Brian May Quotes (44 Quotes)


    I really thought I was pretty good before I saw Hendrix, and then I thought: Yeah, not so good.

    The guitar has a kind of grit and excitement possessed by nothing else.

    At the moment the Queen stuff does sell really well, but there's no guarantee it'll go on forever.

    The guitar was my weapon, my shield to hide behind.

    I had this big thing about guitar harmonies. I wanted to be the first to put proper three-part harmonies onto a record. That was an achievement.


    I'm pretty basic as far as technique is concerned. I don't use many gadgets, and I like the sound my guitar makes, anyway.

    Mantovani was a great influence on me.

    Not for a million -- years. I mean, I like the INXS boys, but I found the process very degrading, really. Reality television has eaten away at our standards of excellence. I don't like this whole culture, which has evolved, of TV being the king.

    Sanctions always hurt the poor, the weak, the children.

    I go through major crises every few months, but then I have great peaks of belief and creativity. I'm a weird kind of animal.

    There are times when I flick through magazines and think I'm in danger of becoming a prisoner of my own hair.

    From the beginning of Queen there was such momentum that I never had any time to do anything else. My energy was 95% focused on the band.

    It seemed like a fun thing to do, and it's become one of the highlights of the set. People just don't want to let it go. I don't think we realized how much resonance it had in this country. We thought it was more of a European thing. But it seems to be one of the things that connects very deeply with audiences here.

    There are a lot of things in Queen albums that you don't expect; that's why we threw them in.

    For a time I didn't want to answer any questions about Queen. I'd like to be viewed as something alive and relevant, not some fossil.

    The biggest emotion in creation is the bridge to optimism.

    There is no way that you can ever really repeat something. I have this great belief that the magic of the moment can never be recaptured.

    There is an enormous crowd of extremely famous people here sitting on the lawn chatting on their mobile phones.

    Everybody thought I was a bit of an eccentric for wanting to be out there looking at the stars, but I still do.

    I have to pinch myself, really, because I didn't think I would be doing this after all these years.

    I never took sheet music seriously. I could do better myself just by listening to other people and using my own intuition.

    There's nothing I'm embarrassed about.

    I spent 20 years of my life building up Queen, and now I'm spending years of my life trying to get away from it.

    I despise the Lottery. There's less chance of you becoming a millionaire than there is of getting hit on the head by a passing asteroid.

    Each gig should be unique. You're always treading that line between keeping yourself fresh and giving people something they want to hear.

    What a wonderful musician...absolutely the pinnacle of guitar playing in our lifetime.

    Astronomy's much more fun when you're not an astronomer.

    It was good to see. It was mostly military crowd and they supported him.

    I just want to be able to play as fast as my brain goes, and my brain doesn't go all that fast.

    We didn't audition for Paul - he just turned up. He'd been a friend for many years, and suddenly there was a real chemistry there. Really, I don't think we could be out there with someone who hadn't trodden the same path as us.

    A good video can make all the difference.

    Einstein got most of the things right about black holes. I'm not an expert, I must admit.

    Every time I listen to Jeff Beck my whole view of guitar changes radically. He's way, way out, doing things you never expect.

    We do rearrange things. But Paul also does have an amazing range that he doesn't use all that much. When we were doing Another One Bites the Dust , we pulled it down a couple of semi-tones because we didn't want to hurt him.

    I was actually perfectly happy when I had no money, which lasted right up until we had a hit with Killer Queen, in 1974. I never wanted for anything.

    I don't think anybody comes close to The Beatles, including Oasis.

    The Wedding March has a bit of a death march in it.

    I have a perfectly clear idea of what was in Freddie's mind. But it was unwritten law among us in those days that the real core of a song lyric was a private matter for the composer.

    I like to go for a walk or swimming or in the garden when I can. It's a busy kind of life, but I guess I'm lucky.

    The first nine albums there was never a Synthesiser, never any Orchestra. There was never any other player except us on the albums.

    I don't surf the net in general. I have someone do it for me instead, because I find it sluggish.

    We do play to our audience. It's very important. You can't create music in a vacuum.

    We just thought that Freddie's blueprint for 'Rhapsody' was intriguing and original, and worthy of work. This was a well-planned project from Freddie, to which we contributed our best, but there were always changes along the way as tracks developed.

    It was really there in our heads from the beginning - to get the orchestration of the voices and guitars. It was just a question of being able to realize the dream, and getting the time and money and studio equipment to be able to do it. Actually, the 'Qu


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