The late legendary Queen vocalist Freddie Mercury became one of the most important singers in the history of music, not only for his incredible vocal range and lyrics but for his strong stage presence. In an 1985 interview recovered by Queen Archives the musician explained why he wanted to become a rock star and what inspired him on his path.
When Freddie Mercury said why he wanted to be a rock star
“I don’t know, I think I always liked to sing. I wanted to sing and I didn’t look upon it as a career but I just, you know. When I was a little baby I was in the choir and things like that. I just, I liked to sing. I don’t know, call it natural gift or whatever, you know, I’m not afraid to say it.”
“It’s just I like to sing and then I suddenly realized that I could actually write songs and then make my own music rather than before I would, you know. Sort of copy Elvis Presley songs and things as I do. Then I realized that I could actually write my own songs and do it my own way.”
Mercury continued:
“So suddenly, you know, there was a little taste of success. Everybody wants to be a star, you know. In whatever way they all want to be successful. You look at films where they all want to be a successful actress or actor. So you know, of course I never ever thought I was going to make a career of it.”
“Suddenly I realized that this is the best thing I could do. Whenever it’s interesting that’s always what you really like doing, isn’t it ? So what I’m doing right now is what interests me. I’m very happy that people buy my records and they like me. The day they stop buying my records I’ll go ‘Buy some more’, or give it all up,” Freddie Mercury said.
Formed in London in 1970, Queen became one of the best-selling bands of all time with an estimated amount of 170 million to 300 million records sold worldwide. Mercury was part of the band until his death in 1991 at the age of 45 victim of bronchial pneumonia caused by complications from AIDS.
Some of the band’s most important album are “Queen II” (1974), “A Night at the Opera” (1975), “The Game” (1980), “The Works” (1984) and “A Kind of Magic” (1986).
They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame back in 2001 by Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins.