This article is about the British astrophysicist and guitarist-musician member of Queen. For the Australian film composer, see Brian May (Australian composer).
Not to be confused with Brian Mayes.
Brian Harold May, CBE (born 19 July 1947) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, and astrophysicist. He is best known as the lead guitarist of the rock band Queen. He uses a home-built electric guitar called the Red Special.[3] His compositions for the band include "We Will Rock You", "Tie Your Mother Down", "I Want It All", "Fat Bottomed Girls", "Flash", "Hammer to Fall", "Save Me", "Who Wants to Live Forever", and "The Show Must Go On".
May was a co-founder of Queen with lead singer Freddie Mercury and drummer Roger Taylor, having previously performed with Taylor in the band Smile, which he had joined while he was at university. Within five years of their formation in 1970 and the recruitment of bass player John Deacon completing the lineup, Queen had become one of the biggest rock bands in the world with the success of the album A Night at the Opera and its single "Bohemian Rhapsody". From the mid-1970s until the early 1990s, Queen were an almost constant presence in the UK charts and played some of the biggest venues in the world, most notably giving an acclaimed performance at Live Aid in 1985. As a member of Queen, May became regarded as a virtuoso musician and he was identified with a distinctive sound created through his layered guitar work.
May formed the band Smile in 1968. The group included Tim Staffell as the lead singer and bassist, and later, drummer Roger Taylor, who also went on to play for Queen. The band lasted for only two years, from 1968 to 1970, as Staffell departed in 1970, leaving the band with a catalogue of nine songs. Smile would reunite for several songs on 22 December 1992. Taylor's band The Cross were headliners, and he brought May and Staffell on to play "Earth" and "If I Were a Carpenter".[23] May also performed several other songs that night.
During 1983, several members of Queen explored side projects. On 21 and 22 April in Los Angeles, May was in the studio with Eddie Van Halen, with no intentions of recording anything; the result of those days was a mini album entitled Star Fleet Project, which originally wasn't going to be released.
May contributed to former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett's album Feedback 86, playing guitar on the track "Cassandra" and providing guitar and vocals for "Slot Machine," the latter co-written by May. Although produced in 1986, the album was not issued as a commercial release until 2000. May worked with his second wife Anita Dobson on her first album, in which she sang vocals to the EastEnders theme tune. In this form, the tune became the song "Anyone Can Fall in Love".[34] May produced the song, which reached No. 4 in the UK Singles Chart in August 1986.[35] In 1989, May contributed guitar solos to the song "When Death Calls" on Black Sabbath's 14th album Headless Cross, and the Living in a Box track "Blow The House Down" from the album Gatecrashing.
After the tragic break-up of any band, it feels impossible to continue but I was really glad that Brian did launch a solo career. He had such a lot of music in him and a great deal more to give.
In 1995, May began working towards a new solo album of covers tentatively named Heroes, in addition to working on various film and television projects[44] and other collaborations. May subsequently changed the approach from covers to focus on those collaborations and on new material. The songs included Another World, and featured mainly Spike Edney, Cozy Powell, Neil Murray and Jamie Moses. On 5 April 1998, Cozy Powell was killed in a car accident on the M4 motorway near Bristol, England. This caused a huge, unexpected disruption to the upcoming tour for The Brian May Band, with a new drummer being needed at short notice. Steve Ferrone was brought on to help May finish recording drums and to join the band for the early stage promotional tour of five dates in Europe before the world tour. Following the early promotional tour, Eric Singer replaced Steve Ferrone for the full 1998 world tour.
May performing in Frankfurt in 2005.
