Newspaper article on Brian's Toronto show, March 11, '93
* * * The following interview/article appeared in the Toronto Sun newspaper on Thursday March 11, 1993. Brian is appearing in nearby Hamilton on Friday March 12, with GNR. This was a full page article with nice color photo. Thought all of you might like to read.
When Brian May climbs on stage tomorrow night at Hamilton's Copps Coliseum to open up for Guns'N'Roses, he'll be facing an unusual dilemma. How does the guitarist in one of the world's most popular - and defunct - bands acknowledge his past without exploiting it? We talking of course, about Queen, which has undergone an almost ghoulish rebirth since the AIDS-related death of frontman Freddie Mercury 16 months ago.
In fact, the 45 year-old May is saying it was only three days ago that he was able to bring himself to perform the group's signature tune, We will Rock You, even though he wrote it. 'It's my song, but I'm used to having Freddie being up there singing it,' he says. 'So there's a part of you that feels like you're almost betraying the guys, you know? I have a bit of a struggle with that'. May - who recently released an underrated solo album, Back To The Light is also struggling with what to do about the unreleased material Queen recorded in Switzerland in May 1991. 'We do have a few tracks that Freddie sang on, and at some point we'll finish them off," he says without much enthusiasm, and confirming that Mercury continued to record until just six weeks before his death. 'I don't think any of us feel much like doing that at the moment," he adds, referring to bandmates John Deacon and Roger Tay1or. 'For me, it's precious. I have a couple of rough tapes of it, and it's great. I've sort of decided to love it as it is, so it's going to be hard in a way to mess with it.' Have you considered releasing it the way it is? 'That may be the best thing,' he concurs. 'The other argument is that we haven't done our full crafting process on it, so I think we would like it to be up to the Queen standard of production.' Whatever they decide, don't expect to hear the results much before 1994.
After the GNR tour, May hopes to headline his own shows for the fall. He'll also weighing offers to score a film and a British TV series. In the meantime, he's hoping to slow down the flood of Queen product that's hit the store in the past year. 'Hollywood (Records) has put together a lot of ideas," says May. ' But I suppose we tend to be a problem because we say no to a lot of the stuff because this kind of dredging up of back catalogue has to have a cut-off point.
'I think there's a benefit in grouping some things together and repackaging them, but I think if you have the set of original Queen albums and see how the music developed, that's probably the best view you could have.'
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