Queen's Brain May: The Complete 1982 "Guitar Player" Interview

This post presents the world debut of the audio of my September 22, 1982, "Guitar Player" cover story interview with the author of “We Will Rock You.” I hope you enjoy it!
To prepare for our conversation, I attended Queen’s July 9, 1982, concert in Oakland, California. After that, I listened to every Queen album in chronological order, paying close attention to Brian’s guitar innovations. So in addition to covering his musical background, influences, and tools of his trade, I was able to question him about his playing techniques on specific songs throughout the band’s career-to-date. Brian seemed to appreciate this.
As we spoke, he also expressed his appreciation for the talents of Eddie Van Halen. (A few months later, Brian and Eddie would collaborate on the "Star Fleet Project" album, which led to Brian's requesting that we do a second interview. Let me know in the comments if you'd like to hear this interview too.)
For more historic, guitar-intensive interviews, check out the other offerings on the Talking Guitar KZbin channel.
To help us continue producing podcasts like this one, please hit that donate button and send some support our way: paypal.me/Talk....
Thanks to engineer/producer Nik Hunt for filming the intro and outro and enhancing the sound of the original 42-year-old master interview tapes. For more than 130 other guitar-intensive podcasts, interview transcripts, and articles, visit Talking Guitar magazine at jasobrecht.sub.... #brianmay #queen #jasobrecht #talkingguitar #nikhunt #guitarplayermagazine
This podcast is copyright 2024 by Jas Obrecht. All rights reserved.

[@ByronWarfield]

What a gem! Thank you so much for sharing!

[@poochcastilon]

Yes post starfleet

[@rhondacrosswhite8048]

This interview is fantastic. Brian is certainly a guitarists guitarist. Somehow you managed to ask questions that most of us would never think to ask. I was in my sixties when I got the insane urge to learn to play myself. I won't live long enough to even approach Bri's skill and my brain is not the least mathematical as he has put to use many times but Dr.Sir Brian May was absolutely my inspiration. Queen as a whole was made up of four brilliant minds with great voices. I like to think that it takes an brilliant mind to truly appreciate their innovative sophisticated lyrics and their genius writing.

[@Spawn1-cz6vi]

I would certainly like to hear the 2nd interview with Brian talking about Starfleet. 👍🏻

[@walterevans2118]

yes

[@StuartWoodwardJP]

Please do post the Starfleet interview too. It was always a bit of mystery project to teenage me.

[@basstian]

Interesting to notice the broken telephone which happened there: the guitar's a 'Hallfredh' (IIRC), but Brian mis-spelt it 'Hailfred' and then the magazine printed it 'Hairfred'. It wasn't anybody's fault, of course, but then we spent years and years tracking that make down. UwU.

[@walterevans2118]

This was a GREAT interview this was.....Very few interviewers could go back so far in Brian's recording career to shine such light on his creative ideas as extensively as JAS did here....Brian was the 'Peaches and Cream' refinement of Rock creativity. With his unique sound, tone, harmony landscapes & just variety of musical expression....With his magnificently original invented guitar & his Vox AC30 & sixpence pick & just his sensitivity of articulation... EVH was wonderful at assembling guitar parts from manufacturers but just IMAGINE building EVERYTHING in a guitar from the bricks up , Hand carving the Wood (like say Hugh & Andy Manson) but then EVEN building from scratch the COMPONENTS in it ! ...Like the pickups & the knitting needle/motor bike spring Vibrato bar system...15 yr old Brian & his practically minded DAD were just GENIUS.....It was WONDERFUL to hear Brian talk about Eddie Van Halen back in 1982 when Ed was having his massive impact changing the instrument....Actually in a Jas interview with EVH two years earlier it was obvious that Eddie Loved BRIAN'S stuff too. He mentioned to Jas in 1980 about possibly having a Semi acoustic custom made for him unlike a Gibson 335 but similar in functionality to BRIAN'S guitar. & Brian's instrument was his yardstick for what he wanted. When Ed would talk about TONE he would use this metaphor of the 'BROWN' sound and he would always mention Brian by name regularly as a great exemplar of it. Edward was more into Clapton than Hendrix but the reason Brian saw Hendrix as a bigger paradigm shift than Ed did was because in the late 1960s Brian in the UK had witnessed Hendrix' rise more extensively because Hendrix first became well know in the UK not America. Queen were very different from Van Halen of course although in the guitar playing world BOTH had a massive impact. ...I think people like Brian & Freddie saw the studio as more an instrument in itself than Ed did who was more into a live sound....But you have to remember that Brian found INGENIOUS ways to make his overdubbed harmonies work LIVE .....Like as he describes in this interview where he takes an echo box & using two single echos (& timing) to build up counterpoints & 3 part harmonies LIVE on stage...To do the same kind of Harmonies as on Night at the Opera. ...& the amazing Day at the Races Staircase that never ends start & finish layered harmonies I believe Brian had to use Mathematics to make them work. I didn't know it was BACKWARDS guitar though. Ed used backwards guitar too on WACF's Tora Tora with his bizarre picking behind the nut sounds & vibrato bar rumbles like a fighter plane prop.....I don't know about Vibrato bar being for just 'Motor Bikes' though...lol...Allan Holdsworth was using it to make a guitar sound like a saxophone & Jeff Beck was using it to take a harmonic & by just bending the string with it was getting 8 notes for the price of ONE ! .....Brian here goes into so many interesting details which I didn't know about actually....His 'Jazz band' on Good Company is just MIND BOGGLING when you think it was all just volume pedal & compressed guitar. I did my own Jazz band recording in my own composition similar to this to see how difficult it is in 2004 . For a banjo sound I would mute the guitar strings with a cloth & for trombone I would use fretless guitar played with an E-bow ...& for clarinet played the fretboard with 2 hands on the neck with a sustainer pickup but in 1975 during the recording of Night of the Opera Brian didn't have ANY OF THIS. Yet he make it work BRILLIANTLY. How's that for inventiveness ?.... I never knew about Brian making an acoustic guitar sound like a SITAR & putting fretwire material on there. I made an electric sound like a SITAR by putting TIN FOIL crumpled up touching the strings next to the bridge. Millionaire Waltz had harmonies of 18-20 tracks ?? ...Omg. I would have thought 'God Save the Queen' would have been that too. I recorded a 16 track version of it in 2012 .....And Brian was doing this stuff on a John Deacon electronic invention mini amp too....I must say I never knew Brian was 'press ganged' into using the Black TELECASTER on the solo of 'Crazy Little Thing' ...lol....& that it was ROGER'S guitar. I can't IMAGINE Brian smashing up a guitar onstage like Hendrix or Ritchie Blackmore 😳😳...lol....He's just TOO CIVILIZED for that 😬🥴🥴...Brian was frustrated with a Flying V onstage ? .....Was he taking demolition lessons from MICHAEL SCHENKER ?...lol....Possibly the repair guy who's name Brian couldn't remember was John Diggins ...People think that Brian & Freddie's multitrack wizardry started with Bohemian Rhapsody but it DIDN'T.... just go back in time further & listen to 'March of the Black Queen' on QUEEN 2 ....Interesting to hear that Brian didn't think Live Killers album did the band justice at that time 3 years later. I LOVED that album. I actually have a 1982 Queen Bootleg tape Live in Berlin which is when this Jas interview was recorded. It was the HOT SPACE tour & at the time I believe that Brian wasn't very happy with the direction Queen's music was evolving towards. No wonder here he was talking about making a real hard rock solo album. Thankfully for him STAR FLEET was only just around the corner....One detail in the interview that I found really funny was Brian being mistaken for a certain Australian Film Orchestrator & vice versa ......Poor Brian - 'Look,,,I'm NOT the Bloody MAD MAX COMPOSER' !!! 🙄🥴🥴...I remember being really DISAPPOINTED during that film after seeing his name at beginning of the movie & then not finding the car stunt scenes being accompanied by Brian's trademark Power Rock Melodic NUCLEAR HARMONY ATTACK like on 'The Hero' from Flash Gordon......lol

