Queen legend tears into Donald Trump in brutal new tune | Music | Entertainment | EUROtoday

A couple of weeks in the past, Queen followers had been thrilled to find an unique tune had quietly launched on the band’s official YouTube channel. Featuring no footage, only a jet black background, the husky vocals of the band’s drummer pulled no punches together with his phrases: “A man of no morality of no real quality… We’re drowning in your lies”.

The particular person Roger Taylor was referring to in his no-holds-barred lyrics from his new solo single, Chumps, is none aside from US President Donald Trump.

“We get force-fed this orange maniac daily,” he says in the present day in his smoky voice, talking on the telephone from his private studio at his nation pile. “Virtually everything he says is a lie, an untruth or an exaggeration, and he just seems to daily compound his maniacal monstrousness. I mean, he’s just the most awful person.”

Now 76, Taylor has no qualms sharing his blunt views in regards to the present occupier of the White House. “I’m just a musician, but you’ve got to say what you think sometimes,” he continues. “I just find it incredible that we’re in the position of this man being the most powerful, deluded person in the entire world. It’s weird, so I just wanted to say it. It just sort of came out. It was very quick. I can’t even remember doing it, actually!”

His disdain for the forty fifth and forty seventh US president dates again so far as the Eighties when he was recognized merely as a brash businessman. Did the Queen ever meet Trump again then?

Roger baulks. “No, I always thought he was an awful, creepy man. He was horrible, even before he was a TV host [Trump hosted the US version of The Apprentice reality show]. He’s just full of bile, really, isn’t he? Avaricious, so full of his self-regard. Yeah, what a monster, incredible what he gets away with, I can’t believe it.”

So disliked is Trump by some artists that he has confronted a number of cease-and-decease orders for utilizing well-known pop songs at his rallies over the previous decade, Queen included. At the 2016 Republican National Convention, the long run president entered the stage to Freddie Mercury’s We Are The Champions. “He came poncing on to it,” remembers the drummer, “I saw it on the news and was horrified. I thought people might think we actually support him. The last thing you want is to be seen as supporting this pig of a man. Shameless!”

As a band, Queen hasn’t been fairly as blunt politically as Roger together with his new single, or Sir Brian May together with his animal rights campaigning. But over their 21 years along with Freddie Mercury and John Deacon as a quartet, they utilized the identical daring, audacious angle of their artistic endeavours.

Most well-known of all their tracks is Freddie’s Bohemian Rhapsody, a six-minute suite, mixing genres stuffed with made-up phrases – met with bemusement from their document label, and bafflement by their critics. Yet, the extremely bold monitor topped the UK Singles’ Chart for 9 weeks and have become Britain’s third best-selling single of all time.

But the dangers Queen took with Bohemian Rhapsody and their 1975 album A Night on the Opera discovered their roots, with their signature harmonies and diverse musical types, a few albums earlier, in one of many band’s lesser-known information, Queen II.

The band in the present day launches a remixed, remastered and expanded model of their second studio album, which – though extensively praised a long time on – likewise suffered the identical destiny as Bohemian Rhapsody within the preliminary critiques.

“We got so lacerated,” sighs Sir Brian May, on Zoom from his house that’s “not too far from Roger” lately. “We were pulled to pieces by the critics for this album. You try not to let it affect you, but it does… That was always very uncomfortable, but we felt like it was us against the world.”

Asked if it was make or break for the band at this stage of their profession, the 78-year-old responds: “We get lost in the music. We don’t do it because we want to make money or we want to be superstars. We do it because we somehow have to do it. So there is a sort of settlement in that. But at the same time, yeah, you’re aware that outside the door, there’s people [on the business side of things] waiting to bite your heels off.”

Nevertheless, in contrast to their self-titled debut, which they’ve beforehand remixed and remastered, Queen had been rather more accountable for their very own future when recording their follow-up, as soon as once more at Soho’s Trident Studios.

