Back from the USA

Isn’t he the pretty one? He thinks he is anyway. So does Genevieve Hall so she couldn’t resist the temptation to have a chat with the lovely Roger about Queen’s American tour.

IT WAS within a week of completing their strenuous British tour in April, that Queen flew straight over to the States in order to begin their first ever tour over there.

Unfortunately for them their lead guitarist Brian May became seriously ill with hepatitis and the band were flown back to England leaving behind a month of dates yet uncompleted.

I spoke on the phone to their lovely drummer Roger Meadows Taylor who was adjusting himself to the fact that momentarily the lads could actually take things easy and ponder on their achievements over the past few months.

“Why aren’t you speaking with an American accent then? (By the way I forgot to mention it was going to be one of THOSE phone calls.)

“We weren’t there long enough were we?”

Oh of course not. Come on tell us how your trip to the States was?

“You really want to know? Sure we do. Well it was fab, great, smashing. Yes, seriously nice. I sort of came in contact with had to be inoculated. It’s liver disease you get from eating dodgy cooker appliances didn’t really agree with Brian.”

“Do you ever know when that guy’s kidding or not? Have you any plans for making a return visit?”

“Yes, we’re going back in September and doing about twenty dates, in all the places we thought suited us the best.”

Did you have to change your stage act in any way?

“No, not really, but then for Roger Meadows Taylor, how did it really go? Was it exciting and full of eastern promise?”

“I am being serious,” says he, “it turned out really great, it was amazing.”

I’ll accept that, so how was the first gig in Denver Colorado?

“We were on the same bill as Mott, and that first gig went down better than we’d expected, so at least that was encouraging. What made it even nicer was that the kids knew a lot of our songs and sang along with us.”

So Mott was headlining the tour – were all your dates with them?

“They weren’t supposed to be, but as it turned out all the dates we did were with Mott. We weren’t the support band as such – we were listed as guest stars! We had planned to be touring the West Coast for a month without Mott, but because of Brian catching hepatitis we had to forget about it. It was a real drag, we were all looking forward to going to California.”

Is it contagious – hepatitis?

“Very, half the people we came in contact with had to be inoculated. It’s liver disease you get from eating dodgy oysters.”

On stage act is always changing, we’re always thinking of new things to do, and ways of improving it. We did a lot of stuff from both our albums – Freddie pranced around, it all went down pretty well.”

What about the WHAT? Flippin’ cheek! No, I must confess the first night on Broadway was pretty mint but when you consider that it was mostly people from the business – press and things – and you know how cool THEY are?

So now that you’re back here in the jolly UK what do you plan on doing with yourselves?

“Take a long holiday – we can’t really do much until Brian gets better anyway. Although we are writing some new material for an album which is due out next summer.”

“Tell him from me,” says Roger, “that this one’s gonna take TEN MONTHS to record – we’re doing it quickly!”