“It was a mess… it was difficult to hold together”: Brian May reflects on the “tough times” recording Queen’s debut album
The early days of Queen were far from plain sailing, as according to guitarist Brian May, the making of their debut album felt like “a mess”.
Queen began working on their first, self-titled album in the spring of 1972. Recording took place at Trident Studios, as they’d just signed a management deal with the company. The band were working during “off-peak” hours whenever the space became free, as it was a popular studio at that time, meaning the making of the album was a slightly bumpy ride.
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Speaking in part two of the Queen The Greatest Special video series on the band’s official YouTube channel, May explains, “It was very tough because we never knew when we were going to get back in there. Tapes got jumbled up and kind of lost, and there was a discontinuity.
“Sometimes we had to have a different engineer who didn’t realise what we’d done before. It was really a kind of mess, it was a hotchpotch, difficult to hold it together. They were tough times,” he admits.
Despite the struggles with accessibility and organisation that were up against them, musically, it didn’t take long for Queen to settle into making the record. “I think by the time we got into the studio, we were quite well formed,” adds May.
“We really had to rehearse ourselves to death in spite of the fact we were all doing sort of other jobs and student things. We devoted a lot of time to it, a lot of care. We were well rehearsed. We were sort of even over rehearsed, possibly, and we were used to working together, and I think we hit the ground pretty much running.”
Further in the video, you can hear a tape recording of the band working together in the studio. Check it out below:
The Queen album was rereleased as a remixed, remastered and expanded box set – Queen I Collector’s Edition – back in October. You can stream or buy it now.
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