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by Scott Hamilton
When Freddie Mercury died it signalled the end of one of the
most entertaining and enduring rock bands of the last 30 years.
But it had a personal cost. Queen drummer Roger Taylor
still thinks about him every day.
He says: "Queen was a very close band and I was particularly close to Freddie. You're
virtually living in someone's pocket for years and years so you get to know them incredibly well.
"Of course I miss
him. I always think I would know what Freddie would think in a certain situation," he chuckles. "But life goes on."
And
life is going on tour - a nationwide theatre tour that involves just one intimate small venue show at The Sugarmill.
Taylor,
who started his own solo set up at the height of Queens powers in the 1970s, kept it secondary to the band until Mercury died
in 1994.
Now he's taking its latest incarnation on the road. What's up, has the money all gone?
"No it certainly
hasn't all gone," laughs the man who lives in a palatial pad in leafy Surrey and has a Cornish home as back up.
"Its
just what I do and I don't do it that often - I haven't been on tour for five years.
"We finished this LP (Electric
Fire) and then did TFI Friday and a few shows in London and it all went brilliantly - this is the best band in the world outside
of Queen. Its the very best of the guys I recorded with. Its effortless. So were going on tour again."
There never
was any chance of him just packing in then?
"I'm a musician, its what I've done all my life. There was never any question
of giving up when Freddie died. I've been doing this since I was 13."
Taylor had at least one song on every Queen
LP and wrote A King Of Magic and Radio Ga Ga.
He says his solo material differs from Queens because theirs was a unique
process.
"Queen songs went through the Queen process, they had to sound like they did. My solo stuff is more eclectic.
I like every song to sound different. Why buy an album where all the songs sound the same?"
Sounds encouraging for
the live set.
"There are two drum kits on stage and so I do a bit of drumming and I sing. We do a mix of my own stuff
and Queen songs, mostly ones that I wrote but a few others to give the sort of mix that will hopefully please everyone."
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