet people for the first time. I tend to assume they have no perception of me at all, unless I’ve been advised otherwise. I still walk into a room and assume people don’t know who I am. It’s the safest possible starting point.
He rehabilitates animals.
I collaborate with Harper Asprey animal rescue service and I have a couple of soft release runs in my grounds. We’ve had many badgers, many, many foxes. A lot of birds, some deer. We have a litter of six young fox cubs who are about three months old and we’ve named them after [sarcastic tone of voice] well-known animal lovers like David Cameron, Kate Hoey, Caroline Spelman and Nick Clegg. We also work on the ‘Save Me’ campaign, which is about trying to prevent the return of legalised ripping to bits of foxes by dogs.
He isn’t Time Out’s biggest fan.
When We Will Rock You was first out, we got pretty bad reviews, but probably the worst one was in Time Out, which absolutely despised it. Which is okay. But for the next year, they printed in the listings, ‘We Will Rock You – don’t give them your money,’ which is something very close to restraint of trade. I think it’s almost a suable offence, and it’s something so mean and bad-spirited that I can’t believe Time Out could have indulged in that. It was quite despicable. It’s hard to forgive Time Out for that.
He doesn’t trust the press.
All through our careers the press were very dismissive, quite vitriolic, and personally abusive for some reason. Particularly towards Freddie. Of course, Freddie is the great god now who can do no wrong, but at the time people were queuing up to get their nails into him. Do I feel vindicated that the press are kinder nowadays? I actually don’t care, I have to tell you! [Laughs] Anyone who wants to write about music has probably got a bit of a problem, anyway.
He and Patrick Moore share a lot of interests. But not the same musical taste.
We share interests in astronomy, in music and in the way we interact with the world. We agree on so many subjects, including fox hunting. Patrick is a great defender of animals. But we don’t agree on music. He came to see We Will Rock You, and found it hard to figure out. It’s not his kind of music. He doesn’t relate easily to anything after 1930.
