Freddie Mercury: The Biography Read online

  More than ever rock stars were the new icons, and throughout the sixties Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones, the epitome of that glamorous era, would elevate dressing to an art form. His androgynous style: frock coats, fedora hats and Berber jewellery, became the prototype for later generations of pop stars. Out on the London scene that fired his imagination, Freddie Mercury recognised the importance of making a visual statement to complement the music. By the turn of the decade, having found an outlet for his flair for flamboyance, he would alarm other band members with his determination to encourage them to wear women’s clothing on stage.

  By the mid-sixties the American writer Ken Kesey introduced a new dimension to all the excitement and experimentation of the decade by holding Acid Test parties. A manmade drug so new that it hadn’t yet been declared illegal, LSD, more commonly known as acid, was at the heart of it. Psychedelia with all its garish colours and complex patterns was beginning, and Freddie Mercury was drawn to it.

  Just after his twentieth birthday in September 1966, Mercury won his parents round and enrolled at Ealing Technical College and School of Art in west London, on a graphic art and design course. He also subsequently moved into his own flat in London’s Kensington. For many the option of art college was little more than a glorified doss, a front for hanging out with friends and indulging in the more important business of talking, preferably making, music. But by then successful chart-toppers John Lennon and Pete Townshend were both products of art school – Townshend was even a graduate of Ealing College itself. Art school was beginning to be considered the classic training-ground for sixties British rock stars, and Mercury saw its function clearly. ‘Art schools’, he said, ‘teach you to be more fashion conscious, to be always one step ahead.’ With his A grade pass in A level art he had arrived in style.

  Grammar school, however, had made Mercury wary of college life, and he was quite timid for his first year or so at Ealing. Former tutors recall him as unassuming and in no way remarkable, except for his annoying, perhaps nervous, habit of giggling, sometimes uncontrollably. One ex-student later starkly referred to Freddie as having been a talentless drip, while another remembers with affection his considerate nature.

  By 1967 with his raven-black hair now fashionably long, Mercury wore velvet jackets, skintight trousers and platform shoes, together with lots of silver jewellery. As this was the style of the times, he didn’t stand out: indeed there were others who were far louder in their dress and behaviour than him, which with hindsight has baffled those who knew him then. Many would never have credited Mercury with the ability to fulfil his desire to become a rock star. Just as no one would have guessed at his sexual past. Since leaving Bombay it appears that there had been no more homosexual encounters, though he was not known to party with girls either. He kept himself aloof – but not out of touch.

  Mercury’s art and design course had a good reputation, and his year’s intake of students turned out to be talented. He studied a variety of options, including ballet, which thrilled him then and later, when he would briefly become involved in dance. But it was music that anchored him, never more so than in the summer of 1967 when he fell under the spell of the dynamic American guitarist Jimi Hendrix.

  Hendrix was by now living in London, thriving under the managerial guidance of Chas Chandler. Musically, Hendrix’s arrival was important for lots of people, and Mercury was among them. The deafening, largely improvised, rock of ‘Hey Joe’ and ‘Purple Haze’, dominated by rapid electric lead guitar work, appealed to Mercury. Of mixed Cherokee Native American and Mexican descent, Hendrix’s exotic gypsy style fascinated him, too, and he became a devotee. Plastering posters of his idol all over his walls, he dressed like Hendrix and constantly sketched him.

  As time went by Mercury’s obsession with Hendrix permeated his life, including his studies. After a session in the pub at lunchtime, Mercury needed scant encouragement to climb on to his desk and cavort about in a wild impersonation of Hendrix. Howling out the lyrics of his songs, he would pretend that the twelve-inch wooden ruler, dug suggestively into his groin, was a guitar. He was not alone in his passion for music, and by now had some like-minded friends. With Nigel Foster and Tim Staffell, he would occasionally practise three-part harmonies in the gents, where the acoustics were the best in the building.

  Tim Staffell corroborates the view that Mercury’s early Ealing days were unremarkable. He recalls how ‘My first impressions of him were that he was quite straight culturally. That’s to say, conservative – I didn’t ever think about his sexuality. He was fairly reserved, and you wouldn’t have described him as being at all “in your face”, as they say. He also had a fair degree of humility.

  ‘But Freddie’s persona was developing rapidly, even then, linking his natural flamboyance with the confidence he’d later acquire from his singing. As far as being a star was concerned, I personally think he was already in the ascendant. People certainly responded to him.’ Desperate to join a band, Mercury knew that Staffell played in one regularly and was delighted when he finally gained an introduction.

