FEW BANDS COULD ROCK WITH THE SPECTACULAR GRANDEUR OF QUEEN. SONGWRITER AND MASTER GUITAR ORCHESTRATOR BRIAN MAY LOOKS BACK AT THE BAND'S GLORY YEARS, WITH AN ESPECIALLY FOND REMEMBRANCE OF HIS CREATIVE AND PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LATE FREDDIE MERCURY.

Twenty-five years ago this year, a London quartet by the name of Queen unleashed their self-titled debut album on an unsuspecting early Seventies rock scene. Many people weren't sure what to make of this new band. They looked like a set of glam pretty boys, but their music certainly was more ambitious than anything flirty acts like the New York Dolls, Mott the Hoople or Gary Glitter were doing at the time. Were these Queen guys supposed to be prog rock? Metal? The singer had a thing for operatic grandeur, leavened by heavy doses of campy humor. And the guitar player could somehow make his axe sound like an entire symphony orchestra - an unheard-of feat back in 1973. The rock critic establishment gave Queen the brush. But a coterie of fans knew they were on to something good.

Guess who was right? By the mid-Seventies, Queen had established themselves as a major force in rock music, thanks to brilliant albums like A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races and News of the World. Today they've attained classic rock immortality. Masterfully wrought tracks like "Killer Queen," "Bohemian Rhapsody," "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions" have gone into perpetual AOR rotation. Modern rock guitar icons like Billy Corgan and Metallica's James Hetfield venerate Brian May to the skies, citing him as a prime influence. May's lavish, multi-tracked guitar orchestrations are today among the most instantly recognizable and best-loved sounds on the planet.

These days, May leads a peaceful domestic life at Allerton Hill, his stately home out in the English countryside, just 5 minutes south of London by train. The guitarist, who went through a painful divorce a few years back, has settled in with his current mate, British television actress Anita Dobson (Eastenders), sharing a spacious house filled with dark wood paneling, oriental rugs and Vox AC30 amplifiers. May still looks very much as he did during Queen's heyday. His mane of dark hair is youthfully intact and he's still fond of wearing those Seventies rock star floppy shirts and tight leather pants that well suit his tall, lanky frame.

But Brian isn't one to dwell in the past. He's got a brand-new album, Another World, and has written songs for several recent film projects, including the popular British feature    Sliding Doors. Queen, however continues to be very much a part of his current life. In the years since singer Freddie Mercury's tragic, AIDS-related death in 1991, there has been a steady stream of Queen tributes, memorials and retrospectives, such as last year's Queen Rocks album, a killer compilation of the band's heavier rock tracks.

"I thought Queen Rocks would be a nice idea," says May. "To my mind, the balance is slightly off on the greatest hits albums, because it's always the lighter stuff that becomes a hit."

It was Brian May who wrote many of Queen's best hard rock songs, including "Tie Your Mother Down," "Keep Yourself Alive," "Brighton Rock" and "We Will Rock You." His songwriting contributions to the band also include such stylistically diverse tracks as "'39," "All Dead, All Dead," and "Fat Bottomed Girls." His voice, whether he was singing harmonies or taking the occasional lead vocal, was an integral part of the Queen sound. But it is his highly original approach to electric guitar playing that stands as perhaps his most towering achievement.

Relaxing at home on a cloudy English afternoon, May recently took time for an in-depth interview with Guitar World, offering a detailed account of how he evolved that amazing guitar sound. He also took the opportunity to offer some candid insights into Queen's inner workings, describing the band's approach to songwriting and speaking frankly about how the band was affected by Freddie Mercury's embrace of a gay lifestyle in the Eighties.

GW: All four members of Queen were songwriters. What went into determining whose songs would get recorded?

MAY: Well, we fought like cats and dogs. That's the truth. There were times when all our ideas would really work together magically well. When that happened, you'd have a great day in the studio where everybody felt they'd contributed. But then there'd be days when everyone was pulling in totally opposite directions. And it would be very painful. Eventually, three people would have to give way for one person to get what he wanted. That happened a lot, to the point where we all felt major frustration. And, oddly enough, Freddie - who everybody thinks was the great prima donna - was very often the person who would find the compromise. He was very good at mediating. I can remember many times when Roger and I would be pulling in absolutely diametrically opposite directions. No chance of either of us budging. And Freddie would find a way through. He'd say, "Well, you can do this and do this and it will all work." That was one of Freddie's great talents. He was good at finding roads in the mist. But he would certainly fight for things he believed in. Like "Another One Bites the Dust," which was a bit of a departure for Queen. Roger, at the time, certainly felt that it wasn't rock and roll and was quite angry at the way that was going. And Freddie said, "Darling, leave it to me. I believe in this." John had written the song. But it took Freddie's support to make it happen.