2005 Queen + Paul Rodgers Tour.
Not long after performing with American Idol finalists Kris Allen and Adam Lambert during the programme's season finale in 2009, May and Taylor began contemplating the future of Queen after the group's amicable split with frontman Paul Rodgers. Two years later, at the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards, Queen was presented that year's Global Icon Award, accepted by May. As part of the broadcast, Queen performed a short set with Lambert, receiving an overwhelmingly welcoming response.[67] Speculation regarding a collaboration with Lambert soon arose, with the three formally announcing a short summer tour of Europe in 2012, including three dates at the Hammersmith Apollo in London, as well as shows in Ukraine, Russia and Poland. As with the partnership with Paul Rodgers, John Deacon did not participate.
I can listen to any player and pantomime their sound, but I can't do Brian May. He's just walking on higher ground.
His tone immediately grabbed me. Brian has his own style and sound, so you can always tell his work. Even in 1971 he had incredible finesse, amazing fluidity.
A meticulous arranger, he focuses on multi-part harmonies, often more contrapuntal than parallel – a relative rarity for rock guitar. Examples are found in Queen's albums A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, where he arranged a jazz band for guitar mini-orchestra ("Good Company"), a vocal canon ("The Prophet's Song") and guitar and vocal counterpoints ("Teo Torriatte").
May explored a wide variety of styles in guitar, including sweep picking ("Was It All Worth It", "Chinese Torture"), tremolo ("Brighton Rock", "Stone Cold Crazy", "Death on Two Legs", "Sweet Lady", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Get Down Make Love", "Dragon Attack"), tapping ("Bijou", "It's Late", "Resurrection", "Cyborg", "Rain Must Fall", "Business", "China Belle", "I Was Born To Love You"), slide guitar ("Drowse", "Tie Your Mother Down"), Hendrix sounding licks ("Liar", "Brighton Rock"), tape-delay ("Brighton Rock", "White Man") and melodic sequences ("Bohemian Rhapsody", "Killer Queen", "These Are the Days of Our Lives"). Some of his solos and orchestral parts were composed by Freddie Mercury, who then asked May to bring them to life ("Bicycle Race", "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon", "Killer Queen", "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy"). May also performed notable acoustic works, including the finger-picked solo of "White Queen" (from Queen II), "Love of My Life" and the skiffle-influenced "'39" (both from A Night at the Opera).
From 1975 onwards, May had some replicas made of the Red Special, some of which were also used for live and recording purposes, others being mainly spares. The most famous replicas were made by John Birch in 1975 (May actually smashed it during a concert in the States in 1982), Greco BM90 (featured in the promo video of "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy" in 1977), Guild (back-up from 1984 to 1993), Fryers (1997–1998, used both live and in the studio) and Guyton[126] (back-up from 2003 to present). On stage, May used to carry at least one back-up guitar (in case he broke a string) and occasionally would use others for certain songs or parts, such as alternate tunings. Currently, May owns a company which makes guitars whose design is modelled after the original Red Special guitar.
October 1974 – May 1975: Gibson Les Paul Deluxe, and the Stratocaster from the previous tour.
November 1975 – May 1976: Same two guitars as before, plus a natural finish John Birch replica of the Red Special.
September 1976: Same three as before, plus a Martin D-18 acoustic for "'39".
January 1977 – August 1979: Just the Birch replica plus an Ovation Pacemaker 12-string acoustic on some numbers ("'39", "Love of My Life", "Dreamer's Ball").
November 1979 – June 1982: Birch replica (back-up), Fender Telecaster ("Crazy Little Thing Called Love" 2nd verse, middle-eight and solo), Ovation (acoustic numbers).
July – November 1982: Added a Gibson Flying V as second back-up. On 9 August 1982 May smashed the Birch guitar, so the Flying V became the only spare.
August – October 1984: The Flying V became a second back-up again as his main spare was the Guild replica. He also used Roger Taylor's Gibson Chet-Atkins Classical Electric.
July 1985 – August 1986: Gibson Flying V no longer used. The rest remained the same.
Burns Double Six on "Long Away" (1976) and "Under Pressure" (1981).
Fender Telecaster on "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" (1979). It was used for the video (but not the recordings) of "Back Chat" (1982).
