Queen continues to celebrate the release of their Queen I box set, this time with a special video focused on Roger Taylor’s drum contributions to their debut album.
In the latest special episode of Queen the Greatest, Taylor reveals that he was disappointed when they got to Trident Studios to record the album, because he had little control over his sound.
“At Trident, it did feel like, ‘OK, now we’re in it,’ but I didn’t really get on with their ideas,” he shares. “They had a drum booth and it was a well-known sound: very dry and dead, which is not what I wanted. I wanted to hear the drums resonate.”
He adds, “I didn’t want it to go ‘thud, whack.’ But that’s what they wanted. There was cloth over everything, and everything was taped down.”
Taylor also notes that he couldn’t even play on his own drum kit.
“I had to play this s***** little kit. It was just awful,” he says. “We were told, ‘This is the Trident sound.’ But we didn’t want the Trident sound. We wanted our sound.”
As for why they went along with it, he says, “We sort of just did what we were told.”
The Queen I box set, which was released in October, features a new mix of the album, which the band is much happier with.
“What we’ve done now with Queen I … is we’ve used all the actual recordings but made it sound more like we wanted it to sound at the time,” Roger says. “So it’s ‘liver,’ the drums are more live and more ambient. So, for me, it’s a significant improvement, and I know Brian (May) feels the same.”
(Video includes uncensored profanity.)
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