GW: In today's world, people are a little more tolerant of the gay lifestyle. But what was it like early on, with Freddie being a gay man in the macho world of Seventies rock?

MAY: Early on, it didn't exist. Or if it did, we never saw it. And I don't think Freddie was aware of it, either. He was very much with us. In the early days, we used to share rooms, so I would have known! Freddie had some gorgeous girls. So I don't think the subject ever came up. It's odd, isn't it, to think of that? And it was only later on... I couldn't really pin down the exact time, but I remember there was a point where we realized that Freddie was leading a bit of a different social life than us. He'd just go off on his own and say, "See you later." So gradually he was venturing off into other areas. He was encouraged by certain people who sort of brought him out, I guess. One of whom was our personal manager at the time. [pauses] How far do I want to get into this? He was a pretty over the top kind of person, and I think Freddie found himself in places where he wouldn't naturally had gotten to if that sort of door hadn't been forcibly opened for him. Do you know what I'm saying? I think he would have drifted into finding himself in a more gradual way if it hadn't suddenly exploded in on him. So there was a period in his life when he was seemingly completely blown away by it all. I can remember the Mott the Hoople tour [April 1974] was the first time I ever experienced sex on a grand scale. And it was almost really not my decision. It kind of happened to me, you know? I felt like I had no control. I think in a corresponding way, in a gay direction, that's what happened to Freddie a bit later on. But it didn't really change our relationship with him very much. Because we were always very close in the studio. And when we spoke of, you know, love stories in the studio, there was no distinction. You could be in love with whoever you wanted to be and the song would still make sense. But from the Jazz album onwards, it would always cross my mind. Because I would be writing words for Freddie to sing. And it became a little game for me to write stuff for him which would make sense whichever way he saw it.

GW: So your writing acquired a kind of...

MAY: Yeah, another dimension. In fact, I can remember having a go at Freddie because some of the stuff he was writing was very definitely on the gay side. I remember saying, "It would be nice if this stuff could be universally applicable, because we have friends out there of every persuasion." It's nice to involve people. What it's not nice to do is rope people out. And I felt kind of roped out by something that was very overtly a gay anthem, like "Body Language" [Hot Space, 1982]. I thought it was very hard to take that in the other way. It's hard to talk about this. But there you go.

GW: I think it was maybe difficult for some of the hard rock fans when Freddie adopted a more overtly gay image.

MAY: Yeah. It's a strange area, isn't it? I mean you've got Rob Halford, who is definitely a heavy metal icon. So it must be strange for people to realize where he's coming from. But I mean it really shouldn't matter. That's my feeling. Everybody has their own sexual chemistry that leads them to desire certain things. You cannot attack someone for having desires in certain directions. Because they have no control over that, do they? It makes no sense. It's like attacking someone for having a long nose or being a wrong color. You can't do that. You judge people by how they behave with the cards that they are dealt. And heavy metal is a strange thing. There's a lot of bravado to heavy metal. I think we're all kind of afraid of women to a certain extent. Even the most heterosexual of us. And heavy metal tends to be a kind of safe place where you can make bold statements about "what you did with your chick last night." It's a nice, simple world. It's full of loud stuff and heavy things and strong statements. That's why it's such a great release for chaps, isn't it? I love it. AC/DC is complete therapy. You go to the show and you're deaf for a week. It's wonderful. I'm desperately sad that I had to miss a Black Sabbath reunion show recently. It was Black Sabbath and the Foo Fighters, who I love. And Pantera, who I also love. Unfortunately, I had to be someplace else.

GW: We should discuss the evolution of your layered guitar sound. Because it's there on the first album, first song, "Keep Yourself Alive." It's fully formed. Even on the Larry Lurex single, it's there in embryonic form. [Shortly before the first Queen album came out in '73, Freddie Mercury released a single, a cover of the Beach Boys' "I Can Hear Music," under the name Larry Lurex, with May on guitar. -GW Ed.]

