Queen Unseen

by Peter Hince

No – not rock ’n’ roll.

  By the time of Fred’s performance, I had smoked my way through at least half a pack of Bensons, and then as he began to sing I rushed out of the booth and through the auditorium doors to hear it for real. It seemed fine but pretty quiet, compared to what we were used to. After a standing ovation for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, Fred began to whip the dinner jacket and evening gown crowd into a frenzy with a version of the freshly released ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ single.

  At the end of the concert, I went backstage to retrieve the microphone from the dressing room. I was pleased but hugely relieved that Fred’s bit had gone well.

  Fred’s dressing room was overflowing with flowers, champagne and theatrical ‘luvvies’ as I squeezed through to retrieve the forgotten (and extremely expensive) mike that was left lying forlornly on a side table. I wanted to see how Fred was, but he was in his theatrical element, surrounded by baying admirers and so no acknowledgement or thanks were forthcoming. Nor was an invitation to the after-show party at Legends club in Mayfair.

  Ah, well – it was my job.

  Fred enjoyed several non-gay London nightclubs in the ’70s and ’80s; apart from Legends, he would frequent The Embassy in Bond Street, Maunkberry in Jermyn Street and Xenon in Piccadilly, where on 5 September 1984 he held a party for his 38th birthday after one of the run of Queen shows at Wembley Arena. Earlier at Wembley, Fred had commandeered an extra backstage dressing room into which he put several of his ex-lovers, who had been invited. He then left them to get on with it… that mischievous old Mercury! His birthday was tainted by the publication that day in a tabloid of details about Freddie’s private life. The beans had been spilled by a former employee. It was a shame that some who worked for him took advantage of his generosity.

  MAKING MOVIES (LIGHTS, CAMERAS, FRICTION)

  Due to the decline of the British film industry in the 1970s, the film studios around London were being utilised by other forms of modern entertainment culture – notably rock bands. Being there when Queen made the seminal video for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ at Elstree Film Studios, north of London, was in retrospect quite exciting; and so was being in and around film studios generally. At that time, Queen were starting their new management era with John Reid, who also managed Elton John, Kiki Dee and Kevin Ayers. A shared warehouse with Elton John’s equipment was available for Queen at Elstree Studios, but not long afterwards was commandeered by director Stanley Kubrick to be used as the kitchen in his movie The Shining.

  It was a coincidence I maintain, but I was once asked quite firmly to move my Transit van, as I had parked in Mr Kubrick’s private space.

  ‘Here’s Ratty!’

  Lots of the sets for The Shining were at Elstree along with those from Star Wars, Superman and other big screen movies of the time. Great stuff.

  After being turfed out of our second Elstree storage space, we moved Queen’s ever-growing collection of sound and stage gear to Shepperton Film Studios, west of London in Middlesex, where we rented storage space from The Who and their company ML Executives. Whereas Paul McCartney and Stanley Kubrick had bought parts of Elstree Studios, The Who had invested in Shepperton.

  It was becoming common for bands to rehearse at film studios, as the sound stages gave all the space and production facilities required for a major touring show. It was a surreal experience, as long-haired rock ’n’ rollers ate in the canteen alongside ‘aliens’ and other actors and extras in their costumes. Pinewood Studios was a very special place to rehearse, as it was home to the enormous 007 stage that featured all the giant sets used on the James Bond movies. And I think we all liked to imagine we had a bit of ‘Bond’ in our alternative lifestyles – shaken but not stirred, with a definite licence to thrill.

  Although the video for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was regarded as a seminal piece of promotion for a new era of the music business, Queen did not take every video they did so seriously. The music video became a necessity, but also at times an inconvenience. The follow-up single to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was done during rehearsals for the A Day at the Races album at Ridge Farm in Surrey. Bruce Gowers who had directed ‘Bo Rhap’ was brought in to film ‘You’re My Best Friend’. The location was the barn we were using to rehearse in. It was the blistering hot summer of 1976 and the barn had no ventilation apart from leaving all the doors open. So it probably wasn’t a good idea to have a video that included hundreds of candles as ‘mood’ lighting. People were literally passing out from the heat and smoke, as everybody fled the barn between takes. The best song (in my opinion) on A Day at the Races and released as the first single was the superb and still to this day outstanding ‘Somebody to Love’. This video was back to Queen being creative and innovative, using footage shot at Wessex recording studios in Highbury during the recording of the album, and editing with live film from the ’76 summer free concert in Hyde Park.

