However, John Deacon’s addition to the Queen line-up may have presented a problem to Freddie Mercury, one that might not have seemed apparent to outsiders but which potentially encroached upon Freddie’s mind and may have caused him a serious crisis of confidence within the group in those early days. Though Freddie had left Ealing College of Art with a diploma in graphic art and design, he may have felt himself intellectually inferior to the other members of the band. Roger Taylor had given up his dental studies but was in the process of obtaining a BSc (Hons) in biology from North London Polytechnic. Brian May graduated from Imperial College London with a BSc (Hons) in physics and had been approached by Sir Bernard Lovell to join his research laboratory at Jodrell Bank, and now John Deacon was in the band, complete with his first class BSc (Hons) degree in electronics.
What’s more, all three of them could play their instruments with some significant degree of skill, yet Freddie’s singing was still developing and the band hadn’t yet utilised his piano-playing skills. However, along with Brian he was one of the two songwriters of the group and he had also taken it upon himself to create the visual styling of the band as well as designing their logo. Perhaps the perception that he was inferior intellectually had something to do with Freddie trying to force his ideas on the band. He needed to justify his position; Brian and Roger had been together for a number of years now, and with the arrival of John Deacon, the instrumental unit of the band was formed. And they were good, very good. There was no shortage of other singers looking for bands to join, so Freddie had to vindicate his position. What he needed was for Queen to secure some form of recording deal to give his own position in the band a level of security.
But that was some way off. In the meantime the band rehearsed in anticipation of their next gig on 2nd July 1971, a somewhat low-key affair in front of 80 invited friends at a college in Surrey. Nine days later, Queen were booked to play at Imperial College London. They had played here, in various incarnations, many times before, but this time was different as, in the audience that evening, was John Anthony. He was one of the busiest producers of the progressive rock era and had come across Queen before, in August 1970, when Roger Taylor alerted him that they had a new singer in Freddie Mercury. Upon seeing Queen in 1970, Anthony commented that Freddie was ‘gushing and camp’ and that ‘they more or less had their sound together, but they had a dodgy bass player.’11 Now, almost a year later, as he was in the throes of setting up a new production company, Neptune Productions, Anthony was back to check out the new Queen line-up. As always, the band gave it their all that night, but when Anthony left the gig he simply told them, ‘I’ll call you soon . . .’12
Despite what might have been perceived as a knock-back by Anthony (given the band’s confidence they had expected him to sign them on the spot), Queen were developing as a consistent and talented group of performers. All the years of Freddie’s performance apprenticeship, when he had been prancing around college rooms singing into rulers, or using his half-a-mic stand posturing technique with Ibex, or had been strutting from one side of the stage to the other while throwing back his head with Wreckage, were beginning to bear fruit. Still supremely confident in his own ability, and that of Queen, Freddie was determined that he was going to make it – and he was going to do it on his terms and do it his way. Dressed-up, made-up, flamboyant, flouncy . . . he didn’t care. It was the persona he had created; the boy Bulsara from Zanzibar had become Mercury the man, and he was destined for the top. Nothing was going to stop him now.
Returning to London in the autumn of 1971, after a brief Cornish tour, Brian and John resumed their studies while Roger decided he’d had enough of the market stall he shared with Freddie. He needed to return to his studies as well and so, having given up any idea of becoming a dentist, Roger enrolled instead at North London Polytechnic to complete a degree in biology.
Freddie, meanwhile, had no studies to return to and, consequently, nothing to fall back on. With his own market stall now no longer in existence, he accepted whatever few graphic design commissions came his way and also took a part-time job looking after Alan Mair’s handcrafted boot shop in Kensington Market. But there was little future for Freddie at Alan’s shop, certainly not the future he had planned for himself. He found himself in a precarious position; it appeared Queen were going nowhere fast and, once again, with the other members all studying at various universities and with the prospect of alternative careers ahead of them should the band fail, insecurities began to affect Freddie.
‘I went to art school with the impression of getting my diploma, which I did, and then becoming an illustrator – hoping to earn my keep as a freelance,’ Freddie said. ‘Music was always a sideline, and that sort of grew. When I’d finished with the illustrating course, I was sick of it. I’d had it up to here. I thought, “I don’t think I can make a career of this because my mind just wasn’t on that kind of thing”. So I thought I would just play around with the music side of it for a while. Everyone wants to be a star, so I just thought that if I could make a go of it, why not?’13
But, as he quickly realised, simply playing around with music wouldn’t create the sort of career he wanted. In order to achieve the success and spoils he desired, Queen, and Freddie in particular because he had nothing to fall back on, would have to take it a whole lot more seriously.
‘And then after a while there is a decision-making time, where you’ve got to take the plunge; you’ve either got to say, “I’m gonna go and do this, and just concentrate on this,” or not. And we finally did that.’14
12
Brian May was also keen to take the plunge, desperate for something to happen with Queen. He had called an old acquaintance, Terry Yeadon, that autumn. Yeadon had worked with Smile a couple of years previously and was in the process of opening a new recording studio complex in Wembley, called De Lane Lea. He was looking for a rock band to test the facilities when Brian rang him. It was the perfect opportunity for Queen: they could be guinea pigs for the studio and, as recompense, would receive a professionally produced demo, recorded with some of the most state-of-the-art technology available. The studio’s in-house producer/engineer, Louis Austin, oversaw the recording sessions and Queen, already exhibiting signs of the professionalism that they would eventually become known for, arrived in December 1971 with a complete set-list, determined to make the most of this opportunity.
With three different studios in the recording complex to test, the band found they were shunted from one studio to another. It was hardly the ideal circumstances in which to record, but the four members of Queen knew how important this studio time was to them and were fully committed to the process. ‘They were very fussy,’ Louis Austin recalls. ‘Their songs were done one by one. They would carry on until they thought it was right. It sometimes took a very long time, but they put up with so much shit too, during that time.’1
Terry Yeardon recalls Queen at the studios during that period: ‘They were a little rough at the edges, which was only to be expected, yet Queen were very much there and had already been there before Freddie joined them, with Brian’s guitar playing and Roger’s drumming being, to a large degree, responsible for the sound. But Freddie, unquestionably, put the cream on it. He was just larger than life, and with such a personality that he kind of instantly bowled you over. Even in the most sterile environment of a studio, Freddie was very much a showman. It was almost as if he literally couldn’t sing a song if he didn’t also do all the actions to go with it.’2
Queen managed to record five original songs at De Lane Lea and Freddie had composed three of them: ‘Liar’, ‘Jesus’ and ‘Great King Rat’. It was during the recording of ‘Liar’ that a debate began over songwriting credits. ‘Liar’ had actually begun as a song from Freddie’s Wreckage days called ‘Lover’ and was co-written with Mike Bersin. But following concerts, rehearsals and the recording process at De Lane Lea, the whole of Queen had provided some input and so they all wanted some ownership of it, as Brian May remembers: ‘“Liar” was one of the first songs that we worked on together, and there was a moment