MAY: You're absolutely right. It was a dream right from the beginning. I was always into the sound of harmonies, whether it was vocal harmonies or harmonies between instruments of an orchestra. And I always was fascinated with what that did to you - the Everly Brothers, and the backing vocal harmonies on Buddy Holly and the Crickets' "Maybe Baby." It sounds very simple now. But it just sent shivers up your spine - a huge emotional impact. Actually, Jeff [Beck] had a lot to do with this too, because of his song "Hi-Ho Silver Lining" [1967). Remember the solo in that? It was double tracked. In those days producers, as you know, would say, 'Hey, Jeff, double track that.' Jeff double tracked it, but he deviated in the middle and it became a two-part harmony - full-blown, spikey overdriven electric guitar going into harmony. And I remember thinking, "What a glorious sound that is." I don't know to this day whether it was intentional or not on Jeff's part; I've never asked him. Jeff hates the track, anyway. Thinks it's crap. But he sings really well on it. And it has one of the great solos of all time. [sings opening bars] Like a voice. That's always been my guiding principle: The guitar should be like a voice. So I'd always dreamed that if you could get three or more guitars working, full blown, as the instruments of an orchestra, making all those harmonies - not just going in parallel, but actually making all those dissonances and crossing over one another - I always thought that would be the most exciting thing to hear in the world. So the first time we ever got in a studio, obviously I was trying it out. I think the first attempt was on "Earth," which we did with Smile - a two -part harmony thing. [Prior to Queen's formation, May and Roger Taylor played in a band called Smile.] But yes, it was always there. I was always wondering how far I could take it. I still love it. I try to restrain myself. Because if you do it all the time, it could get really boring.

GW: What's involved in getting the sustain necessary to make those harmonies sing like that? Were you using compression? Is it just amp overdrive?

MAY: It is just amp overdrive, really. It's just the way those Voxes behave. I was wedded to these AC30s from an early age. I had a couple of transistor amplifiers when I was starting off. They didn't sound any good. I used to use a fuzz box to get them to sustain. Then I got a Rangemaster treble booster - the kind that [Irish blues guitarist] Rory Gallagher used to use. And then I went over to Wardour Street [in London] with my guitar just to try out some amps. I must have been about 18 or something when I was just starting out playing in bands. I plugged into an AC30 and suddenly it was there: the sound I'd always dreamed of! It had that warmth and sustain. It would go into overdrive very smoothly. I only afterward found out the reason: The AC30s are a different kind of amplifier from the normal kind of Marshall stack. They're a Class A amplifier, which actually does give you a high-quality signal at low levels and then very smoothly goes into distortion and saturation. And I fell in love with them. So there's really no effect on there. I just use a treble booster and the guitar. The treble boosters are a copy of the Rangemaster, actually. These little silver stomp boxes. I've always used one of those. But you've got to drive it hard. You can trim the capacitors inside to adjust how much bottom you actually roll off and how much top you roll off as well. Because they don't actually transmit the top end that well either, which is good. It's what gives you that vocal kind of sound.

GW: By the time you get to something like "Procession" on the second album [Queen II], it sounds as though you're using really radical EQ to shape the tone of different guitar layers.

MAY: You know what that is? That's this Deakey amp [pointing out a small homemade-looking box with a roughly five-inch speaker]. It's a little one-watt amp that John Deacon built and brought into the studio one day. I had done "Procession" with AC30s and it sounded just a little bit too smooth. I wanted it to sound more violin-like and orchestral. So I double tracked some of the layers using that little amp. Incredible. I've used it ever since on anything where there's a real orchestral type sound. And depending where you put the microphone in front of that amp, you can really tune the sound. It's very directional. It's a germanium transistor amp, which is transformer coupled - unlike things these days; that isn't really done anymore - with silicon transistors. There's this guy, Dave Peters, who is one of the designers of the AC30 and a real expert on valve electronics and the early days of transistors. I'm working with him trying to reproduce the Deakey amp. Maybe we'll put it on the market. I have to talk to John about it, as it happens. Because John made the thing. And he's very kindly allowed me to use it ever since. It's pretty magical.

GW: Another thing about the signature sound you get in layers is that the initial onset of notes - the attack - has a pronounced, crisp crackle to it. Does that come from the English sixpence you use as a pick? Is it a coin with ridges on the side?