Gibson Firebird on "Hammer to Fall" and "Tear It Up" (album versions only, not on stage).
Ibanez JS on "Nothing But Blue" (1991).
Parker Fly on "Mother Love" (1993–1995).
For acoustic, he favoured Ovation, Martin, Tōkai Hummingbird, Godin and Guild. On a couple of videos he also used some different electric guitars: a Stratocaster copy on "Play the Game" (1980) and a Washburn RR2V on "Princes of the Universe" (1986).
In 1984, Guild released the first official Red Special replica for mass production, and made some prototypes specifically for May. However, the solid body construction (the original RS has hollow cavities in the body) and the pick-ups (DiMarzio) that were not an exact replica of the Burns TriSonic did not make May happy, so the production stopped after just 300 guitars. In 1993, Guild made a second replica of the RS, made in just 1000 copies, of which May has some and used as a back-up. At the moment, he uses the two guitars made by Greg Fryer—the luthier who restored the Old Lady in 1998—as back-up. They are almost identical to the original, except for the Fryer logo on the headstock (May's original one has a sixpence).
I’ve never heard a guitar sound so loud! He had a wall of AC30s cranked, and it was like a jumbo jet taking off. It was phenomenal.
May also customises his amps by removing the circuitry for the Brilliant and Vib-trem channels (leaving only the circuitry for the Normal), and this alters the tone slightly, with a gain addition of 6–7 dB. He always used a treble booster which, along with the AC30 and his custom 'Deacy Amp' transistor amp, built by Queen bass player John Deacon, went a long way in helping to create many of his signature guitar tones.[132] He used the Dallas Rangemaster for the first Queen albums, up to A Day at the Races. Effects designer Pete Cornish built for him the TB-83 (32 dB of gain) that was used for all the remaining Queen albums. He switched in 2000 to the Fryer's booster, which actually gives less boost than the TB-83.
When performing live, he uses banks of Vox AC30 amplifiers, keeping some amps with only guitar and others with all effects such as delay, flanger and chorus. He has a rack of 14 AC30s, which are grouped as Normal, Chorus, Delay 1, Delay 2. On his pedal board, May has a custom switch unit made by Cornish and subsequently modified by Fryer that allows him to choose which amps are active. He uses a BOSS pedal from the '70s, the Chorus Ensemble CE-1, which can be heard in "In The Lap of The Gods" (Live at Wembley '86) or "Hammer to Fall" (slow version played live with P. Rodgers). Next in the chain, he uses a Foxx Foot Phaser ("We Will Rock You", "We Are the Champions", "Keep Yourself Alive", etc.), and two delay machines to play his trademark solo in "Brighton Rock".
As a child, May was trained on classical piano. Although Freddie Mercury was the band's primary pianist, May would occasionally step in (such as on "Save Me" and "Flash"). He mostly used Freddie Mercury's 1972 Steinway piano. From 1979 onwards, he also played synthesisers, organ ("Wedding March", "Let Me Live") and programmed drum-machines for both Queen and outside projects (such as producing other artists and his own solo records). In the studio, May used Yamaha DX7 synths for the opening sequence of "One Vision" and the backgrounds of "Who Wants to Live Forever" (also on stage), "Scandal" and "The Show Must Go On".
The first instrument May learned to play was the banjolele. He used a "genuine George Formby Ukulele-Banjo" in "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" and "Good Company". Occasionally, May would also record on other string instruments such as harp (one chord per take, then copied and pasted by the engineer to make it sound like a continuous performance) and bass (on some demos and many songs in his solo career, and the Queen + Paul Rodgers album). May was keen on using some toys as instruments as well. He used a Yamaha plastic piano in "Teo Torriatte" and a toy mini koto in "The Prophet's Song".
May is also an accomplished singer. From Queen's Queen II to The Game, May contributed lead vocals to at least one song per album. May co-composed a mini-opera with Lee Holdridge, Il Colosso, for Steve Barron's 1996 film, The Adventures of Pinocchio. May performed the opera with Jerry Hadley, Sissel Kyrkjebo, and Just William. On-screen, it was performed entirely by puppets.
