Queenin Brian May: ”Adam Lambert pystyy tekemään kaiken sen minkä Freddie Mercury teki, ja jopa yli sen”

Englantilaisen rockin legendan Queenin kitaristi Brian May on antanut hiljattain Guitar Worldille harvinaisen haastattelun, jossa mies on vertaillut hieman työskentelyä bändissä vuosien 2004-2009 laulaneen Paul Rodgersin kanssa verrattuna yhtyeen nykyiseen laulajaan, Adam Lambertiin. Brian Mayn mukaan ero Paul Rodgersin kanssa tapahtui yhteistuumin, kun kummatkin osapuolet tajusivat, että yleisöstä puolet olivat tulleet kuulemaan Freen materiaalia Paulin laulamana ja puolet puolestaan Queenin kappaleita. Keskustelun siirtyessä yhtyeen nykyiseen laulajaan Adam Lambertiin, yltyy Brian May kehumaan Adamia loistavaksi laulajaksi, joka pystyy tekemään kaiken sen minkä Freddie Mercury pystyi, ja jopa yli sen. Brian antaa haastattelussa esimerkkinä Queenin ”Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy” -kappaleen, jonka esittämisestä Paul Rodgersin kanssa ei olisi tullut mitään mutta Adamin kanssa kyseisen kappaleen esitys sujuu luonnollisesti, koska tämä rakastaa huomiota ja on todella lahjakas laulaja. Brian vertaili laulajia seuraavasti:

”’They’re both great, of course,’ the QUEEN guitarist said. ’We had a fantastic time with Paul. He has his own style, which we integrated into the band. But what happened was, there was a meeting point where we wanted to go deeply into his music — we were influenced by it in the first place. For me, it was a joy to play ’All Right Now’, ’Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love’ and all those things.’

It became difficult as time went on, though,’ May admitted. ’We would play South America, where people didn’t know that music, so we played more QUEEN songs. Paul dealt with it well, but I think it was hard for him to abandon a lot of his material. We really enjoyed it as an experiment, but as an experiment it had… limits. Eventually, we thought, ’It’s probably gone as far as it can. Paul needs to get back to his own career.’ Because he couldn’t just go on being the frontman of QUEEN. By mutual agreement, we thought, ’That’s it.’

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Now, with Adam, it’s a different story, because Adam can do all the stuff that [late QUEEN singer] Freddie [Mercury] did and more. It doesn’t matter what you throw at Adam — he can do it. He can do ’Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy’ [from 1976’s ’A Day At The Races’], which we wouldn’t dream of throwing at Paul Rodgers, because it just wouldn’t work. With Adam, it’s a different kettle of fish. He’s a born exhibitionist. He’s not Freddie, and he’s not pretending to be him, but he has a parallel set of equipment. He knows how to deal with an audience. He teases and taunts an audience quite naturally, without thinking about it. He loves to dress up. Although Paul did dress up a bit for us. We got a lot of sequins on him. [Laughs].

’Adam lives and breathes that stuff,’ Brian added. ’Adam is style, and that’s not to say he’s not content as well. He’s a born rock star and frontman, so it’s a very vibrant relationship we have with him. We treat Adam exactly the same as we treated Freddie in almost every way.'”