MAY: Exactly. The English sixpence is made of a soft metal, but it has a serrated edge. And if you turn it parallel to the strings, all that disappears, because it's nice and rounded. As soon as you angle it then, the serrations will give you a very pronounced attack. It gives you that splutter, which I love. It also really connects me to the string. I don't like picks that bend, because I find I'm not really in contact. I'm not really experiencing everything that happens between the pick and the string. I like the firmness of the sixpence.

GW: Early on, were you combining layered over-dubs with other tape manipulation techniques? On something like "Ogre Battle" [Queen II], it sounds like maybe there's some backwards tape stuff happening there.

MAY: Yes, there's a lot of backwards stuff there. We were like boys let loose in a room full of toys. And with the old analog machines, you could easily turn the tape over. What I would do sometimes is say to Roy [Thomas Baker, Queen's first producer], "Just give me that tape backwards on cassette, and I'll go home and learn it backwards". I would learn it backwards and play on it the next day. Sometimes the mistakes came out better than the actual thing you'd planned. That's one of the things you lose in digital. And you can't do the stuff where you'd lean on the reels and it would go eeeooouuuggghhhh.

GW: Yeah. Tape flanging.

MAY: You can't do that with digital tape. And we used to do a lot of tape flanging in Queen. We loved manipulating [analog] tapes. I do miss all that. You can do some of those things in other ways, to a point, when you're working on digital. But it's not very manipulable. I recently started getting into analog recording again, actually.GW: Did Queen's layered vocal sound develop concurrently with the layered guitar thing? Did one come before the other?

MAY: Concurrently, I think. Freddie and I shared the feeling that harmonic content was a magic thing. Freddie started off as a showman almost before he was a singer. Maybe I'll get shot for saying this. I don't think any of us realized what a potential he had for being a singer until we got in the studio. As soon as he was able to hear himself and work with his voice and multitrack it, he just grew exponentially. He became so skillful at using his voice as an instrument. All of a sudden he was in there doing all these harmonies. And a lot of them we would do together because we were very fortunate in having three voices that gave an instant blend. Some of those things which sound like a hundred-piece choir were just the three of us doing each line twice. And that's why it remains kind of in-your-face. It's not like a big football crowd. It's a more intimate sound. And it was just a lucky combination. Freddie had this really wonderful clear, bell-like tone, which you can recognize on a transistor radio ten miles away, can't you? I still can. I know when it's Freddie. And Roger also had a remarkable voice. A very raspy sound, but Roger could sing very high and be very strong in the high registers. And I had this voice which, I suppose, filled in the gaps that the others didn't have. I had probably more warmth, and I was probably less in tune. That's my theory, anyway. And somehow the three just worked together. Although Freddie did some of that stuff on his own. The first thing you hear in "Bohemian Rhapsody" is just Freddie multitracking himself. He could sing so accurately, double tracking, that it would phase. Quite amazing.

GW: What do you recall about coming up with your guitar bits for "Bohemian Rhapsody"?

MAY: Freddie came in pretty well armed for that song. He had these little pieces of company paper from his dad with the notes of the chords, As I remember, I don't think he had a guitar solo as such planned. I guess I steamed in and said, "This is the point where you need your solo. And these are the chords I'd like to use. " Because it's like a piece of the verse, but with a slight foray into some different chords at the end to make a transition into the next piece that he had. I'd heard the track so many times that, when it came time to play the solo, I knew what I wanted to play, in my head. And I wanted the melody of the solo to be something extra, not just an echo of the vocal melody. I wanted it to be an extra color. So I just had this little tune in my head to play It didn't take very long to do. The heavy part was really part of Freddie's plan. I didn't change what he had very much. Those riff things that everybody bangs their heads to are really more Freddie than me.

GW: It's such a guitar riff.

