Roger Taylor’s original plans for 2020 forced him to spend the night of June 29 playing drums with Queen and Adam Lambert at the 15,000-seat Olympiahalle in Munich, Germany, as part of his ongoing Rhapsody world tour. Instead, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he spent that night watching Netflix documentaries. Trump: an American dream and Magnetic. For much of the confinement, she has divided her time between her two homes in England, but she is currently in Croatia with other members of her family.
“I have a boat and I managed to get on it and I am in the middle of the Mediterranean,” he says, “which has managed to have almost no COVID. We are very fortunate to be there. We managed to escape. It is a beautiful and underrated country.”
Taylor telephoned Rolling Stone to talk about his life during the closure, his new solo song “Isolation”, Brian May’s condition after a heart attack, the small chance of a Bohemian Rhapsody sequel, Bob Dylan’s new album, and when can you imagine retiring.
How has your quarantine been?
I am one of the lucky ones. We have a beach house in Cornwall which is the south west corner of the UK. We have a lot of space there and it wasn’t that bad. But as for everyone, it was a strange, worrying and anxiety-filled experience. We just didn’t know what was going to happen next, and we’re still in that position.
Your life changed very fast. You had just toured Australia when this hit.
We were very lucky. We had been there just before the pandemic. We had the most incredible tour. When we got home, it all happened. We were very lucky there, but unfortunately we had to cancel our European tour for this year. We postpone and we will do it next year. Many things are on hold now. It will be a while before we return to normal.
Are you able to relax at home and enjoy this slower pace of life, or are you going crazy?
I did not go crazy. But I can understand people who live in apartments or in an urban environment in a city doing that. That would be very difficult for me. I was able to get out and get close to the sea without getting close to anyone. We were lucky. But he really sympathized with anyone who was trapped in apartments and skyscrapers without being able to go out and socialize. I think the hardest part was not knowing how this was going to turn out. That was worrying.
Tell me the back story of your new song “Isolation”.
I have a little drum kit in my basement in our vacation home here. I just started giving Instagram beginner lessons, telling them the little tricks and things that they will never tell you if you take formal lessons, really simple things. Formal instrument lessons seem to do it the wrong way. I was doing that and I was sitting in my garden shed and I was thinking, “Here we are isolated. I should write a song about it and see if people connect with it, as a lot of people are going through the same thing. “
Do you play all the instruments?
Oh yeah. I like to play everything because then it’s just you. Everything is your fault.
How did you record it?
When I returned to my house in Surrey, which is close to London, I have a studio there. I went in and left it. That was after those nine weeks when we were allowed to travel. People seem to like it a lot, which is nice. It was largely an improvisation, just a total reaction to circumstances.
I was thinking about how it affected everyone. It is not the same, but it affected everyone. It seems like a lot of people ignore it now and I think a lot of people will suffer from it.
Thinking of writing more songs and possibly making another solo album?
I’ve had a few things online in the past five years or so. I have a small collection of songs that I would like to publish sometime. When you have enough, it would be good.
One of the things in the running that I really enjoyed is the Bob Dylan production. It was great to hear him back in the room. I love your new album. The songs he released one by one, “I Contain Multitudes” and “Murder Most Foul”, are fantastic. It really really gave me a lot of pleasure during those weeks.
Do you miss being on stage? Do you miss the rush of a live audience?
We’ve already done quite a big tour in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea just this year. I still don’t miss it, but we have a pretty big tour of Europe reserved for next year. It will happen on exactly the same dates, assuming everyone goes to shows and concerts. We all have our fingers crossed by a vaccine. We will see.
Would you feel comfortable playing on stage if there is no vaccine at that time?
If there is no vaccine, I’m not sure what will happen. I will feel comfortable if I feel that the risk to people in the audience is non-existent or very low. I wouldn’t be surprised if people wear masks in a year. We’ll see. Like everyone else, I don’t know.
I saw the show at Madison Square Garden last year. There was so much energy and love in that room. The movie really seemed to give them a big boost. I’m not sure you’ve had a larger American audience.
I think that is correct, judging from the last tour. I was totally exhausted. It was really gratifying for us. I think we have a new infusion of younger fans who saw the movie and enjoyed it. They had probably heard some of our music at sporting events, or whatever, but they weren’t entirely sure who we were. We are very grateful to be able to skip generations.
Adam seems to get more and more confident with each tour. I’m sure you feel it on stage.
Absolutely. It is a pleasure to work with him. Incredible voice. Incredible professional. And a great sense of humor, which always makes it more fun for us on stage. I can’t imagine doing it with anyone else now. He is great. It has been a joy.
It is as if you traveled the planet and found the best person to do that job.
We don’t even scrub, really. It just happened. He has this gift. He has this fantastic charisma on stage, kind of like this Elvis thing. It’s like Camp Elvis instead of Camp David. He is great. I can’t say enough good things. He is also a great friend and neighbor to Los Angeles.
How is Brian? I know I had some scary medical problems.
So is. We canceled the tour and then Brian got very sick. We may have had to cancel it anyway, which is irony. It is very much under repair. We are in daily contact. It was quite a scare. I had a real scare. It was strange. They beat us twice. Our manager also had a fairly significant heart attack. It has been a very strange year for us in many ways.
I spoke to Brian shortly before he got sick. She said there was talk of a Bohemian Rhapsody sequel, but you decided not to. Was there any idea you were pitching for it?
I have to say no. I really think we need to sit down for a year or two and look at things and see if that’s something credible or credible. The film was a great success. We were delighted, obviously. But I think I don’t want to be seen as charging again. You would have to have a very, very good script and setting for that to work. Right now, I can’t think of a way to make a sequel.
However, the last tour with Freddie in 1986 and the last years of his life were very dramatic and eventful.
That’s true. That is post-Live Aid. If someone comes up with a great plan, maybe we’ll think about it.[[[[Laughs]Right now, we are very happy with what the film did. There are so many sequels that don’t match the original. There are obvious yes, but in general, I think that it is a dangerous territory.
You must be surprised that the first one brought them to the Oscars. Not many people saw that coming.
It was extraordinary. There were the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs and then the Oscars! We thought, “Hey, we’ll take it!” It was a great trip, but it was not our world. Our world is the world of rock & roll. It was fascinating and very interesting to participate. When the film won four Oscars, it took a while to assimilate. Mind you, they didn’t give me or Brian. That is fine, however.
How many more years do you expect to continue touring? I think of Charlie Watts. He is almost a decade older than you and is still behind the kit.
He is amazing. Good for Charlie! Brian and I talk about this a lot. We say, “Hey, look, we enjoy it more now than before.” We realize that that is what we did and that we are good at. The unspoken agreement between the two is that we will do it as long as we can do it right and we really love doing it. When any of those things stop happening, we will stop.
These are songs that really need to be played live. I can’t think of any other band whose music translates to a stage like that.
That’s very true. We really trust the love and participation of the audience. We want them to come together and feel part of the whole show. That’s something we’ve developed over the years and it became part of our DNA, audience engagement.
I really hope that the 2021 tour can happen. As soon as I can go back into a stadium or stadium and see Queen for sure, I will feel that the pandemic is over.
It would, when the live venues reopen properly and people can be together en masse. That will be a great mental step forward. I really hope it happens next year. It is in the lap of the gods, if you believe in them.
