Freddie Mercury's Vocals 'Traumatizing' After His Death, Bandmate Brian May Recalls

Freddie Mercury left Queen earlier than expected, that his bandmates were forced to continue without him.

Before most rock bands debuted, Queen became the gamechanger as it adapted different types of rock genres to prove the band's flexibility. Although they are still active in the present times, the surviving bandmates almost never made it after Mercury's death since they found his voice traumatizing.

In a new interview with Elis James and John Robins on BBC Radio 5 Live's "How Do You Cope" podcast, Mercury's bandmate, Brian May, recalled working on the vocalist's vocals again on their "Made In Heaven" album after the untimely passing.

According to May, they went through a traumatizing experience without Mercury by their side.

"It was very weird. It was traumatizing in itself. I spent hours and days and weeks working on little bits of Freddie's vocals. Listening to Freddie the whole day and the whole night. I'd have moments thinking, 'This is great...this sounds great Fre... Oh, you're not here,'" he said.

The guitarist reminisced how difficult it was for them to the point that they had to go away from hearing Mercury's voice and recover before coming back.

Amid the trauma they all felt, May and his bandmates purportedly felt immense pride and happiness as they worked on the "last drops" out of what Mercury reserved for them before his death.

Brian May Names Favorite Queen Album

Queen's "Made In Heaven" was the first and only album they worked on after Mercury's passing. With that, it became the guitarist's favorite album.

"I still love that album. I think it's my favorite Queen album. There are things in there that are so deep. There's pure gold in there," he said.

Elsewhere in the interview, May focused on talking about the grieving process and denial episodes after Mercury's passing. To get themselves away from the pain, he and Roger started their solo projects.

Unfortunately, it was too heartbreaking for the guitarist that he almost chose not to believe in Queen anymore while working on John Lennon's "God" adaptation.

The year 1991 became even worse for May since he also lost his father to cancer.

Queen's vocalist passed away on Nov. 24, 1991, nearly 24 hours after telling the world he had HIV/AIDS. He said in his last statement that he first wanted to keep the information private to protect other people's privacy. He died due to bronchial pneumonia caused by AIDS.

Tags

Freddie Mercury, Queen