  Tim Staffell introduced Freddie Mercury to the rest of Smile in early 1969. As ever with strangers, Mercury was initially reserved, weighing up the other band members from behind the safety of an invisible barrier. Roger Meddows Taylor, a dental student at the London Hospital Medical School, was the extrovert blond drummer. His musical leanings had drawn him first to the ukulele and then to the guitar, but in 1961 he was given his first drum kit and discovered that his talent lay in percussion. During his teenage years he had experimented in a couple of West Country bands, most successfully with Reaction.

  Guitarist Brian May was tall and skinny with a studious manner and a shock of dark curly hair. Mercury discovered they had been near neighbours living just streets away from each other in Feltham. Like Mercury, May had started piano lessons young and also reached Grade IV. Taught the rudiments of playing the ukulele by his father, on his seventh birthday he was given his first steel-strung acoustic guitar. His first electric guitar was handmade by him and his father and christened the Red Special.

  Staffell and May went back a long way, with Staffell having joined May’s school band, as its singer, in 1964. In 1965 when Brian won an open scholarship in physics to London’s Imperial College of Science and Technology, Staffell, too, was in London, preparing to study graphics at Ealing Art College. When Brian May left his school band at the end of 1967, he kept in touch with Staffell, who stayed on for a while, before he, too, quit the group. The more time the pair spent together talking about music, the more they realised just how much they missed being in a band. Deciding to form a new group, they advertised in Imperial College for a MITCH MITCHELL/GINGER BAKER TYPE DRUMMER. They were swamped with applications, but when they auditioned Roger Taylor on the bongos he got the job virtually on the spot. ‘We did hold a second proper audition with Roger, setting up our gear and playing for real, but it was obvious that he was dead right for us,’ maintains Staffell.

  In early autumn 1968 Smile began to rehearse with enormous dedication, perfecting their musical style, while May and Staffell also branched out into songwriting. Their nerve-racking first public appearance was in support of Pink Floyd at Imperial College on 26 October. From there, with Roger Taylor’s contacts, they took bookings all over Cornwall. PJ’s in Truro and the Flamingo Ballroom in Redruth became familiar haunts, but they preferred the London college circuit. Being based in the central Kensington area of the capital, it made more sense to play at venues in London. Besides, the gigs there were better paid.

  Although they had work, May, Taylor and Staffell were increasingly ambitious for Smile. It was almost three months since they had backed Pink Floyd, yet apart from playing support to T-Rex and Family, nothing else was happening. However, on 27 February 1969, they took part in a concert organised by Imperial College at the Royal Albert Hall. The prestigious line-up included Free and Joe Cocker. Smile was amazed – and delighted – to feature above Free on the bill,
and their anticipation of the event was immeasurable. As it turned out, the gig was most memorable for a couple of embarrassing mishaps, involving the wrong length of guitar lead for the stage, and Staffell, by playing in his stocking feet, ending up with splinters. But the occasion still left them reeling, and talking about it for days afterwards. It was in the midst of this high that Staffell introduced his Ealing College friend, Freddie Bulsara, to the rest of the band.

  By the sixties Kensington itself, with its famous market and boutiques – Biba among them – had become the place to hang out; the arty cosmopolitan atmosphere suited Mercury well. Mercury first met the Smile band members in a popular pub called the Kensington. From that day on, they got on well. And, from the first moment of meeting, Mercury set his heart on getting into the band, even though he hadn’t yet heard them play.

  Later that evening he invited himself along to one of their rehearsals. Enthusiasm was one thing, but Mercury instantly became the bane of their lives at practice sessions. He loved the sound they were creating, but their presentation, in his opinion, left a lot to be desired. With the possibility of taking the trio in hand, he found it impossible to resist his endless ideas for jazzing them up.

  Says Tim Staffell, ‘We didn’t take Freddie that seriously as a singer at first, as it took a few years for him to develop the quality and assurance he showed when he was into his stride.’ Roger Taylor was amused but apparently immune to Mercury’s vocal bombardment, and Brian May tolerated him with patience, ignoring the hints about joining the band.

  But Mercury was relentless. Listening to Smile, his own urge to perform again became so desperate that when he attended their gigs, he would sometimes stand at the front of the audience and shout, criticising them for what he considered they were doing wrong. Cupping his hands round his mouth, in his frustration he’d yell, ‘If I was your singer, I’d show you how it was done.’ And still it had no effect. But Mercury was a planner. As a full-frontal assault was clearly too abrasive, he decided to try another tack.

  Mercury hung out with the band as much as possible and continued to attend their rehearsals. As well as showing them up in public, he also went to work on each band member, pandering to their individual weaknesses. In Brian May’s case, Mercury played Hendrix records for him all evening on a small second-hand stereo. Already besotted by the rock guitarist, May’s analytical brain was quick to absorb the extraordinary sound of Jimi Hendrix in stereo. All night Mercury paced obligingly from one speaker position to the other with May, ostensibly trying to figure out how the maestro produced such effects; in reality he was just trying to find a way to gain an ally.

