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dirty and ‘ Killer Queen ’ was the lightest and cleanest track on it . But when I heard it on the radio I thought , ‘ It ’ s a well-made record and I ’ m proud of it . So it doesn ’ t really matter .’ Plus , it was a hit so f *** it ! A hit is a hit is a hit .” ( Marie Antoinette would most likely have approved .)
What “ Killer Queen ” also did was reinforce the idea that the sound May was getting with his self-built Red Special guitar would be difficult for anyone else to replicate . “ That ’ s partly an accident because me and my dad ( Harold May ) made the guitar together and I found the amplifier ,” May explains referring to the Vox AC-30 amp the Red Special went through . “ I had this sound in my head and I knew I wanted it to be like a voice . So there was some planning involved , but realIy , I was lucky I found it . I suppose I had a slight doubt in the beginning that maybe it was a littIe too mellow or something ; but it was sounding different than everybody else .
I suppose if it hadn ’ t worked out , I would have kept looking for something that worked .”
May ’ s chemistry with Mercury was always quite palpable on record . “ I ’ ve got to say with Freddie I always felt there was something in the way of electricity happening . There are some moments on tape that I am proud of even though they are not the great virtuoso moments ,” May acknowledges .
“ For instance ,” he continues , “ When we did ‘ We Are the Champions ’ ( from 1977 ’ s News of the World ), I had done the guitar for that one fairly early on . Everyone said , ‘ That ’ s fine .’ Normally , the person who wrote the song did the mix and that was the case in this instance . While Freddie was mixing the thing , I took a cassette tape of it home halfway through the process and the plan was they were going to finish it off in the morning .”
“ Killer Queen ” by Queen
28 GUITAR TRICKS INSIDER DIGITAL EDITION MAY / JUNE