  Exceptions to the rule of ‘live’ performance or staged studio videos were for ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘Spread Your Wings’. These were both shot together in the grounds of Roger’s newly acquired country estate. As the property was technically not yet his, and he didn’t have the keys, we were allowed to use the grounds by the vendors but not the house. Or even the toilets if I remember…

  Thick snow covered the ground, and it was bleak and very cold, which did not please Fred. While the video set was being finalised and between takes, Fred warmed himself up with tots of brandy inside his Rolls-Royce parked conveniently in the driveway. He wanted some gloves to wear, but there were none available and no wardrobe person either. As a joke I offered him my ‘roadie truck-loading’ pair. These were standard issue for the stylish roadie at the time; American rodeo gloves in light beige soft leather, with a drawstring to tighten them at the wrists. These would be bought at 76 truck stops in the USA and then fastened on to a dog clip with bunches of keys and other paraphernalia that hung from the belt loop on your jeans. Mine were filthy dirty, had gaffer tape repaired fingers and written on both of them in thick black felt pen to avoid any confusion of ownership was ‘RATTY’. Fred gratefully accepted my offer and wore them on the video.

  The Game was the band’s biggest album in America with two number one hit singles; ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, the first single, had a video shot in a small TV studio in Dean Street in London’s Soho, between studio recording sessions to finish The Game in Munich. It was choreographed by Arlene Phillips of Hot Gossip fame. This was the band getting back into ‘theme’ videos and the 1950s-style song had the band in leather jackets and a motorbike as a prop. It worked very well, as once again Queen changed their image and moved forward. They all now, with the exception of Brian, had short, sensible haircuts that your mum would be happy with. Brian was playing the new black Fender Telecaster I had got for him and was wearing some wraparound sunglasses that made him look like a tall insect. Between takes, Fred was having his hair greased down with KY jelly by a stylist, when he shrieked: ‘What a waste’, and brought the entire population of the studio to a standstill with laughter.

  There were two very fit female dancers who were dressed provocatively in black waistcoats with tight black satin shorts, black seamed nylon stockings, black suspenders and black patent high heels – a blonde and a redhead. Oh yes! Is that too much information?

  There were also two male dancers, who were very light on their feet but seemingly had no real interest in the girls. At the end of the shoot, the director wanted a shot with rows of hands clapping together, to use with the section of the song that featured handclaps. The catwalk that Fred and the dancers were performing on then had symmetric rows of holes cut in the top decking and the sides taken off, so the ‘volunteers’ could squeeze in. The side panels were then replaced to make it all look neat, and on cue sets of hands appeared from the holes and clapped in time (some of the time). As a ‘volunteer’ who sat on a hard studio floor with my body hunched over and hands contorted over my head in a confined space I was not at all comfortable, but it
did give me a wonderful view of ‘blondie’ and ‘the redhead’ as they wiggled above in their sexy black gear. I seem to recall that the enticement to get the crew to be boxed in and clap was that we could keep the dancers’ underwear after the shoot had wrapped – the female dancers’ underwear. I have so many photos from that video I could seriously consider starting a website for people who like that sort of thing…

  The video for ‘Play the Game’ was done at the same studio on the second attempt. We had originally arrived with all the gear early one morning, only to be told that Fred was feeling unwell and the shoot was cancelled. This video was eventually shot against a Chroma Key background, a rich blue backdrop that can be replaced electronically by different imposed backgrounds and effects during editing. The set was minimal, a small drum kit and riser and one small amp set up for John and Brian, and was reminiscent of a sixties TV pop show. John played a new Kramer bass he had been given by the company and Brian played a cheap Stratocaster copy. I had bought two for him as he was going to get mean and moody at one point in the song, wrestle with Fred and then sling the guitar across stage and begin smashing it. Not quite The Who.

