Burlington musician taught Bohemian Rhapsody star to play like Freddie Mercury
You can thank Burlington native Rob Preuss for actor Rami Malek’s dazzling keyboard work playing Freddie Mercury in the new Queen biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Malek doesn’t actually know how to play the piano beyond the most basic steps. Because of Preuss’s coaching, however, he was able to fake it well enough for the film.
“You wouldn’t call it lip syncing,” Preuss says in an interview from his New York home. “I guess you could call it finger syncing.”
In June 2017, Preuss — keyboard player for Burlington synth-pop band The Spoons and, later, Honeymoon Suite — was asked by a friend to show Malek some rudimentary piano.
Preuss had been living in New York since 2001 when he moved there as assistant musical director for the long-running Broadway hit “Mamma Mia!”
At the time, Malek was in New York working on the film “Mr. Robot,” and was soon due in London to begin shooting “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
“They wanted to get him a head start on piano as soon as they could because when he got to London things would proceed fast and furious,” Preuss said.
Preuss booked a rehearsal studio space in Manhattan’s Lower Eastside and spent a few days with Malek.
“It was a crash course in how to play Freddie Mercury piano,” Preuss said.
“I was one of the first people to introduce (Malek) to the technical aspects of Freddie Mercury’s life, to show him how fantastic Freddie was as a musician, as a piano player.”
Preuss was an excellent choice. He has been a huge Queen fan for more than 40 years. He can remember performing songs from the album “Night at the Opera,” including “Bohemian Rhapsody,” when he was in a preteen band called Black Diamond with future Hamilton Juno nominee Jim Witter.
“I remember Jim and I going to see Queen at Maple Leaf Gardens,” Preuss, now 53, says. “I think I had just turned 12 and Jim was a little bit older. My parents drove us there and dropped us off.”
In coaching Malek, Preuss made it a priority to teach him Mercury’s left-hand piano crossover in the Bohemian Rhapsody verses.
“He really pulled it off well in the film,” said Preuss who lives with his wife, Leah, and stepson in the New York borough of Queens. “The first time I saw it, I was a proud teacher.”