Brian May
Brian May
Brian Harold May, CBEis an English musician, singer, songwriter and astrophysicist, best known as the lead guitarist of the rock band Queen. He uses a home-built electric guitar, called the Red Special. His compositions for the band include "We Will Rock You", "Tie Your Mother Down", "I Want It All", "Fat Bottomed Girls", "The Prophet's Song", "Flash", "Hammer to Fall", "Save Me", "Who Wants to Live Forever" and "The Show Must Go On"...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth19 July 1947
CityLondon, England
When we were touring heavily in America, we based ourselves there for a couple of years, but now we're all back here and it seems to be the place.
Doing Made In Heaven was like assembling a jigsaw puzzle, but I wouldn't have put my seal of approval on it if I hadn't thought it was up to standard.
Mantovani was a great influence on me.
You want to go in the steam bath to get your vocals sounding well, but you don't want your fingers to get soft.
Einstein got most of the things right about black holes. I'm not an expert, I must admit
I've always lived in that guitar world. I have noticed kids being more into the real essence of guitar music now.
My big hobby is photography. I collect stereo photographs from the 19th century.
A Queen track has those big, thick, block harmonies.
My children hate me being such a big star. It's very hard for them to have a father who is always in the public eye.
I'm hopeless at playing scales. Try and be instinctive first and analytic afterwords, although it's good to study the theory of music.
Sometimes if the guitar is the last thing to go on, it's very fresh.
What we were trying to do differently was this sort of layered sound.
My mum says I wanted to be a surgeon, but I don't remember that. I think from the time I knew what was happening, I wanted to be a guitar player.
I think Hammer's very cool: he has a great voice and great presence.