Roger Taylor

The first time I saw Led Zeppelin, Bonzo (John Bonham) just walked on the stage and just warmed up for about 10 seconds. Freddie (Freddie Mercury) and I nearly fell over we just couldn’t believe the power and the sound. People are still today trying to imitate Led Zeppelin, America is full of drummers trying to play like John Bonham.

His (Freddie Mercury) words got better quickly. There were some very overt lyrics. Don’t Stop Me Now is a good example. He was having a good time, and that was very much a cri de coeur. Some lyrics we wrote together like I’m Going Slightly Mad, which was funny. We had fun coming up with daft things, all those ridiculous phrases. I’d say it was Freddie’s actual musicality which was the cleverest thing of all, the notes, and his harmonic structure was quite brilliant. When he wrote The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke, on the second album, he was crossing sections of six-part harmonies, and I thought: “Bloody hell, that is tricky stuff.” Then there’s The March Of The Black Queen, which is almost like prog-rock, and so outrageously complicated that I can’t even remember the arrangement myself. When you write songs that complex, you have to work hard at it, and it did invoke a lot of head-scratching. But then he’d come up with Killer Queen or, later on, lots of simple things like Crazy Little Thing. He had it on all sides. Freddie evolved. I always called him ‘the man who invented himself’. I think the talent was innate, but he dug deep inside himself and forced it out. His determination was quite something.

We’re not going out there with somebody pretending to be Freddie Mercury. We are what we are now; we’re not what we were then, we’re just going out, playing our songs.

I saw Buddy Rich playing. He was wonderful, fantastic. I would say of just sheer technique he’s the best I’ve ever seen.

We (pop stars) are people not androids. We’ve got views. I’ve got opinions and I don’t see why I shouldn’t use a bit of my art to put them over. I think music is one of the most powerful media forces in the world today.

Impossible to believe that dear Freddie has been gone for 10 years now. The immediate pain has obviously retreated but I can honestly say that not a day goes by when I do not think about him and miss his presence. He filled a very large part of my life – the life of the others in the band – but most especially the millions of people he never met! As I look back, I think the one thing that tends to be unsaid – aside from the obvious traits of fun, utrageousness, generosity of spirit, vocal ability etc – is the sheer brilliance of his musicianship. Leagues ahead baby. Fred – we love you – we miss you old friend!

Ballet: Men wearing pants so tight that you can tell what religion they are.

Monterey, I remember, but I seem to remember the Fillmore West, that we played the week before Monterey. That was much more memorable for me. The first time in San Francisco. They were good gigs.

I didn’t think my career would last this long, and it’s still going.

My dad said to me the other day, I really am an artistic person. I was shocked as I never saw him as a creative. I think me and my sisters are living out that side of him as my sister is another creative person, she’s a songwriter.

You have to keep reminding yourself it’s not about money, because there is a lot of money to be made in this business if you’re willing to do whatever. But that’s not what I’m thinking about. I continue only to take movies because I love the script and because I really want to do it.

I was asked to come to Chicago because Chicago is one of our fifty-two states.

[On his first red carpet experience] I walked out the wrong car door and started walking into the crowd, An interviewer said, ‘Give your best horror scream,’ and Stan did this great scream and I was too much of a wimp to do one. It was pathetic!

I would say that one of your greatest accomplishments, Amy Poehler, is that you have so successfully used your art and comedy as a source of positivity in the world, by creating Smart Girls [an online community for girls, encouraging them to be their authentic selves], by making [Leslie in] Parks and Rec not only a positive feminist character but creating a good-hearted worldview within that program.

Do your thing and don’t care if they don’t like it.

Politics: ‘Poli’a Latin word meaning ‘many’; and “tics” meaning ‘bloodsucking creatures’.

I really like comedy that brings people together. There’s a lot of comedies lately that have been at people’s expense or been kind of acidic or mean-spirited. And some folks like that, and I think there’s room for that, but that’s not my style. I like something that makes us all feel closer. Comedy, at its best, can be healing.

If you retain nothing else, always remember the most important rule of beauty, which is: who cares?

Then I got a call the next day from the assistant director saying that they were putting me on a personal training programme. I thought that would be pretty cool, because it would make me take it seriously. It was run by one of the stunt team, who are the most absurdly fit guys inthe world. I can’t even do 10 press ups. I did about three weeks of that, and in the end I think he got so bored of trying to force me to do it that he wrote it all down so that I could do it at home.

Being noticed can be a burden. Jesus got himself crucified because he got himself noticed. So I disappear a lot.

It’s strange, somebody asked for my autograph the other day. Because I finished school and I’m not really doing anything at the moment, I was just kind of aimlessly wandering around London and these two guys who were about 30 came up and asked for my autograph. I was really quite proud at the time, and they wanted to take photos and stuff. And then they were sort of wandering around and I was kind of wandering around and I bumped into them about three times, and every single time their respect for me kept growing and growing and growing.