May studied physics and mathematics at Imperial College London, graduating with a BSc (Hons) degree and ARCS in physics with Upper Second-Class Honours. From 1970 to 1974, he studied for a PhD[1] degree at Imperial College, studying reflected light from interplanetary dust and the velocity of dust in the plane of the Solar System. When Queen started to have international success in 1974, he abandoned his doctoral studies, but co-authored two peer reviewed research papers,[133][134] which were based on his observations at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife.
In October 2007, May was appointed a Visiting Researcher in Imperial College and continues his interest in astronomy and involvement with the Imperial Astrophysics Group. He is co-author, with Sir Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott, of Bang! – The Complete History of the Universe[140][141] and The Cosmic Tourist.[142] May appeared on the 700th episode of The Sky at Night hosted by Sir Patrick Moore, along with Chris Lintott, Jon Culshaw, Prof. Brian Cox, and the Astronomer Royal Martin Rees who on departing the panel, told Brian May, who was joining it, "I don't know a scientist who looks as much like Isaac Newton as you do".[143] May was also a guest on the first episode of the third series of the BBC's Stargazing Live, on 8 January 2013.
May filming for the BBC's The One Show in 2011 for an anti–badger culling campaign.
May made a significant technical contribution to the book to accompany the exhibition 'Stereoscopic Photographs of Pablo Picasso by Robert Mouzillat', held at the Holburne Museum in Bath, England from February to June 2014. The book provides a cross-section of photographs of Picasso in his studio, at the bullfight at Arles and in his garden. May's 3D 'Owl viewer' is used to view the photographs in 3D.
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^ "Queen's Brian May plants first tree in Dorset woodland". Bournemouth Echo. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
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^ Lencioni, F.A.A. (9 July 2013). "Diagnoses and discussion of the group 1 and 2 Brazilian species of Heteragrion, with descriptions of four new species (Odonata: Megapodagrionidae). Zootaxa 3685 (1): 001–080" (PDF). Zootaxa. Magnolia Press – Auckland, New Zealand. Retrieved 26 September 2015.
^ "Brian May on saving the fox". BBC News. 9 June 2010.
^ HARDtalk "clip of May's interview" on YouTube, BBC, 22 September 2010.
^ "Bow Group urges the Government to Scrap Badger Cull plans". Bow Publishing. 25 March 2012. Archived from the original on 28 April 2012. Retrieved 8 May 2012.
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^ "About TeamBadger". Teambadger.org.uk. Archived from the original on 29 June 2014. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
^ "Brian May's 'Save the Badger Badger Badger' song climbs iTunes chart". Digital Spy. Retrieved 2 September 2013.
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^ Elgot, Jessica (24 April 2015). "Celebrities sign statement of support for Caroline Lucas – but not the Greens". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 22 July 2015.
^ "Queen legend Brian May urges Crawley residents to vote Conservative at General Election". Crawley News. 27 March 2015. Retrieved 22 July 2015.
^ Dathan, Matt (10 July 2015). "'A bunch of lying b*****ds' – Brian May and Paul McCartney hit out at David Cameron's 'cruel and unnecessary' bid to bring back fox hunting". The Independent. Retrieved 12 July 2015.
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^ Oppenheim, Maya (8 June 2017). "Election 2017: The surprising and not-so surprising ways celebrities will be casting their ballots today". The Independent. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
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^ "NASA New Horizons, Ultima Thule: press briefing on the results from the flyby". Rollingstone.com. CBS News. 3 January 2019. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
^ Queen Pic ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Finds Bandmates In Ben Hardy, Gwilym Lee & Joe Mazzello, Retrieved August 22, 2017.
^ "Brian May says Rami Malek deserves Oscar nomination for turn as Freddie Mercury". The Telegraph. Retrieved 14 January 2018.
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