Queen's Brain May: The Complete 1982 "Guitar Player" Interview

This post presents the world debut of the audio of my September 22, 1982, "Guitar Player" cover story interview with the author of “We Will Rock You.” I hope you enjoy it!

To prepare for our conversation, I attended Queen’s July 9, 1982, concert in Oakland, California. After that, I listened to every Queen album in chronological order, paying close attention to Brian’s guitar innovations. So in addition to covering his musical background, influences, and tools of his trade, I was able to question him about his playing techniques on specific songs throughout the band’s career-to-date. Brian seemed to appreciate this.

As we spoke, he also expressed his appreciation for the talents of Eddie Van Halen. (A few months later, Brian and Eddie would collaborate on the "Star Fleet Project" album, which led to Brian's requesting that we do a second interview. Let me know in the comments if you'd like to hear this interview too.)

For more historic, guitar-intensive interviews, check out the other offerings on the Talking Guitar YouTube channel.

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Thanks to engineer/producer Nik Hunt for filming the intro and outro and enhancing the sound of the original 42-year-old master interview tapes. For more than 130 other guitar-intensive podcasts, interview transcripts, and articles, visit Talking Guitar magazine at https://jasobrecht.substack.com/. #brianmay #queen #jasobrecht #talkingguitar #nikhunt #guitarplayermagazine

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