MAY: Yeah. A great guitar riff. But Freddie could do that. Freddie also wrote "Ogre Battle," which is a very heavy metal guitar riff. It's strange that he should have done that. But when Freddie used to pick up a guitar he'd have a great frenetic energy. It was kind of like a very nervy animal playing the guitar. He was a very impatient person and was very impatient with his own technique. He didn't have a great technical ability on the guitar but had it in his head. And you could feel this stuff bursting to get out. His right hand would move incredibly fast. He wrote a lot of good stuff for the guitar. A lot of it was stuff which I would not have thought of, because it would be in weird keys. He had this penchant for playing in E flat and A flat and F. And these are not places that your hand naturally falls on when playing the guitar. So he forced me into finding ways of doing things which made unusual sounds. It was really good. "Tie Your Mother Down," which I wrote, is in A. Whereas "Bohemian Rhapsody" or "We Are the Champions" or "Killer Queen" are all in weird keys. So if there are any open strings in there at all, it's very unusual. But getting back to "Bohemian Rhapsody": In the end, I sort of took over. I wanted to orchestrate that. There's a little bit of orchestration coming out of the last chorus bit. Little violin lines. And that blended in very well with what he was doing with the little outro piece. If I were to do it now, however, I would adjust the tuning. It's not quite right. Things like that bother me a lot these days. Because if you get overexcited, the guitars really go sharp. And that's what happened there. I'm giving away precious secrets. You can tell, because the piano sounds a little flat in the end. And that's because I was a little over the top in vibrating there. These days I would probably harmonize it down to make it in tune. And that probably would have ruined it.

GW: Are there any major Queen songs that you didn't play on your Red Special guitar? "Long Away," for instance, sounds like you used a Rickenbacker.

MAY: "Long Away" is a Burns 12-string. I couldn't play Rickenbackers because the necks are too thin. I like a very fat and wide neck. My fingers only work in that situation. I always wanted to play a Rickenbacker - because John Lennon did. Roger collects extremely fucking rare guitars, and he has a Rickenbacker. But I can't play it. So, normally, I've used [the Red Special] for everything. The only other exception is "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" [The Game], where they forced me to use an ancient Telecaster that was lying around Musicland [recording studio] in Munich.

GW: What do you mean they "forced" you to use it?

MAY: Ah, [producer] Mack forced me. I told him, "Look, I can do this with my guitar, because the bridge pickup has certain tones that sound like a Telecaster." And he went, "You want it to sound like a Telecaster, use a Telecaster!"

GW: This may be a naive question, but what was your inspiration for writing "Fat Bottomed Girls"?

MAY: I could give you a glib answer, couldn't I? But I think the chorus just popped into my head as a tune and a set of words. Same as "Tie Your Mother Down" did. I didn't know what the hell "Tie Your Mother Down" was supposed to mean, off the top of my head. But it became something that meant something: a teenage rebellion song. And "Fat Bottomed Girls" became a song about the girls who help the spirits of the performers backstage, I suppose. The groupies or whatever. In light of what we were saying before about Freddie's sexual orientation, I remember thinking, "Freddie's going to have to sing this and I'm going to write it so you can take it anyway you like. You can be into anything and this would still make sense." And I remember thinking, "This is kind of interesting: Why does everybody love casual sex with people that they otherwise wouldn't want to be with? Why does that mean so much to them? Where does it come from?" So some of the words are about things that people will possibly remember from their youth. I saw a smile when Freddie was singing it, but we never talked about it. We didn't with our songs. Odd, isn't it? You'd think we would talk about our lyrics with each other, but we never did. It was kind of an unwritten law that you really didn't explain your lyrics to the other guys. But I wanted Freddie to be comfortable with it. And it's a fun song. But I still wonder how Freddie felt about it. I don't know if he knew that I wrote things to make it fun for him too. Delicate ground, isn't it?

GW: It's wonderful the way you married that lyric to a very folksy melody. It's almost like some old folk ballad - this character telling the story of the loss of his innocence at an early age.

MAY: It's a sort of swamp atmosphere, isn't it? I love that. I have a great affection for that song. And I played it in my own way when I was touring with Cozy and the boys. [The late drummer Cozy Powell anchored May's live band for the past five years.] And the girls enjoy it. The girls who sang with me enjoyed it. They were not fat-bottomed. But they're definitely girls. I mean, there's loads I could say here, But that's probably enough for now.

GW: If Freddie hadn't died, do you think Queen would have continued?

