Roger Taylor Quotes

"I've got some old sci-fi books and magazines which I browse through from time to time. Maybe there are things up there in space watching us. I wouldn't find that surprising at all.”

“We still have the rock ‘n’ roll Gypsy mentality. Even after 12 years without a line-up change we still really enjoy the buzz from playing live and the fact that we have hit singles. Some bands in our position might take it all in their stride, but we’re still like kids, we get very excited.”

“Before Queen I ran a clothes store with Freddie in Kensington Market. In fact I sold Freddie’s own coat three times!”

“We’re quite normal I think it’s just that we’ve been luckier than a lot of people and we probably worked harder too.”

“Live with your memories and keep them as memories and that’s great. Forget the bad times and just remember the good ones and you  know and hope tomorrow is a good day”

“I was in a band with Brian, and Freddie would sort of run around with us in those days”

“We try to get some good feeling and atmosphere and excitement and ambience I suppose”

“We couldn’t afford lights so we asked the audience to bring candles and cigarette lighters”

“I hate to generalize it, but– generally speaking– I hate it!”

“It’s a lot like baling hay”

“That’s right. But it’s wrong. Upside down, isn’t it? It’s a bit silly, not to mention ironic”“…He might as well be talking about cupcakes…”

"We had quite a difficult genesis. It was very difficult for us to get a contract, to be accepted in any way. But many groups went through that, and it does engineer a kind of 'backs to the wall' feeling in a band. So we felt very strong together"

"It's very difficult to choose one album I prefer out of all of them. But I do like a lot of the work on the second album, second side. It all runs into one, very epic. Musically it's quite daring because we did lots of counter seven part harmonies and things."

"'Crazy Little Thing Called Love' - it's not rockabilly but it does have that early Elvis feel, and it was one of the first records to exploit that. In fact I read somewhere - in Rolling Stone I think - that John Lennon heard it and it gave him the impetus to start writing again. If it's true - and listening to that last album it certainly sounds as if he explored similar influences - that's wonderful. "

"There isn't enough room on Queen albums of a lot of the things I want to do, so I am expressing my own excess"

"I was surprised we didn't get more criticism for playing South America. I didn't think we were being used as tools by political regimes, although obviously you have to co-operate with them. We were playing for the people. We weren't playing for the government"

"In Argentina we were number one when that stupid war was going on and we had a fantastic time there, and that can be only for the good. Music is totally international"

"After touring America, Europe and Japan we were totally knackered, so we thought we deserved a bit of a rest... It also had a lot to do with the last album (Hot Space) not doing as well as previous LP's. We realised that it hadn't bee what a lot of fans wanted or expected from us, so we thought a break would give us the opportunity to think things through a bit. "

"I wrote it after watching a lot of MTV in the States, and it seemed to me there was far too much emphasis on a band's visual image. I got the name Radio Ga Ga from my son, Felix - he was watching TV with me and started going around saying 'radio poo poo' which changed to 'radio ka ka' and then eventually to Radio Ga Ga. "

"We had done some really serious, epic videos in the past, and we just thought we'd have some fun. We wanted people to know that we didn't take ourselves too seriously, that we could still laugh at ourselves. I think we proved that. "

“Just think—we became the first group to sell Paul McCartney a hole.”

“No one ever really knew Freddie. He was shy, gentle and kind. He wasn't the person he put over on stage.”

“John is very reclusive now. Freddie's death affected him enormously. We did get a lovely letter from John, though, saying he was fully behind the show and thought it was a great script.”

"In Argentina, we were number one when that stupid war was going on and we had a fantastic time there, and that can only be good. Music is totally international.”

“We didn’t really want to get into that small club circuit. We all wanted to play big, big concerts, and didn’t want to get stuck in that circuit for years and years, which is so easy to do, no matter how good you are.”

“What we want to do as soon as we start our set is to create an immediate atmosphere, if possible, of excitement, expectation and, ultimately, enjoyment.”

“There were lots of things on the first album I don’t like, for example the drum sound. There are parts of it which may sound contrived but it is very varied and it has lots of energy.” (1974)

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