More than three decades after the death of Freddie Mercury, Queen continues to perform — a reality that once seemed impossible to the band itself.
Mercury died of complications from AIDS on November 24, 1991, and in the immediate aftermath guitarist Brian May says the surviving members believed the band had reached its natural end.
How May and drummer Roger Taylor managed to carry on to this day owes something to Mercury and a gift he gave to the band in his final days.
Speaking recently with Sammy Hagar on Rock & Roll Road Trip for AXS TV, May recalled that Queen had long agreed that if any member died, the group would stop.
“I suppose what we did was give it up,” May explains. “We actually did give it up when Freddie died. We’d always said, ‘If one of us goes, that’s it.’ So Roger and I both went out kind of grieving to the max and saying it’s over.
“We didn’t even want to talk about it for quite a long time.”
But in the singer’s final months, Mercury — who had once fought with May over one of his most celebrated guitar solos — himself had already been laying the groundwork for the band to continue. Despite rapidly declining health, May says the frontman was determined to record as much as possible before the end.
“Freddie, in his last days, was like, ‘Okay guys, I’m not going to be here long. Just give me stuff to sing,’” May recalls. “Write me stuff on the back of a cigarette packet — whatever. Just give me stuff to sing.”
The band obliged, bringing Mercury fragments of songs so he could record vocal parts whenever he was physically able.
“And then when he’d gone… he was very undramatic about it,” May says. “He was never maudlin, ever. I never saw him cry or go into self-pity. He never did that. He was like, ‘Let’s just do it. Let’s keep doing stuff.’”