"The Works Ethic": Roger Taylor interview with Bill Black - from 'Sounds', 25 February 1984

Titled The Works Ethic and published in the English music magazine Sounds on 25th February 1984, it is a long interview with Roger Taylor held by journalist Bill Black. We talk about the latest single 'Radio Ga Ga', the influence of 'Metropolis' and Giorgio Moroder in the making of the video, the solo projects of Freddie, Brian and Roger and are asked if Queen will go on tour during the year ; in fact, the summer tour had not yet been organised. Black also talks about other topics, such as outfits, cars and fashion.

Below is a scan of the article and the transcription for a more immediate reading. Enjoy the reading!




THE WORKS ETHIC

QUEEN grant BILL BLACK an audience. Well, ROGER TAYLOR does...

PUZZLED BY the baby-like chant that forms the backbone of Queen's current chartland champion Radio Ga Ga? Before dismissing Freddie and the boys as having given up those Fat Bottomed Girls for the delights of Farley's Rusks and Play Doh let drummer Roger Taylor explain:
"I was desperate for inspiration! Then one day the radio came on in the house and my three year old son Felix came out with "radio poo poo" I thought that sounded good so I changed it around a bit and came up with Radio Ga Ga The song came after I'd locked myself in a studio for three days with a synthetizer and a drum machine.
All together now ahhhh But my first reaction on hearing the shunting grunting yet gloriously graceful (just listen to Fred go!) song was ouch!
Y'see I couldn't believe my ears. There was Queen back from a long lay-off with a stinging attack on the state of the airwaves and the facile eye fodder that are most videos. And yet Queen near as dammit invented the current vogue for vacuous visuals with the baroque ('n' roll) splendour of Bohemian Rhapsody At the other end of a sofa on the third floor of Queen's west London office Taylor visibly squirms as I ask him to account for his outspoken (for Queen) lyrics. Come on, do you think pop radio has become pap radio?
"Well it's not really saying that It's quite ambiguous really because I'm trying to make quite a few points, the main one being that too much reliance is being placed on the visual side these days, especially in America.
"Take Quiet Riot for example. Let's face it -that Slade cover they do is f***ing terrible, I much prefer the original, but it's a hit because the video, which I also think is terrible, has been shown non-stop on MTV.
The visual aspect has definitely taken over But you can't deny that Queen started this particular ball rolling with the visuals that accompanied Bohemian Rhapsody "Ironically that is the case, sure, and just as ironic is that we've had to make a very expensive video to go with the current single. But you have to these days.
Taylor notes the contradictions but carries on fiddling with the zips that liven up his black leather trousers. Perhaps being self righteous isn't so difficult to live with when you're staring your biggest hit in ages right in the face. So how did the grand graphics come about?
"All the footage from Metropolis? Well Giorgio Moroder suggested it because he'd just bought the film rights to the movie and he wanted us to write a song to go with it. We wrote him a song and we swapped it for the rights to use some footage from the film. We ended up having to pay the German Government for something or other but basically it was ours to use."
Has Fritz Lang's silent classic got anything to do with the subject or sentiment of 'Radio Ga Ga'?
"To be perfectly honest, no, it's just a great movie and I'd always been interested in using images from it. I I suppose they do fit in a way because there's a mechanical feel that is reflected in the song and there's a sense of nostalgia in watching a silent film that links up with the nostalgic view of radio I got from remembering nights spent listening to Radio Luxembourg under the bedclothes.
"In fact, there's a track on the album I co-wrote with Brian called 'Machines' which deals with the conflict between man and machine. It's not a new theme by any means but I think we've managed to convey it quite nicely by having Fairlights (state of the art synths) battling it out with the conventional line-up of guitar, bass and drums."
Ah, the new album. Called naturally enough (considering what we've heard so far) The Works It's been a long time coming their last was "The Game' which spawned only one hit in the shape of the funk-driven 'Another One Bites the Dust So how come its taken so long to follow things up?
"After touring America, Europe and Japan in 1982 we were totally knackered so we thought we deserved a bit of a rest. That's the short answer but it also had a lot to do with the last album not doing as well as previous LPs. We realised that it hadn't been what a lot of our fans wanted or expected from us, so we thought a break would give us the opportunity to think things through a bit."
Any talk at that time of knocking it on the head?
"Not really. We were a bit disillusioned but not to the point of breaking up, just to the point of not wanting to do anything for a while."

