Eventually, the musical salvation that Freddie hoped for arrived while Smile were awaiting the release of their debut single in America. A band from Liverpool, called Ibex, had arrived in London seeking their own fame and fortune. Like Smile, they were a trio and consisted of Mike Bersin on guitar and vocals, Mick ‘Miffer’ Smith on drums and John ‘Tupp’ Taylor on bass. They were managed by 17-year-old Ken Testi, who had accompanied them down from Liverpool. Ken was dating Helen McConnell at the time, whose sister, Pat, knew Roger Taylor and Smile. Consequently, they were all regulars at The Kensington pub and on 31st July 1969, Smile and Ibex found themselves hanging out together there, celebrating Pat’s birthday, along with Smile’s chief hanger-on, Freddie Bulsara.
Later that evening, everybody decamped to Pat McConnell’s flat at 36 Sinclair Road. Here, while the party continued, Brian May began playing the guitar. Before long, an impromptu acoustic Smile gig was underway but this time, rather than shouting suggestions, Freddie simply joined in with the singing. Mike Bersin, the guitarist and lead singer with Ibex, was all too aware of his own limitations as a lead vocalist and realised that Freddie Bulsara might be just the person they were looking for. Their manager, Testi, agreed: ‘Ibex were going nowhere fast. They had so much talent though, and it didn’t go unnoticed by Freddie.’6
One evening, after the bands had met once again at a local pub, Freddie offered a suggestion to Mike Bersin: ‘What you guys need is a singer.’ Testi was all too aware that Freddie’s heart was set on joining Smile, ‘but that wasn’t going to happen, so that’s why he turned his sights on Ibex.’7
Soon after, Freddie Bulsara auditioned for Ibex and was quickly accepted into the band as lead singer. ‘Once we had Freddie, we were a little rough and ready, but we showed a lot of potential,’ remembers drummer Mick ‘Miffer’ Smith.8 The mix of three working-class northerners and a London-based dandy originally from Zanzibar was a strange combination but, finally, Freddie was fronting a band. However, as he quickly discovered, Ibex’s 17-year-old manager was having no luck finding them any gigs in London. He did, though, have two shows lined up in Bolton and the first of these performances, a lunchtime gig at the Octagon Theatre on 23rd August, was the debut show for Ibex with Freddie Bulsara as lead singer.
Ken Testi remembers Freddie’s stagecraft at that first gig more than his vocal performance: ‘Freddie was shy off-stage but he knew how to front a show. It was his way of expressing that side of his personality. Everything on-stage later in Queen, he was doing with Ibex at his first gig: marching from one end of the stage to another, from left to right and back again. Stomping about. He brought dynamics, freshness and presentation to the band that had been completely lacking previously.’9
After their next gig the following day at an open-air festival in Bolton’s Queen’s Park, Ibex didn’t perform live again until 9th September in Liverpool. The intervening period saw them rehearse whenever possible, practising songs by Rod Stewart, Yes and The Beatles. Most of these rehearsals took place in London and Freddie had, by now, moved out of his parents’ house in Feltham and was living in a flat in Ferry Road, Barnes. But he was not alone there; most of Smile and Ibex were also crashing out in any room they could find and their musical instruments and equipment took up any other free space going. In the front bedroom were three single beds, and one of these beds was where Freddie slept, along with any combination of people who happened to find themselves occupying the other two.
Denise Craddock was a student at Maria Assumpta Teacher Training College alongside Pat McConnell, and they were both sharing the house too. She recalls the arrangements at Ferry Road: ‘People would just sleep in the sitting room. There were couches and cushions, and other things that could be laid out. It was £25 a month, I think, which sounds nothing now but we had to scratch together as students, and we were not well-off. Freddie was especially struggling to make ends meet. He had very few clothes and his shoes had holes in them.’10
Freddie accepted a few commissions as a graphic artist to earn whatever money he could, but his heart was still set on music as a profession. On 9th September, Ibex had their next gig, again in the northwest. It was held at The Sink, a basement venue in Liverpool, and this performance should not have been remarkable except for the fact that, during the encore, Ibex were joined on-stage by two members of the audience: Brian May and Roger Taylor, who were in Liverpool performing with Smile at another venue.
By this point Freddie’s stagecraft had improved immeasurably and he had already adopted an on-stage device that would later become one of his signature moves in Queen. ‘His mic stand technique, this half mic-stand thing, I think traces back to Ibex,’ recalls bass player John Taylor. ‘In those days, you’re talking 1968, 1969, you know equipment wasn’t very good or professional and I think he was just swinging a mic stand around and the bottom fell off and he couldn’t get it back on. Nobody had road managers, well, we didn’t in those days, so nobody came rushing back with it to fit back to the thing, and he was just prancing around and made the most of it.’11
With no performances lined up in London, Freddie and other members of the band were growing tired of the constant driving up and down the motorways of England to perform in Liverpool. For Freddie, London was where he had to be, even though he had little money and life in Ferry Road consisted of constant bed hopping in a marijuana-filled household.
While Smile threw themselves into playing as many shows as they could, Freddie was beginning to plot his next move. He thought that a change of name for Ibex might result in more success. One night he phoned guitarist Mike Berson, who had remained in Liverpool, and suggested they call the band Wreckage. The rest of the band agreed, but not all of them made an appearance at Wreckage’s first gig at Ealing College on 31st October 1969. Drummer Mike ‘Miffer’ Smith had left the band. Smith’s decision to leave Wreckage angered Freddie. He wrote a letter to his friend Celine Daley on 26th October in which he laid into Smith: ‘Miffer’s not with us anymore ’cos the bastard just upped and left one morning saying he was going to be a milkman in Widnes.’ The letter continues: ‘Miffer, the sod, went and told everyone down here that I had seriously turned into a fully fledged queer.’12 Certainly, other members in Ibex were making fun at the expense of Freddie’s campness, as bassist John Taylor recalls, ‘Fred’s nickname, within the band, he was quite camp and we all made the most of that. We called him the “old queen”.’13
Whether or not he was aware of how his bandmates referred to him behind his back, Freddie was almost certainly struggling with his own sexuality at this point. His camp, dandy persona was obvious, but to confuse matters, in 1969 he was dating one of his old Ealing classmates, Rosemary Pearson. She had been drawn to him the first time she saw him – and he to her. ‘He didn’t do that much work. In the studio he just sang all the time. He was charismatic, dressed outrageously – sometimes in shorts, no top and a fur coat – and was determined to make it as a singer. He was a clown, so much fun to be around. Freddie was also the only truly fearless person I ever met.’14
Together they would spend an increasing amount of time together; she would show him around the art galleries of London and he would introduce her to different types of music. ‘He always behaved as though he were in front of an audience, even if he was just with me. His gestures were theatrical, and often he’d break into song embarrassingly in the street. Yes, he liked to be the centre of attention, but he was sometimes remorseful about that, and was always genuinely interested in me and my work,’ she remembers.15
She would accompany him shopping on Portobello Road, they went to parties together, and soon their relationship blossomed. ‘We were in a restaurant holding hands and kissing. Next thing I knew we were back at his flat at Barnes. It wasn’t like a romantic sweeping me off my feet. I was talking about going to Moscow on my own so we’d be apart and we were feeling really warm about each other and close and comforting.