Having teased some massive Queen news on his Instagram, Sir Brian May and Roger Taylor have made a massive announcement today as they spoke of their early days in an insightful and honest interview below.
For the first time ever, a Queen album has received a new stereo mix featuring a new tracklisting, alternative takes, demos and live recordings.
The record in question is the band’s iconic self-titled 1973 debut album, which has been remixed, remastered and expanded as a 6 CD + 1 LP box set collector’s edition that includes 63 tracks with 43 brand new mixes.
Sir Brian notes: “This is not just a remaster. This is a brand new 2024 rebuild of the entire Queen debut album, which, with the benefit of hindsight, we have re-titled QUEEN I.
“All the performances are exactly as they originally appeared in 1973, but every instrument has been revisited to produce the ‘live’ ambient sounds we would have liked to use originally.
“The result is Queen as it would have sounded with today’s knowledge and technology – a first. Queen I is the debut album we always dreamed of bringing to you.”
Looking back on early Queen with Freddie Mercury and John Deacon, Roger shared: “The first three years were really faith and fumes. We were penniless but we had a lot of belief in ourselves and a lot of energy.”
Recording at Soho’s Trident Studios, Sir Brian recalled: “We’d work through the night and usually until 7am when the cleaners came in. It was us just grabbing little bits of time.”
The drummer added: “You know, we just came in there right after Bowie had done Hunky Dory and Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and he did both of those albums back to back, two great albums. So, we were very pleased to be there, but when we were there, we’d arrive at three in the morning and then go on, for all the hours that we could grab. It was just a grind. I wouldn’t say it was soul-destroying because we were quite confident. We had a sort of innate, gentle arrogance, you know, we thought we were good and quite different.”
Despite the opportunity to record their debut album, Queen ran up against the studio’s rules and regulations.
Sir Brian remembered: “Although we had great technology around us, we really didn’t have much freedom to use it. We were regarded as the new boys who didn’t know anything, and nobody really wanted to listen to the way we wanted to do things.”
Roger shared: “They had this very dead drum sound, and it was never the sound we wanted. They had a drum booth, and it was a well known sound. It was kind of American. Very dry, quite fat, dead sound, which is not what I wanted. I wanted to hear the drums resonate, to hear the sound of the drum. I didn’t even have my proper kit in there. It was a bit rough really. So the album never sounded as we wanted it to.”
Sir Brian admitted: “We wanted everything to sound like it was in-your face. We had this incredible fight to get the drums out of the booth and into the middle of the studio and put the mics all around the room. I remember saying to [in-house producer] Roy Thomas Baker, ‘This isn’t really the sound we want,’ and he said, ‘Don’t worry, we can fix it all in the mix.’ And I think we all knew it ain’t going to happen.” Now in 2024, it has been ‘fixed in the mix’.”
The band noted that “crucially, this new 2024 Mix version of Queen I now includes Mad The Swine, a song absent from the original LP after a difference of opinion between the band and one of its producers. It is now reinstated to its rightful place as the album’s fourth song, in between Great King Rat and My Fairy King, just as Queen wanted it to be in 1972.”
To pre-order Queen I for release on October 25, click here.