Brian May reveals his favourite Queen album and biggest regret

Brian May has declared Queen’s final album Made In Heaven his favourite album by the band. Released in November 1995, the group’s 15th studio album remains the sole album released under the Queen name since the passing of iconic frontman Freddie Mercury in 1991.

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Talking about Queen album ‘Sheer Heart Attack‘, Brian said “It was a breakthrough in terms of getting out there, but I don’t know if it’s the greatest.”

“My favourite, strangely enough, is probably the last one, Made in Heaven, which we completed after Freddie had gone. It’s got so much depth to it, so much spiritual content and emotion, because we were working with Freddie’s voice when Freddie was no longer here. It actually took us a couple of years to get to the point where we could do it because we were grieving. Roger [Taylor] and I went out and did our own tours and pretended Queen hadn’t existed. Then suddenly we looked at all of this embryonic material and thought, this album is crying out to be made. It was a labour of love, but I find that I can listen to it with a great feeling of peace now.”May discusses bassist John Deacon’s decision to walk away from the group. “All I can say is that, historically, John was quite sensitive to stress,” May states. “We all found it hard, losing Freddie, but I think John particularly struggled.”

“John just looked at us and said, I can’t do this any more”: Brian May on why John Deacon walked away from Queen

“I don’t think that I can go into much more detail – we have to respect the fact that John needs his privacy now – but he’s still part of the machinery of the band. If we have any major decision, business wise, it’s always run past John. It doesn’t mean he talks to us – generally he doesn’t – but he will communicate in some way. He’s still very much part of Queen.”

“All I can say is that, historically, John was quite sensitive to stress,” May answered. “We all found it hard, losing Freddie, but I think John particularly struggled. We did do a couple of things together, in 1996: the recording of No One But You – the song I wrote about Freddie when we were putting up the statue to commemorate him in Montreux [Switzerland] – and one show in Paris. It was to open the ballet season with an amazing new work by Maurice Béjart, about Mozart and Queen. We played with John on bass, and Elton John sang with us. At that moment, John just looked at us and said, “I can’t do this any more”.

“We knew that he at least needed a break, but as it turned out he never came back. I don’t think that I can go into much more detail – we have to respect the fact that John needs his privacy now – but he’s still part of the machinery of the band. If we have any major decision, business wise, it’s always run past John. It doesn’t mean he talks to us – generally he doesn’t – but he will communicate in some way. He’s still very much part of Queen.”

Queen legend Brian May reveals career ‘regret’

Sir Brian May “regrets” not working with John Lennon.

The 75-year-old is best known as the lead guitarist of rock band Queen but would have loved to have worked with fellow music legend John Lennon – who before being shot dead at the age of 40 in 1980 had achieved worldwide fame alongside Ringo Starr, Sir Paul McCartney and George Harrison as part of The Beatles – and believes the two would have got along well.

“I very seldom turn down a collaboration. A regret is that I didn’t get the chance to work with John Lennon. The Beatles didn’t always agree, they were always pulling and pushing – a bit like us and Queen – and I think John would be such a stronger pusher and puller. You’d have to work really hard to keep up, to believe in your instincts. I could imagine us hitting it off.”

The ‘We Are the Champions’ rocker went on to add that he would have liked to have been a part of the ‘Hey Jude’ fourpiece even though it may not have been “easy” in their heyday before noting that he felt “sad” watching a recent documentary about the group because it reminded him of things going wrong in his own band.

Asked which other band or era of music he would have liked to have been involved in, he said: “The Beatles, probably. I’m sure it wouldn’t have been easy to be a Beatle, but that incredible level of creativity, I would relate to. I watched a lot of ‘Get Back’ documentary. I got a bit sad watching the first one, because it reminded me of us – sometimes Queen in the studio would be [inhales nervously], ‘Here we are, and things aren’t quite fitting’.

“I felt they were in quite a painful place – but the second one, I felt like they were really finding each other again. It’s a textbook of how to be in a studio. If it wasn’t the Beatles, it could’ve been Led Zeppelin. If they let me in.”

“I’m ashamed to say how little I sit down and listen to music,” he says, “I’m generally making music, or working in some other way – in astrophysics, or campaigning for wild animals – and I have three children and seven grandchildren. There ain’t much time spare! I do have a few CDs in the car that I tend to keep listening to. Pink is one of them. I love her. She’s incredible. I listen to the Foo Fighters a lot and I like Avril Lavigne – I don’t get fed up with that, I always find her music fresh. There’s an ebullience to it that I like.”