Brian May on Freddie Mercury’s ‘outrageous’ behaviour – ‘He loved to shock us’

The drummer said: “At the beginning, many years ago, there was this big thing, you know, that we wanted Zandra Rhodes to do everything. Well, she made me a costume. I wore it once. It was so bloody hot I never wore it again. It was completely impractical.

“And I don’t really like the word costume because with ‘costume’ I think of kids, or I think of pantomime or, you know, and this isn’t costumes, this is meant to be rock and roll. So I don’t really have a costume. And also, being drums, it’s pretty sweaty. You need something where you can move that is not hampering you in any way. And I leave it to… I leave it to the sort of those people out the front, whoever they are, to ponce around in their frilly dresses.”

Indeed it would be the late singer who would go out of his way to get the biggest reactions from the rest of Queen. Roger continued: “Freddie, he didn’t always tell us. I mean, when he first turned up in the ballet thing, I think he slightly looked like Kermit, and the ballet pumps as well. I mean, we were absolutely tickled. It could have gone the other way. You know, we could have gone ‘Don’t be so ridiculous’, but because it was Fred, It was ‘Yeah, come on. That’s brilliant.’ You know, why not?”

“And if you’ve got the balls to get… and let’s face it, we’ll be able to see them, you can get away with that. Yeah, let’s go. I mean, it was a great talking point. I remember several musicians’ faces, sort of jaws dropping in astonishment that this guy could come on, and they could play some serious rock n roll, you know?”

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source: express.co.uk