Freddie Mercury - Freddie Mercury : his life in his own words

Copyright 2008 Omnibus Press
This edition 2011 Omnibus Press
(A Division of Music Sales Limited, 14-15 Berners Street, London W1T 3LJ)

Cover designed by Liz Barrand
Cover photograph: Mercury Songs Ltd
Design: Richard Gray

EISBN: 978-0-85712-741-9

The Author hereby asserts his / her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with Sections 77 to 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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For Freddie Mercury
Lover of Life, Singer of Songs

If Freddie had been alive to participate in this book, he would have had to endure days of tedious interviews with a ghost-writer; another stranger struggling to cajole new insights, who would then have gone away and written a book in Freddies name. In all likelihood, Freddie would have had neither the inclination nor patience for such an exercise and would soon have lost focus. Freddie hated being bored. With these things in mind, and of course due to Freddies absence, this book is different in two significant ways.

Firstly, the material herein has been compiled not from just a few days with Freddie, but from interviews spanning 20 years, and myriad sources. The thoughts and opinions he offers are not from one specific time in his life, but from the whole of his professional career. Naturally his outlook and views changed significantly as he got older, and over time these changes are reflected. Freddies comments on such topics as personal relationships, the other Queen members, songwriting, his private life and plans for the future, altered dramatically over two decades, and thus certain extracts of the text may seem contradictory. This would surely be true of all of us if 20 years of our life were suddenly laid down in print before us.

Secondly, there were no ghost-writers involved in this book. Everything you read will be Freddies own words though sometimes it was necessary to tidy them a little. We have not put words in his mouth, nor taken comments out of context. Also, there are several examples of Freddie changing from the present tense to the past tense, and back again, or the reverse of that, but that was genuinely how he often phrased things, and so that aspect too remains authentic. In parallel to that, we have of course amalgamated comments on the same subjects, from various sources and time frames; sometimes explained by Freddie before the event, and sometimes after it, or even during it the recording of A Night At The Opera, for example. Naturally, therefore, the merging of certain sentences or paragraphs may be less than seamless in terms of tense. We made every effort to remain faithful to Freddies exact words wherever possible and to preserve the integrity of every nuance and sentence though he frequently began a sentence without ever finishing it! Some of what Freddie said was ambiguous, but it was not our place to try and decipher it. Its up to you the reader to interpret Freddies words and draw your own conclusions. That is what we believe he always intended.

Whatever Freddie had to say, wherever he said it, and whatever the reason, most of his words, like his song lyrics, thank goodness, were documented and survive in the archive. A considerable proportion of it has been transcribed for the first time ever for this project, and from this amalgamation of everything, Freddie looms larger than life, as vivid as ever, and demanding your attention. There are moments of humour and irritation, of tenderness and startling candour, moments of seriousness and frivolity, and, with hindsight, there are uncomfortable poignant comments too. Freddie addresses each subject in his inimitable flippant way, like no-one else could, but always with good humour and frankness. This truly is Freddie Mercury in his own words, being everything BUT boring. Never boring!

It has been a privilege to research and compile this book. We hope you enjoy it.

Now, without further delay, and before Freddie loses interest, we will, as he often implored his interrogator Get on with it!

Simon Lupton and Greg Brooks, July 2006

This book is about my boy, Farrokh Bulsara. Of course, he became better known to the world as Freddie Mercury. But through everything he never stopped being a loving and affectionate son and family member.

I miss him hugely, but thanks to his music he is never far away from me. The talent and intelligence of this unique man and much loved son will ensure his memory lives on for generations to come. So I do hope you enjoy reading his own words, for they illuminate the wonderful man he was.

Jer Bulsara

Im not going to be a star, Im going to be a legend!
I want to be the Rudolph Nureyev of rock and roll!

In the beginning I was quite prepared to starve, which I did, and just make a go of it. You have to believe in yourself, no matter how long it takes.

When Queen first formed all of us were aiming for the top slot and we werent going to be content with anything less. You have to have a lot of confidence to get on in this business. Its useless saying that you dont need that. If one starts saying, Maybe Im not good enough, maybe Id better settle for second place, then forget it. We were full of confidence. Youve got to have that. You have to have a kind of arrogance and lots of confidence and absolute determination, as well as all the other obvious skills, like music. Arrogance is a very good thing to have when youre starting, and that means saying to yourselves that youre going to be the number one group, not the number two group. We just had it inside us. We all had a very big ego, as well.

We were so stubborn about it. We wanted people to know that we were a band to be reckoned with. And also we had all these ideas to show originality.

You have to start with something outrageous, thats the best way to actually let the public know that youre on the scene. You have to try and get in the public eye outrage and shock value has always been there. We had our album covers with no clothes on, lots of make-up, black fingernails, and all those things. At that time it was as shocking as anything.

Image is always a very integral part of build-up, I think. Whether its contrived, or whatever, in the end you form your own instincts about it. Its either a gimmick that hasnt worked, or something that you can play upon. Its all strategy. A certain amount of arrogance and ego, its all got to be there.

When we first got our band together I think most people were really shocked because they thought pop groups usually consisted of ex-truck drivers of very little brains, who were fed up with being on the dole and had decided to become top of the pops instead. We were one of the bands who were going to take a piece of the action. We were going to do it. We knew we could do it.