MAY: I think so. I think we would be taking breaks, but I think we would have been soldiering on. And it probably would have been fun. But I think we all needed some kind of release from Queen. Along with the grief at Freddie's death, I did feel a certain sense of release. Because it's nice in some ways to be chucked out on your own. You have to find new ways of expressing yourself. And I've enjoyed that. I've enjoyed propelling myself down the road of singing. It's become one of the most important things that I try to do. But I think yes, if Queen were still there in the background, we would be coming back to it again and again. Because it was always stimulating to work with Freddie. Along with the difficulties of having to share the power, which we all felt, there was a certain magic there. The four of us had a balance. We were a real group. There was a great strength in the band.
END.

NEWS OF THE WORLD
BRIAN MAY CONTINUES TO ROCK IN THE ROYAL TRADITION WITH A NEW SOLO ALBUM, ANOTHER WORLD

"I go through major crises every few months," sighs Brian May. "But then I have great peaks of belief and creativity. I'm a weird kind of animal." The guitarist is talking about the six-year process that went into the making of his new album. Another World (Hollywood). The disc takes May's trademark guitar harmonies to some exotic new places and contains some of his most aggressive. impressive fretwork to date. May's vocal skills, a keystone of the Queen sound, are in ample evidence on the new disc. tackling a broader stylistic range than ever before. Although May slows the pace for a ballad or two. Another World is generally more of a heavy rock album than his first solo effort, Back to the Light [1992 UK, '93 US], and more of a departure from Queen than his previous solo work.

"Yeah. I feel like I'm getting somewhere new," he modestly declares. "in my heart I do. There are a number of strides I've taken. Although it's not always easy."

May originally conceived the album as a collection of cover songs. Seeking to reinvent himself by going back to his roots. he recorded tunes by such longtime personal heroes as Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley and the late Irish guitarist Rory Gallagher. But after some rigorous "pruning," as May puts it. only three covers made it onto the final album. May and his band blast through a stomping rendition of Larry Williams' "Slow Down," a song that became a garage band standard in the early Sixties after the Beatles recorded it. There's also a rousing rendition of Mott the Hoople's "All the Way From Memphis" - with a theatrical cameo from May's old friend and former Mott leader Ian Hunter - and a reverent reading of Jimi Hendrix's "One Rainy Wish."

After much soul searching, May decided that the majority of the new release should be comprised of his own compositions. A loose overall theme to the album was provided unexpectedly by a side project: the song "Another World," which May wrote for the film Sliding Doors. The ballad also became the title track for the guitarist's album. "I realized that this film assignment had wrenched out of me, virtually in one night. the whole theme of what my album should be about," he says. "I looked at all the lyrics to all the songs I'd been doing and it all made sense to me. The whole album is about this other world that I never manage to find. A better kind of truth and a better way of me relating to the world. In writing some of the songs on the album, like 'Wilderness.' I felt it was such a long way away. And writing 'On My Way Up' I felt it was almost touchable."

Another song originally written for the screen turned out to be a spot-on showcase for another of May's old friends, Jeff Beck. "The Guv'nor," Brian explains, was a tune he wrote for "a film about a bare-knuckle boxer. A true story. An English guy. Rather an unsavory character, actually. A very scary kind of guy, who basically rose from the gutter because of his ability with his fists. The film didn't get made because they ran out of money. But I had this song. And I started thinking this would apply to Jeff. Because Jeff, in our world. is the guy on the block who's scary, He's someone you don't mess with. You don't even try to play his stuff. He is the Guv'nor: the standard by which you judge yourself. I think a lot of us view him that way. And there came a moment when I plucked up enough courage to ring him up and say, 'What do you think, Jeff? Do you fancy being the Guv'nor?' I explained the idea to him. played him the track. and he loved it. He thought it would he a good laugh.

"So he came down and played. He did fantastic things right off, and instinctively went for it. And I loved it. But he said, 'Brian, it's okay; but I don't think it's quite right. I don't think I've quite collared it yet. Let me take it away and listen to it for a while and I'll do you some better stuff.' About a year later I phoned him up and said, 'Jeff? How you feel about that thing? Did you get round to doing it?' He said. 'Ah, no. But it's in my mind. The right moment is gonna come.' And sure enough. about two days before we had to deliver this album to EMI [May's UK label], I got the tapes back, which had all kinds of brilliant stuff on them."

The song is meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek. explains Brian, who can be heard singing lyric lines like "It licks could kill we'd all be dead." as Beck tears the roof off. Says May. "I actually have a rough mix of the song with Jeff's first stuff on it, which is quite interesting. At that point, it was more sort of a duel between me and him, But he just came up with so much brilliant stuff, I wanted to put it all on there. So it's mainly Jeff on guitar, except for rhythm parts."

