Brian May: Freddie’s final beautiful blessing and why Bohemian Rhapsody critics are wrong

Brian is currently rallying his “Bri-army” of fans to promote the rerelease of his 1992 debut solo album, Back To The Light. This year also marks the fiftieth anniversary of the formation of Queen. During a new interview this week, the rock legend opened up about how the band was first and foremost a “family”, as well as revealing the painful split with his own father. Brian talked about how Freddie gave him his blessing in their final conversations and how the pain and “immense grief” of losing their band member drove them apart. SCROLL DOWN TO WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW

Freddie’s health declined throughout 1988 and 1989, although he was still determined to keep recording, working on the band’s final album with him, Innuendo. At that time, Brian had been working on his own material, including the song Driven By You. 

Brian told Planet Rock : “I had Driven By You at that time, and I offered that to Freddie. I said, ‘Do you want to sing this?‘ because he liked it. And he said, ‘Brian, you’re singing just great. Moreover, I realise where you’re going, you mustn’t feel embarrassed about this because I’m not gonna be around here for that much longer. You have to sort your solo career out and this is a good place to start.’

“I kind of got Freddie’s blessing for putting out Back To The Light as solo record at that point, and it was nice because it gave me a springboard to get out there and do my stuff once Freddie did go.”

READ MORE: Freddie Mercury girlfriend Mary Austin: Does Mary own Freddie’s house?

Freddie passed away on November 24, 1991, and Brian speaks candidly of the impact it had on himself and Roger Taylor. John Deacon, of course, would never fully return to the band and retired in 1997. 

Brian said: “It was horrendous. All I wanted to do is go away. And I think if you talk to Roger, he’ll tell you the same thing. We just couldn’t deal with it. The only way to go forward was to deny Queen, get away from that and not talk about it because the grief was immense.

“Queen was our whole lives, it was our family. Like you see in the Bohemian Rhapsody movie, there was a lot going on, but the fundamental truth is – we were a family.”

The film had been criticised for taking liberties with timelines and also only showing Freddie breaking away to work on his solo career, apparently abandoning his bandmates.

Brian and Roger have previously explained that these were artistic licenses to fit years of history into a single film but in the new interview he stresses the powerful bonds between the four of them.

He said: “We all went to go off and do our separate things because families do that, and the theme of the movie is Freddie doing that, but the ending is he has to come back because he has to come back to his family…

“So when Freddie came back to us, it was very warmly and with a massive amount of new energy, which you actually do see in a film, there was a lot of truth in that.”

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Brian also draws a powerful parallel with what was happening in his own life with his own family: “It’s a bit like me and my dad – you go off and you think you can be very strong on your own but you actually need your family.”

The star’s father had been very unhappy when he left his studies to pursue a future with the band and Brian revealed just how devastating the family split had been at the time.

He said: “It was very serious. He couldn’t get used to this idea that I was throwing away my education, as he saw it, to go and be a ‘pop star.’ He just couldn’t swallow it. He said, ‘Brian, I gave up my life to get you the proper education so you could get a proper job.’ He imagined me being a scientist. He didn’t speak to me for about 18 months, it was really tough, very hard. And my mum had a nervous breakdown because she was trying to please both of us, she wanted us to come together, and it really broke her heart that we had that going on. It was a serious family thing.

The family rift was healed when Brian invited his parents to come and see Queen play at Madison Square Gardens in New York.

Brian said: “My dad came up to me after the show, shook my hand, and said, ‘OK, I get it now.’ A big moment for me – because you want approval from them.

“The parental disapproval thing can spur you on, I think it did. I was very determined because of my dad’s disapproval. But the fact that he came and gave me his blessing was a very big deal for me.”