[@Kohntarkosz]

But remember, this interview is from 1982, so Jas really only "went back" about 9 years, which isn't THAT far. But yeah, this is a great interview. I remember readnig it in Guitar Player...actually, originally, I read it one of the books they put out, a compilation of various articles and interviews from throughout the magazines history, they put out a bunch of different books in the mid 80's, which I found and read at the public library (same place I discovered GP, in their magazine section, actually).

[@Riaaanna]

Thank you so much for sharing this gem of an interview! My favorite part was about that bit in the A Day at the Races album opener that's meant to be a musical form of the Penrose stairs, that's insanely genius! It's my first time learning about it. Thank you so much for getting that out of him!

[@guitarplayerstowohio]

Another gem! And yes... Starfleet interview please!

[@bonzey1171]

Thanks again, Jas, you are a generous soul

[@sundance222]

Hey great, Jas. NOW we need the Pat Travers and Pat Thrall interview from late 70's or 1980...I can't totally remember. I found my Dec. '80 issue with Holdsworth and yep that was Tom M. who did that....But yeah, Uncle Jas...anything from Pat Thrall or Pat Travers... Remember when P. Thrall got Best New Talent? Yeah he's one of my favorite ....I digress. Great to hear Brian... we all bought StarFleet mainly because of Edward. Edward was hotter than fire in popularity and mystery by this time... Peace, and thanks for sharing this.... we were all young teenagers when these articles came out... nice little gift as we start to age. Respectfully, Eric Tripton

[@jameshendee4489]

I remember a story told to us in class at WCC about Pat Travers, which became shooting some hoops and interviewing an important new guitar virtuoso (not Pat Travers)... who'd-a-thunk this new guitar player would have such an incredibly amazing impact on how people forever would view how the neck of the guitar can be manipulated...

[@jameshendee4489]

Hi Jas, This comes at a moment in time when in the recent several weeks I have re-discovered Freddie Mercury, Brian May and Queen. There is a fairly recent theater movie called "Bohemian Rhapsody" that follows Freddie Mercury's life when he first met the other members up until the Live Aid Concert in 1985. I watched that movie and it re-kindled some passion for their music I have been storing for many years. My first teenage experience with Queen was their Bohemian Rhapsody LP (back when people bought LPs). I remember sharing the album on several record players in the neighborhood. -- One of my favorite Queen songs highlights Freddie's amazing range in the song "Who Wants to Live Forever" (written for the movie "Highlander"). Of course add in the genius of a quality studio engineer who knows how to master an outstanding voice (like the folks who recorded Karen Carpenter's voice)... To me WWTLF is breathtaking... -- Thanks for sharing this major release concerning Brian May... blessings to you.

[@jameshendee4489]

This is the song I am referring to in my comment above (I love the space the reverb and delay do to Freddie's voice... recording engineering at it's finest): kzbin.info/www/bejne/lXvXoZlug5p8eqc&ab_channel=QueenOfficial

[@walterevans2118]

WOA !!!!!!! ❤