SO THE individual members of Queen took off to develop their own interests Freddie Mercury to pursue his fascination with ballet and New York nightlife, Brian May to put together his all- star line up the Starfleet Project (which released a mini LP last year) and Roger Taylor to start work on his second solo album (but what of John Deacon, I hear you cry! Well he helped Taylor drink the wine during those long studio sessions in Queen's Swiss studio where our Roger was beavering away, but beyond that tit bit i could discover nowt).
So what's with the second solo effort Roger, your first 'Fun in Space' wasn't particularly well received, so what made you want to try again?
"It got in the Top Twenty! No, I realise it didn't exactly stop the world but it was only bad because it was rushed. Not by any commitments I had with Queen particularly, just that I had to do it quickly or I felt I'd lose my nerve and never put it out.
"This one (it's going to be called 'Strange Frontier and is due out in April fact fans) is a lot better because more time and effort has gone into it. I'm writing and singing better than before and it's just a more mature project.
"It's important for me to do this solo stuff because there are a lot of ideas I have that won't fit into what Quses is about. I wouldn't say Queen songs are formularised but the way we work - four separate inputs into each song - means that they're standardised to a certain extent that do something of my own if my personal idiosyncracies are going to come through.
"It's odd that you should consider Queen material to be standardised. I'd always considered one of the band's strongest points was its ability to change kap abreast with trends and development and bring those to bear on that unmistakeable Queen approach. How does material on The Works' compare with, say, your last album "The Game"?
"A lot of it is what we felt people would want from us as opposed to the last album which I know now was what people didn't want from us. I realise now it was ludicrous for us to have thought we could turn into a funk band overnight.
"But I take your point about continually changing. It's like 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love' - it's not rockabilly exactly but it did 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 it was - that John Lennon heard it and it gave him the impetus to start recording again. If it's true - and listening to that last album it certainly sounds as if he explored similar influences - that's wonderful.
''But I'd like to stress that when we change and try something new it's never a conscious or contrived act; it's always a case of 'let's try this'. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't - just listen some of our albums!''

IT'S SOMEHOW touching that someone as obviously successful as the drummer from mega buck outfit Queen should concern himself with the perils of inadequacy.
Perhaps it's a front, a deflector shield against charges of blind, bland perfection. Certainly Queen have enjoyed Midas Touch greater than most judging by the gold albums that speckle the walls of their office.
And that's another thing. A band with their own office? Taylor reluctantly informs me that the band employs 15 people around the world in purely administrative roles, nothing to do with the labour intensive business of touring. Can a hand that's gone from cottage industry to multinational be a responsive outfit? Do they still have a clear idea of what Queen means to their fans?
"You mean, how do we know what people want? Well we know what Queen is known for the heavy sound with the blasting vocals, so we make sure we've got a lot of that in what we do. I don't honestly know what your average Queen fan looks like but then it doesn't matter because don't write songs with this fixed image of a record buyer in my head.
"No, I've no real idea how big Queen is. I know how many records we sell but as for stature or importance things like that are always changing. Look at Bowie, he had a very good year in 1983 but I doubt if he'd have attracted that amount of attention two or three years ago.
"Does anything about Queen still surprise me? Have you got a light? I need to smoke when I'm doing interviews!"
I never got an answer to that one. But it doesn't matter. The bigger the bad the bigger the target for sit-picking potshots. For more interesting is a rock star's personal lifestyle. Not surprisingly Taylor's a bit shy about that too.
"I suppose my place in Surrey is big, yeah How many cars have I got? Everybody asks me that!"
OK then, what did to drive up in today to do this interview?
"Uumm, a convertible Range Rover."
And a racey little number it is too as I can personally testily thanks to a quick jaunt down to Holland Park to do the pictures. We keep chatting. Any chance of a tour this year?
"Yeah probably. Freddie wasn't keen at first but now he's raring to go. We'd like to do the Far East and we'll all really keen to play in Russia but the authorities won't have us, they say we're too decadent. It seems Elton's fine but we're not.”
Any big names helping you with your solo record?
''Not really, I'm not into all that 'star line up' thing because nine times out of ten the end result is a load of dross. Rick Parfitt's helping me out on a couple of tracks but only because he's the best rhythm guitarist I know.”
Did you release 'Radio Ga Ga' as a single because you know DJs will play anything about the radio to death?
"It never occurred to me when I wrote it. A lot of people have suggested that was the idea behind the whole song but I honestly didn't think of it as a single, I don't write with those sort of things in mind.”

What keeps Queen going, the money?
"It's not the money anymore, it's the thought of ‘Christ, what would we do if we ended it?’ Obviously we could all have our solo careers and put new bands together but that would be like climbing Mount Everest again. Queen is what we do; it's what we’re used to.
"But we’ll only do it while the enthusiasm is there. The more interest that’s shown in the band, the more enthusiasm is generated within the band, that’s why it’s been such a thrill that ‘Radio Ga Ga’ is such a big hit. Obviously if people stopped buying our records and coming to our live shows we’d knock it on the head pretty quickly."
A lift back to the tube station for me and after a quick hand shake we’re off in our own directions.
And I can exclusively reveal that the drummer from brand new outfit Twitter has been helping Taylor out on ‘Strange Frontier’. Never heard of them? Well, if I tell you the skins merchant concerned is called Felix you might be able to work it out.