  The video opens with Fred’s silver Shure stage microphone hanging in space, and in an attempt to make it look like a fancy radio mike I put a connector in it without the cable, and rammed a bit of wire coat hanger in to give it an antenna. Fred appears to pop up from the bottom of the screen, and as this was the first video with him sporting his newly grown moustache he looked like a lost walrus surfacing!

  Later in the video when he is covered in water, he really does become a ‘bull walrus’. The ‘flame’-coloured background idea for the video was an extension of that particular single’s picture cover. I had taken some group shots of the band crammed on to a chilly balcony of somebody’s room in the Munich Hilton. I was experimenting with some ‘grad filters’ that put varying degrees of tint and colour into the top of the photo – in this case, the sky. Fred liked the idea, but, when he saw the finished shots, which included ones I had done for fun of rushing water in the adjacent Isar River, again using the coloured ‘grad’ filters, he got excited. He held a group shot that had been approved up to a light bulb and slid different background shots against it. When he had shuffled the background into the desired position, it was secured with clear tape and sent to the Creem design company to get a composite transparency duped. That was the cover of the finished single sleeve and the image used for various other PR. So the background is actually coloured water, not flames as so many people believe.

  While recording The Game in Munich, Queen would alternate between Germany and London studios, where they were recording the soundtrack to the Flash Gordon movie. And a resulting video was shot for the ‘Flash’ single at Advision studios in the West End.

  Music videos were now what accompanied every Queen single, and did at least spare the band from appearing on Top Of The Pops to mime in front of a mixed bunch of spotty youths, who gawped at the artists on stage. However, we did make a couple of trips to BBC Centre in White City, with a minimal amount of equipment, to perform ‘Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy’ in 1977 and ‘Las Palabras de Amor’ in 1982. I always hoped that Queen’s dressing room was close to the one used by Pan’s People; the resident female dance group who were used to interpret one song during the show – usually in skimpy outfits and using their lithe bodies in an appealing way.

  How many adolescents have gazed at the TV on a Thursday evening, waiting for them to come on and thought ‘Whooaaaah!’? I can tell you I did. And they were even better in the flesh! There must be something about female dancers…

  Hot Space videos were not particularly memorable; ‘Backchat’ and ‘Calling All Girls’ were done at the same time at a TV studio in Wandsworth, south London. A trip to Canada was arranged for the ‘Body Language’ video – which was originally banned for being too raunchy.

  When ‘Radio Ga Ga’ was chosen as the first single from The Works sessions, Fred took assertive control – ‘We must do a huge video, as the song deserves it and we have become a bit complacent with videos, so we must do it BIG – and spend BIG.’

  The mammoth video was shot at a small TV studio in St John’s Wood and at Shepperton Film Studios on a stage that had previously housed Queen tour rehearsals. It was another milestone for Queen, with a huge set and hundreds of handclapping extras from Queen’s fan club, cut with classic black and white footage of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis movie. In the ‘Ga Ga’ video there is one small shot that involved Fred parting a building with his bare hands. High on a scaffold, Fred stood in macho pose as the polystyrene set was pulled apart and the crumbling debris fell, as smoke and dust swirled around him. The smoke effects were not working well so the assistant director called through his megaphone for more assistants to fan and waft the smoke with boards. Meanwhile, Fred was relaxing up his tower with a cigarette and the harassed assistant director sensed that Fred was getting impatient because things were not speeding along, so he urgently shouted into his speaking trumpet with a cut-glass accent: ‘More wafters, more wafters – we must have more wafters!’

  This sounded more like ‘woofters’, at which point Fred giggled with laughter, tottering precariously on his high perch and shouting down: ‘Me too, dear, me too!’

  The video for ‘I Want To Break Free’ was done over two days at Limehouse Studios in London’s Docklands and a studio in Battersea. The ballet bit with Fred sporting pointed ears was done later. This video was a brave tongue-in-cheek move by the band and was well received – except in America, and as they declined to do an alternative video for the US market it was an indication of the beginning of the end for the band’s popularity there. This was tragic as The Works was a very good album and the live show that accompanied it was probably the band’s best, and deserved to be seen by America.