May gets his own licks in elsewhere, notably on "Cyborg," a tour de force of two-handed tapping that also features Foo Fighter Taylor Hawkins on drums. May's blinding arpeggio work takes on the dangerous robotic perfection of the title character. It's hard to distinguish his guitar from a synth at points.

"Actually. that part started life as a synth," he says. "It's a song I wrote on a computer, using a sort of synth guitar. It was a quick job I did for a computer game. And it obviously cried out to be a proper guitar thing, so I went for it. These days I'm using my fingers to pick more. Because there are a lot of things you can do by plucking the strings in different directions. And it also links into tapping, because your right hand isn't holding a pick, so it's free to go up on the fretboard. I'm not heavily into tapping, but there are certain things you can do where the [right hand] finger can also hit a fret and get little transition notes, which can be really nice."

As always, May played his venerable Red Special - the guitar that he built as a teenager with his dad and which has been with him ever since. "But actually, for the very first time, I didn't use it for all of the album," says May. "Because, toward the end of the project, I took it to bits, working with this guy Greg Fryer, who is a master craftsman. It's the first time I've taken any steps to do any restoration on my guitar in 30 years. We ceremoniously undid the single screw that is the only thing that holds the neck onto the body. And that was the first time in 30 years that I saw the inside of this thing that my dad and I had worked away at all those years ago. It was quite an emotional moment. It's always a great link with my dad, who I lost about ten years ago. I always feel this guitar has a lot of him in it.

"The binding was starting to fall off the guitar and was stuck on with sticky tape. And of course sweat starts to get in when that happens. It was very pitted. Lots of stuff had happened to the front and back. The neck had a few bangs. There were things that were still working, but I feel that in another month it would have been irreparable. So Greg restored everything with great care, millimeter by millimeter. And my guitar's back together now, I think better than ever.

"What persuaded me to do the restoration was that Greg made me a copy - in fact three copies - of my guitar. He used the same wood, glue, and paint. We went through my dad's workshop, which is still there, and found a lot of things we needed. So I used the new guitars for some things on my album, and after a while I'd forgotten I wasn't using my own guitar. It's amazing."

Sessions for Another World took place in the studio on the second floor of May's home, Allerton Hill. He played most of the instruments himself, although his longtime touring bassist, Neil Murray, crops up on several tracks, along with a handful of other seasoned players. Drumming on most tracks was handled by the late, great Cozy Powell, who died in an automobile accident shortly after the album was completed. He had been a member of May's touring hand the last five years of his life. Another World was Powell's final project.

"It was a horrible shock," says May of the drummer's death. "Cozy would come around very often when I was making this record, and just give me a spark and take things to a higher level. It's unbelievable that he's not around anymore. I'm thankful that we finished the album, and that he heard it and loved it. He left me a message saying he thought it was even more brilliant than he'd imagined, and that he couldn't wait to take it out an the road."
END.

THE BIG RED ONE
BRIAN MAY'S HOMEMADE RED SPECIAL GUITAR

Brian May designed and built his Red Special guitar when he was a teenager, and it has been his main guitar ever since. He played it on every Queen album and tour, as well as on his numerous side projects and two solo albums, Back to the Light and his latest, Another World.

Brian and his dad began work on the Red Special in 1962 and took two years to complete it. "I was 17 when it was finished," he recalls. "I knew I wanted a guitar that would sing and have warmth to it but also a nice articulating edge. We tried to design a solidbody guitar that had all the advantages of a hollowbody - the ability to feed back in just the right way."

The Red Special is a masterpiece of inventive domestic craftsmainship. The source of the spring in the vibrato tailpiece was a motorcycle kickstand, while the oak body came from a 500-year-old fireplace mantel. The massive neck - Brian's got big hands - contributes to the Red Special's trademark warm sustain. So does the unique switching system that May designed for the instrument's three single-coil Burns pickups. Each pickup has its own on/off switch and phase switch, making it possible to effect a broad spectrum of tones.

"It's very well-suited to that violin sort of tone that I use to build up 'guitar orchestras,'" says May. "That sound was a dream from childhood - I could hear it in my head."
END.