While in LA, Brian May dropped by the KTLA5 Morning News studio on 24 August, for a chat with Jojo and his morning show team to talk about “Queen in 3-D” and Queen, ahead of the Book Soup signing later in the day.
Here’s a video of the interview and a transcript. Enjoy!
Jojo Talks To Queen Legend Guitarist Brian May, KTLA 5 Morning News 24 August 2017
– https://youtu.be/1zPBkWcysEI
TRANSCRIPT by Jen Tunney
E&OE
Brianmay.com
JOJO: Oh no big deal. I’m just hanging backstage with Brian May from Queen.
BRIAN: I know, I’m nice.
JOJO: it’s just so exciting to have you here. I mean I worked at KISS FM Top-40 radio station but Queen has influenced everybody top to bottom so huge congrats on all that.
BRIAN: Thank you.
JOJO: Of course. Brian May, legendary Queen guitarist. He is here to talk about this this book. Before we do that though, for the kids who have no idea if for some reason you’re living under a rock, listen to this track. You know this track. Let’s hear it.
<VIDEO CLIP:
Freddie Mercury’Bohemian Rhapsody:
Mama ooh-o0h. Didn’t mean to make you cry. If I’m not back again this time tomorrow….
NEWS TEAM: sing “Carry on, carry on. …”
STUDIO: if there is an education in music this song has to be on that list of things that people need to know.
BRIAN: Everyone seems to know it around the world and it’s incredible you know. I was saying to Jojo back stage, we had a dream and we were precocious boys, and all boys have dreams, but the dream came true and sometimes I wake up and think, “Did that really happen?” All around the world everybody knows this song. Everybody knows who we are. It’s a privilege. It’s great. It’s something wonderful that happened.
JOJO: You were saying “We wanted to conquer the world”, you did.
BRIAN: Yeah.
JOJO: Simple as that. You’re releasing this book, “Queen in 3-D”. It’s the first of its kind to my understanding. Give me some details.
BRIAN: Plug, plug, plug.
JOJO: LooK at that. Look at this baby,
BRIAN: Oh look yeah. This is the slipcase for the book and it’s something unusual. No-one – no one’s ever done this before. This is what you get inside the book. So you sell sell, sell, you get the book (laughing) which has lots of nice mono pictures, you know – normal kind of pictures of us all through the years. Queen all through the years with Freddie.
STUDIO: How much fun was it for you to pull pictures to be in this book?
BRIAN: Well I always carried a stereo camera with me – a 3-D camera with me all through for the last 40 to 50 years and I had this kind of collection of pictures which I didn’t know what to do with, so one day somebody said, “Why don’t you do the book?” So I thought you know, I thought I didn’t have enough pictures but I have so many – but the magic thing is this, which comes in the book as well, which is your OWL. This is my patent OWL viewer, which is a stereoscope. It’s essentially a 19th century stereoscope – but this is my version of it, which is made in Sunbury upon Thames in England. It focuses. You hold it by the back with your thumbs.
Now you put this on the pictures in the book, the stereo pictures, and you view them like this, and suddenly instead of looking at a flat picture, you’re looking through a window at a 3-D world.
STUDIO: Oh my goodness.
BRIAN: It’s like a time machine really. I mean I can’t show you on TV.
JOJO: Wow. You guys take a look at this. This is great.
BRIAN: If i get a WOW from you guys I’ll be happy.
JOJO: Take that yes. Here you go.
STUDIO: These are not eclipse glasses. (laughing) It’s like they’re living. yeah.
JOJO: You had the presence of mind. You owned one of these and you took these pictures – all of them?
BRIAN: Yeah and sometimes I would give it to the local photographer when we went on stage, which is why you get some live pictures of us, but most of this, this is backstage, in airplanes and a boats and trains and cars and stuff.
STUDIO: You’ve been everywhere.
BRIAN: We’ve been a lot of places:
JOHO. Mark that’s don’t break it. You break it, you buy it.
BRIAN: It’s hard to break.
JOJO: Hey, speaking of Queen, a coupe of questions. Of course you guys are still doing touring. Adam – how’s it been? I know Adam he’s such a sweetheart. What’s your thoughts on Adam in the band.
BRIAN: Adam is a dream he’s just great. I call him the GFG, you know, the “Gift From God”, ’cos we weren’t looking for someone. We really weren’t – Roger and I we did some time, we went out with Paul Rodgers after we lost Freddie, which was great but it kind of came to a natural end and then we thought. “Okay it’s done now – we’ve done our stuff and that was history and now we’re someone different”, and then along comes Adam Lambert. Everyone says “You gotta have this man, you know, this guy in your band you know, and it was right. He does all the right stuff and Freddie would love him, of that I’m sure. So we go out – we just did a 26-date , a 26-date tour of the States. which was wild. You know it’s as packed and buzzing and energetic as anything we’ve ever done in our whole career I think.
JOJO: I was just flipping through the book and there’s, I just caught one picture of Wembley Stadium. Playing places like that. That’s what – a hundred thousand people? What is that like?
BRIAN: It’s great. It’s like nothing else really, yeah. I feel so privileged that we did get to do all that and we still do. It’s incredible and you know all around the world, I think one of the greatest things that happened to us was we didn’t become an English band. We became an International band. I’m kind of an International person. I think people should be together. You know music is for everyone, so we immediately kind of went around the world, places like Argentina and Brazil, which no-one had ever visited before in style like we did with the full rig. So yeah, it’s been a great,you know, you feel very fortunate.
JOJO: You’re conquering the world, no doubt. You can meet Brian tonight 6:00PM, Book Soup, Sunset Boulevard. Of course “Queen in 3-D”. You can get the book in queenin3-D.com and of course Queen on tour. Brian, it’s an honour. Fist bump to make it official. Thank you. There we go.
STUDIO: Brian – such a pleasure.
BRIAN: Thank you.
