By 1971, Queen’s final line-up was completed when John Deacon joined Freddie Mercury, Brian May and Roger Taylor in the newly renamed band that was once called Smile.
That December, the band set about recording their demo sessions for what would become their debut self-titled album.
Recorded at London’s De Lane Lea Studios, they put together a demo tape featuring five songs: Keep Yourself Alive, The Night Comes Down, Great King Rat, Jesus and Liar.
Yet despite sending it off to various record labels they only received a low bid from Charisma, which the band declined over concern they would “play second fiddle to Genesis and those other bands”.
Nevertheless, producers John Anthony and Roy Thomas Baker visited the demo recording sessions and were impressed, recommending Queen to Barry and Norman Sheffield who owned Trident Studios.
Since Trident Studios was particularly popular, Queen could only record the fresh takes for their album during the studio’s downtime, which was in the evenings and overnight from April to July 1972.
Celebrating their big break 52 years ago, Roger Taylor posted a picture of Freddie recording The Night Comes Down at De Lane Lea studios in January 1972.
The drummer captioned the post of Brian May’s photo: “So excited to be in an actual professional recording studio for the first time. 52 years ago today.”