Queen's Brian May recalls one of Freddie Mercury's "grand" ideas that the rest of the band vetoed

27 March 2025, 10:00

Queen in 1973. Picture: Michael Putland/Getty Images

By Jenny Mensah

The Queen guitarist has remembered the time when the late frontman has an idea about what to name an album.

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Brian May has looked back at one of Freddie Mercury's "grand ideas" that the band didn't agree with.

The legendary Queen guitarist has reminisced about working with the late frontman in a new interview and how sometimes his ideas were completely "off the wall," but other times they were much more pedestrian.

"Deep down Freddie was one of the shyest people I've ever met," he told Queen biographer Mark Blake in the latest issue of MOJO magazine. "But he was so full of bluster, you'd forget. Freddie would always be excited, and his excitement would take over. He'd be so full of excitement he could hardly speak.

He went on: "Freddie’s ideas were off the wall and cheeky and different — and we tended to encourage them. Sometimes the idea he brought in was brilliant, and sometimes not brilliant."

May went on to describe one such occasion where Mercury wanted to call what was to be Queen's 1989 album The Miracle something with far less gravitas, but the rest of the band - completed by bassist John Deacon and drummer Roger Taylor - steered him away from the idea.

“He came in one day and announced, ‘I’ve got this amazing idea. You know Michael Jackson has just put out this album called Bad? Well, listen… What do you think about us calling our next album Good?’

"We all looked at each other and said, ‘Well, maybe we should think about it, Freddie'," the guitarist recalls. "It wasn’t one of his world-shattering ideas, but looking back, maybe we were wrong..."

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Despite being responsible for some of Queen's most famous songs, Brian May admitted he was always nervous to put forward his ideas.

"Every time I brought a new song to the boys I’d be as nervous as hell, thinking, 'They’re gonna say it’s rubbish, they’re gonna hate it'.” he told the outlet. “I’d always be embarrassed and apologising. That never ever went away.”

It still remains to be seen whether Queen will release new music, but May has made the prospect look more hopeful than ever before.

"I think it could happen,” he tells Blake. "Both Roger [Taylor] and I are constantly writing and coming up with ideas and doing things in our studios.

"I could have the beginnings of a Queen song right there in front of me now. It’s just whether the idea reaches maturity or not. It’s whether that seed can grow.”