You never get tired of playing We Are The Champions
Queen drummer Roger Taylor talks to ALEX GREEN about stepping up as a frontman, plans for the future and why endless retirement would be ‘horrendous’
“IT’S like dipping a toe in the water after not having had a bath for many years,” says Roger Taylor, in typically affable fashion, as he prepares to tour solo for the first time in two decades. “It’s going to be interesting.”
Playing alongside flamboyant figures Freddie Mercury and Brian May might have distracted fans from the Queen drummer’s virtuosity. But Roger has also enjoyed a parallel music career since the late 1980s, as lead singer and guitarist in his own rock band, The Cross.
“The good thing about songs is that if they are good they live forever,” he says. “There they are. It’s not like being a famous chef where you have to do it every night!”
Roger lives in Puttenham, Surrey with his second wife, Sarina Potgieter, but spent lockdown at his second home in Cornwall.
This is where the idea for Outsider, his first album of new solo material in nearly a decade, began to take shape.
“We had space to stroll about – but not everybody did,” he recalls.
“I remember seeing pictures from Milan of people stuck in their apartments singing some of our songs out the window.
“It was wonderful in a way but I remember thinking, ‘God’. And it went on for months. It was pretty scary actually.”
The first song he wrote during that time was called Isolation and it features on the record. Soon he had an album’s worth of material ranging from direct stadium rock to meditative psychedelia and more.
“It was an odd period and it also focused the mind. I just thought, ‘I’m going to make some good use of this period of enforced semiimprisonment’.”
Roger is delighted by the success of the vaccine roll out, in part because it means he can get back to playing to fans.
“The anti-vaxxers I don’t get,” he growls. “I don’t understand that at all. It seems to be borne of pure ignorance and an amount of arrogance and the conspiracy theories. It’s pathetic, actually.”
Lockdown reinforced Roger’s desire to perform – and at 72 years old, age is no barrier.
“I don’t get tired at all. I really enjoy seeing the audience enjoying itself. It is a feedback thing. It lifts you every time. Of course, we know some of those songs backwards. It sounds like we are playing them backwards sometimes!
“But that’s the thing, it’s the audience interaction.
“You never get tired of playing We Are The Champions. It is such a b ***** great song and you can see it lifting an audience.” Roger describes the idea of “endless retirement” as “horrendous”.
“Tick tock, time is rushing by, when you get to the age of
Brian and myself,” he laughs. “We are just getting older and I don’t think we will be able to do it that much longer, and while we still can do it, we intend to keep doing it. And same applies to Queen actually. We realised that this is what we do. This is what we love doing. And while we still can do it at a good level, we will.
“As soon as we can’t we shall retire with some shred of dignity.
“You can’t do this forever but as long as we can do it properly we will do it. And obviously as long as people want to see it.”
During lockdown, Queen earned their first number one album in 25 years with Live Around The World, a compilation featuring highlights from their decade of touring with former American Idol contestant Adam Lambert on lead vocals.
So far, however, there has been no new music from the group, although they have apparently been experimenting in the studio.
“It’s the right material,” Roger says, adding, “It’s got to be good. It’s got to stand up to our old stuff which is very strong.”
Roger is as enthusiastic about music as ever and admits this urge might just be driven by insecurity.
“You don’t want to feel superfluous. I was going to say ‘useful’ but that would be a bit cruel – there are an awful lot of retired people in the country who have earned their rest, their retirement.
“But life is good and it’s nice to be working.”
Outsider is out now and Roger is touring the UK until October 22. Tickets are available online