  The second day of shooting ‘Break Free’ was the dressing-up day, and, while Fred could always be guaranteed to revel in such camp drama, the others got into the spirit surprisingly well. John was happy to be dressed as a grumpy old grandmother but drew the line at having the make-up artist apply currants and sultanas to his face to look like warts and moles. Brian, though convincing in his part, was probably not going to give up his day job to ‘tread the boards’, and Roger was just a bit too convincing as he shaved his legs for his part as a schoolgirl. The atmosphere in the studio was very good and everybody appreciated that the rock stars with alleged big egos could make fun of themselves. It was a typical move by the band to show that they never stood still and were always striving for change and to surprise.

  The following morning, I flew to Japan, accompanying John, Roger and his assistant Crystal for a three-week promotional tour of the Far East, Australia and Los Angeles for The Works album.

  The other single from The Works was ‘It’s a Hard Life’ – a grand pompous affair that the band hated – which was done at Arri studios in Munich. Fred might have loved dressing up in very theatrical, poncy costumes, but the others looked very uncomfortable in theirs. The whole look did not befit the direction they were going in. Fred’s deep-pink, shiny and risqué figure-hugging outfit with large eyes and antenna attached made him look like an overcooked tandoori king prawn.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  TRAINS, BOATS AND PLANES – BUSES, TRUCKS AND CARS

  (MAY I SEE YOUR PAPERS, SIR?)

  Queen were never in London for long, so itching for adventure we would be back on the road again. The very essence of touring is the constant travel, and moving the team of personnel from city to city. A vast range of transportation was utilised by Queen tours, from Concorde and private aeroplanes to cross-channel ferries and mini-cabs (and there is no truth in the story that one of the crew thought that Hertz Van Rental was a Dutch racing driver). The band always travelled in style and luxury; first-class air travel and a limousine on terra firma. Separate limousines – one each.

  During our extensive travels, the crew spent many long hours on commercial airlines; i
n the days when the non-smoking section of vast 747 jets was just a few rows at the back. These were also the days when airline stewardesses would share their Hawaiian grass with you – taking clandestine draws while crouched in the aisle when the movie was playing. Smiling and giggling, the airlines were not spared our special humour; the Belgian carrier Sabena was nicknamed ‘Such A Bloody Experience Never Again’, Australia’s Qantas was ‘Queers And Nancies Trained As Stewards’, and America’s Northwest was commuted to North Worst. In the USA, the band progressed from commercial flights to touring by private charter aeroplane, the first one they used being the Lisa Marie, a converted Convair 880 that had been Elvis Presley’s own personal plane.

  The crew travelled separately to Queen and generally in customised tour buses, which had evolved in America with the Country & Western circuit. One of our drivers was Sherri, an attractive, ‘built for comfort not speed’ southern gal, who took no shit from anybody and kept a stout police-issue nightstick under her seat in case there was. There wasn’t. Another US bus driver we shared happy times with was Bob ‘Hot Rod’ Williams, a middle-aged man who had been a Country music star himself, and still loved going on the road. He gave me the business card of a friend of his: Rudd B Weatherwax, the trainer of TV dog Lassie. On the front is a photo of Rudd and Lassie and on the reverse Lassie’s paw print.

  The front of the bus housed a lounge and TV area, in the middle of the bus corridor was a toilet (sorry, rest room) and then towards the rear were the bunks; 12 in total, two or three high and six on each side, into which we were slotted for the purpose of sleep. In the rear was a smaller lounge for bodily abuse sessions. Couches could be pulled out to make a giant bed and became the domain of The Love Rug, where backstage passes were sometimes exchanged for sexual favours. These vehicles were the crew’s home-from-home for months on end, and the vast distances meant we would not see a hotel for days, and would have to resort to showering, shaving, shitting and sha… shampooing etc., in dressing rooms at venues.