Freddie as soon as stated of Queen II, “I wanted to give it everything – to be self-indulgent. But the whole band in particular, we don’t go in for half-measures and I’m pretty hard with myself. There are no compromises… My God, we were such impatient boys… ”

For the guitarist, Queen II was the only largest leap the band ever made. “The first album was really difficult and we couldn’t really get what we wanted because of being forced into this kind of template of the Trident Studios sounds. We were still fighting some battles, but we were starting to win. We were precocious but quite consistent.”

Considered by many followers to be Queen’s heaviest document, the unique LP was break up into Side White and Side Black with a basic theme working all through. Kicking off with Side White dominated by Brian’s extra emotional tracks like Father to Son and White Queen, to Side Black with Freddie’s darkish fantasy-themed songs from Ogre Battle and The March of the Black Queen (which Brian sees as a forerunner to Bohemian Rhapsody) to Seven Seas of Rhye, which might grow to be Queen’s first hit.

“We were much more in control”, remembers Roger, “It was a big step from Queen I in terms of complexity and studio technique, which we were learning quite quickly. We were much more confident having done the debut. We knew what we wanted it to sound like, especially with the drums.”

Unlike later Queen albums, Freddie did not sing lead vocals on each monitor, with Brian and Roger doing so on a few their very own songs, together with the drummer’s groovy finale of Side White, The Loser within the End.

Reflecting on their frontman’s improvement as a singer, Roger admitted, “Freddie was great, but hadn’t really developed that amazing technique that he had yet. There was a lot of competition there [when it came to lyrics]. Strange thing is, in the 80s Freddie sort of slackened off on his songwriting.”

Brian remembers the Queen singer was often the primary individual to say if another person’s vocals suited the monitor higher. “In some cases, we argued and talked about and tried things out, and all sorts of different results happened. Usually, I felt, after trying it myself and trying it with Freddie, I would say, ‘Look, Freddie, you’ve made this into something greater than it was. So off you go, do it.’ And of course, as the years went on, we all got better at writing for Freddie.

“So by the time I’m writing Fat Bottomed Girls, I’m writing it specifically for Freddie, with some experience behind me, and I know what he can do. I know what he can bring to it, so I’m encouraging it. So I think you’ll find I sing less on the later Queen albums. And Roger too, because we had this wonderful singer in Freddie. Why wouldn’t you use him the whole time? You just have to learn to give him the right stuff.”

Of course, for over a decade now, Adam Lambert has been belting out Freddie’s vocals for Queen’s live performances. But the band haven’t performed since closing their Rhapsody Tour in Tokyo over two years ago.

Brian suffered a minor stroke in August 2024 and, while having fully recovered, has been enjoying time with grandchildren aside from the odd one-off gig, like a Benson Boone concert cameo or when he and Roger performed Bohemian Rhapsody with an orchestra for the song’s 50th anniversary at the Last Night of the Proms last year.

Roger, on the other hand, would love to get back out there. “I don’t feel similarly. I always love touring and was always happy to do it. I love my grandchildren, but I don’t want to give up my life in order to be with them. I think that’s their parents’ job… What a horrible thought!” the drummer chortled cheekily. “I’m very lucky. I have a lovely house, but I don’t want to be in it all the time. I’m still in the world and like to get about. So I would certainly not be averse to playing again.”

Sharing Roger’s feelings with Brian, the guitar legend responded, “I also have loved touring over the years, and I’m very grateful for it. It’s been a fantastic thread to our lives. But at the moment, although I love playing live, I don’t feel that I want to be away for months on end at this point in my life, it may change. I’m not saying I’m retiring. I’m just saying right now, I don’t feel like I want to.”

Whatever the case, the show must go on, as Queen are already thinking about the band’s life beyond their own. The band has been in talks for an ABBA Voyage-style show that could be in the Las Vegas Sphere or elsewhere. “Since the ABBA show, technology has come on in massive leaps,” said Roger. “It could be done seriously well. It’s very difficult to know exactly what to do and I don’t want to screw it up.” Whatever the future holds, one thing’s certain: the crown’s not coming off anytime soon.

Queen II remixed, remastered and expanded is out now and will be ordered right here.