E-mail at: tigerlily@queenzone.com
"I am a musician by profession, that's my whole life, and I didn't want to waste it in easy retirement"
ROGER TAYLOR:
"Well we had been toying with the idea of making a musical, and then Robert de Niro decided that he would quite like to launch a try to produce a musical with us. Well he is our co-producer, one of our co-producers. Yeah, the original idea really was from him. I think he became aware of us and then was curious, and yeah, it came from him, his idea. If he's a fan of ours, you'll have to ask him."
"It's not a Queen concert for a start, but it is what we'd like to think of. It is a sort of musical experience with a rock'n'roll feel, hopefully, and a rock'n'roll background. We didn't like a biography as an idea and then we thought we needed an English guy who understood the humour, etc, of the music and the band, and we ended up with Ben Elton, who's a great scriptwriter and author in England and who would make it very funny. So ah, and that's ... we've now formed this great sort of three-cornered partnership between Brian, myself and Ben Elton and it works very well."
"I hate musicals. They're just not me, and I find them embarrassing on the whole - not all of them, but most of them - all of them then! But really we wanted to break a lot of rules. We wanted this to be a sort of, as Brian calls it, "A Rock Theatrical", which is quite a good new term here, to coin a phrase. Yeah, it was very odd at first for me to see it. I've sort of lived with it now and I think it is great. I don't get embarrassed. I think it's a great show."
"What it is, I am constantly surprised and delighted, that our songs are played on the radio. They're popular with very young people and for me that's the greatest sort of satisfaction that one could get, that one... You know, we made all this music quite a long time ago and that really young people as well as older people are really into it and love it and that you can provide that much pleasure for people over several generations is, well, unexpected and fantastic."
"I think we were always worried about - we always took... paid attention to the quality and we tried to get quality in our work, and what we did, we tried to record it well, we tried to play it well and we tried to write good songs, you know. And good songs I suppose with what you you'd a tune. That sounds very old-fashioned. So we had the sort... we had a lot of ingredients in Queen. We had a lot of hard rock, but we also had a lot of tune, tunes, melody, and we had a lot of musicality, and you know, I suppose we were just going for an overall quality really."
"In Cologne we had fantastic talent. The musicians were incredible. We had so many musicians and they were all good. I think the show in Cologne is gonna be great. We have a great cast and a superb band, and a great location. I think that's a really nice theatre. It's right next to the cathedral - you can't miss it - on the river, and I think it's really gonna rock there. We Will Rock You in Cologne."
"Well I think, you know, the story is funny but it does have a lot of serious points, semi-serious points to make, you know, about homogenization of global culture that we see. The sort of music as just a product that's mass manufactured and pushed out and mass produced, and you know, for instance, the extermination of boy bands and [laughs] really the sort of dumbing down of the whole of popular music. I mean there's some great stuff out there right now, but there's also a lot of crap. That was probably always been the case, but let's less crap. More good stuff please!" [my comment: then you finally have to record sth!!! :)]
"We have a Spanish production and a Russian production and the Las Vegas production in America is very 'Vegas', and it's very funny actually. I think it is important that the show should fit each country that it's in and it should have something to do with that country, and not just be just like a rubber stamp product that's gone out of a production line. You know, in London, and this is not that. This is a German show, a German production, with German characters - some German characters - and I think a lot of things that the German people will find very funny. I look forward to the show being there for a very long time."
"It wasn't easy for us to crack Germany. It took about four years and then suddenly when the German people accept you, they don't forget you, and that's what we found - very loyal audience. Always good memories. In fact the first ever record that we made in Munich took about 20 minutes to make and we were still making the album 6 months later when the record - that record was a single and it was number one in America, and it's called "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" - and that was the first thing we did in Munich. Freddie wrote that in 10 minutes in the bath in the Bayerische Hof Hotel. And many memories of tours in Germany, great memories of some fantastic shows we did in Germany - all over Germany - over many years. It was always one of the best audiences and certainly one of the most loyal."
Thomas Zeidler's short interview with Roger Taylor was broadcast on Rock Radio on the Queen Hour last Sunday...
Some quotes below...
ROGER TAYLOR: "We are planning some more material and we intend to work together [with Brian May] more. I think after Christmas, this year, we will completely slow down on the We Will Rock You [musical] front and maybe concentrate on, you know, some new studio work and maybe some live work."
"We have some collaborations coming up."
New album?
"Well maybe, if we have enough... we have some great singers that we know and I think Brian [May] and I would sing some and then we will get some great singers... we are talking at the moment with Paul Rodgers who is.... who we always liked as a singer and he has an incredible voice."
My comment: so many things to fulfil first... but let's hope for the best!!! :)))
This coming Sunday (Nov 21st), during Queen Hour, The Rock Radio will be featuring a short interview of Roger Taylor. Recently the Queen drummer was interviewed by Thomas Zeidler of www.wegotit.at who kindly agreed to share the interview with us. Roger Taylor answers questions about a new Queen album as well as tour plans. Queen Hour will be followed by 2 hours of "Legends of Rock", hosted by Ben Connely. Super Sunday will conclude with 1 hour of your favorite Guns n' Roses tunes and live performances.
http://www.therockradio.com
A note from 11th November: "Paul Rodgers will perform with members of Queen at the first annual UK Music Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on Thursday, November 11, 2004. The show will air Sunday, November 14, 2004, on Channel 4 UK TV 21:00/9:00pm."
Last Sunday, November 7th, just a day before the 'Live Aid' DVD was to have its official release, Roger attended a launch party held in Kensington, London. There were many guests, including Brian and Anita, his wife, and Bob Geldof, the head behind the 1985 Live Aid concert. The DVD doesn't have all the artists performances from that day (13th July 1985), as some of them didn't agree to be included on the DVD release (due to their bad performance, they say).
There has been some rumours lately, about certain band called Queen... the rumour says:
"Guitarist Brian May and I are going to write new songs after Christmas," said Roger Taylor, the band's drummer.
Even a new tour is not ruled out.
"Brian and I don't regard ourselves as solo-artists, but still as a part of Queen", Taylor said.
Presumably, John Deacon, the bassist, won't join them any more.
"We would be very pleased if he were with us again. But he is a very quiet, introvert person who, at present, prefers to be alone."
And what do YOU THINK?