Fans already know that Freddie was a talented artist. The Queen frontman studied art and design at college and even created the band’s iconic logo. Both music and art were already passions of the young boy at boarding school in India. His classmates and friends, however, remember he also excelled at something else rather surprising. The picture below shows Freddie as you’ve never seen him before – although it actually links to the way he used to perform on stage…
Although Freddie always referred to his childhood in Zanzibar, he actually spent most of his formative years in India.
His parents sent him to live with relatives at a young age and he enrolled at St. Peter’s School, a British-style boarding school for boys, in Panchgani, a small hill station outside Bombay. The area was known for housing many prestigious boarding schools.
While he was there, Freddie was part of a band, the Hectics, formed by classmate Bruce Murray.
In a recent interview with the original members of the band and other schoolmates, they described one of Freddie’s other great passions.
READ MORE: Freddie Mercury met David Bowie BEFORE he was famous and did THIS
Band member Victory Rana said: “He (Freddie) was very much of a loner. Happiest when he was playing the piano, or in the art school.
“But he was also a good sportsman – hockey, athletics, boxing…”
Bruce Murray added: “I remember a boxing match where Freddie was really getting hammered in the ring, and we all kept telling him to concede the fight.
“But, no. Freddie insisted on fighting on till the end, with blood all over his face. He could be very tenacious.”
SCROLL DOWN TO SEE AN AMAZING PICTURE OF FREDDIE IN THE RING
Another formed Hectics member Farang Irani also remembered the group’s local success:
He said: “We played mainly at school functions, socials and fetes. We had quite a fan following, especially among the girls. They used to come to our shows and scream hysterically as if we were the Beatles or something.”
Although Rana remembers, rather surprisingly, Freddie was not the great showman back then: “Freddie was very shy, but once he started playing his piano, he became a completely different person. But I don’t remember him as being any kind of showman – not at that age, anyway.
Schoolmate Gita Choksi adds: ” he real showman of the Hectics was actually Bruce Murray. Freddie was a great musician, but he was very much of an introvert.”
However, Freddie still delighted in showing off sometimes.
Schoolmate Subash Shah says: “Yes, Freddie was very shy. But he was also a born show-off, and his entire personality would transform once he was performing.
“To give you one example: one evening, as teenagers, we were walking on a beach in Zanzibar. Music was playing and Freddie spontaneously started to do the twist, the popular dance move of the time. It was such a mesmerising performance that the next thing we knew was that a group of conservative local girls, wearing burqas, had formed a circle around Freddie and began to twist with him.
“That was the power of his showmanship, even back then.”
READ THE FULL INTERVIEWS HERE AT SCROLL IN