  Despite his best efforts, a place in Smile continued to elude him. This was particularly galling when it began to look as if the band were becoming successful. On 19 April they played at London’s Revolution Club, after which they were approached by Lou Reizner, then involved with Mercury Records. The US label was about to break into the UK market, and Reizner had been favourably eyeing up Smile all evening. When he asked them if they would sign with Mercury, they said yes at once.

  Freddie could only enjoy the band’s excitement from the outside, when soon after having signed a contract in May 1969, Smile were booked into Trident Studios, Soho, to make a single with producer John Anthony. The A-side was ‘Earth’, a number written by Staffell, and backed by ‘Step on Me’. Reminiscent of Barclay James Harvest in style, ‘Earth’ was the better single, with Staffell’s melodic vocals and Taylor’s strong drumming to anchor the track. There was no sign yet of Brian May’s distinctive guitar work, and if the number had a weak spot, it was in the slight incoherence of the mid-track instrumental. Understandably, expectations were high as Mercury fixed its release date for August.

  In the sweltering heatwave that summer, Mercury’s hopes of joining a band took an unexpected turn with the arrival in London of a Liverpool group, Ibex. Like Smile, they were a three-piece outfit: drummer Mick ‘Miffer’ Smith, bassist John ‘Tupp’ Taylor and lead guitarist Mike Bersin. With their manager Ken Testi, they had headed south in a rusty old van to seek fortune and fame in London. ‘My girlfriend Helen McConnell had a flat in Earls Court with her sister, Pat, so at least we had somewhere to crash,’ Testi explains.

  Testi remembers that they met Freddie Mercury almost on arrival. ‘It was Pat’s birthday, and we thought we’d take her out for a drink. She was adamant it had to be in Kensington. At that time there was very much a collegy subculture in the area, and there was quite a student thing going on – a substrata to the more opulent side of Kensington.

  ‘Pat had seen Smile playing at Imperial College and knew that the Kensington was their boozer, so we went, and right enough the chaps were there. In no time at all the two bands got chatting. They had a friend with them who wasn’t in Smile but clearly felt that he ought to be, and this was Freddie.’

  Says Testi, ‘Freddie was wearing a short fur jacket and had well-groomed shoulder-length hair. He looked the business. I suppose to him we must have appeared brusque northerners that night and not at all sophisticated, but you’d never have guessed it. On first acquaintance Freddie would be very quiet.

  ‘After the pub shut we all ended up back at Pat’s flat where Smile performed for us, and Fred kept throwing in harmonies as if he couldn’t help himself. That night my focus centred on Brian’s playing, and I felt that I was listening to something potentially special. But I noticed that Freddie was clearly extremely comfortable in that company.’

  Like Ken Testi, Ibex guitarist Mike Bersin recalls that the person who made the most impact at that first meeting was Brian May: ‘I was dead keen to hear him play but the big surprise for me ended up being that he used a sixpence coin instead of the usual plectrum,’ an idiosyncrasy that still fascinates guitarists. But as both bands met up often after that night, it wasn’t long before Mercury made his presence felt.

  ‘That was an unforgettable summer,’ he continues. ‘Brian Jones died, and the Stones held that huge Hyde Park memorial to him, and the weather was stiflingly hot! What I remember most is everyone sitting outside the Kensington on the low window ledges drinking barley wine, because it was cheap. Although Freddie had been quiet at first, he quickly lost that.

  ‘One evening we were all outside the pub discussing music as usual, and Freddie suddenly piped up, “What you guys need is a singer.” We looked at each other and wondered how he could possibly know that because he hadn’t heard us play. I guess it was a lucky opening line, but anyway he promptly offered to front us.’

  Ken Testi watched Mercury moving in on his band with a knowing smile! ‘Ibex had no designated singer, although Bersin was holding that down too, but we really could’ve done with one,’ he says. ‘It was obvious to us all that Freddie’s heart was still set on joining Smile but that wasn’t going to happen so that’s why he’d turned his sights on Ibex.’

  The ease with which Mercury, at least superficially, transferred his affections has stayed with Mike Bersin, who says, ‘Well, he came to our rehearsals a couple of times in a basement flat but far from doing much singing, he really just talked his way into the band. We had no real resistance to the idea and that was it. He joined Ibex.’

  Finally securing a place in a band was not the only success for Mercury at this time. For months he had haunted Barbara Hulanicki’s trendy boutique, Biba, with an ulterior motive. Although it was one of the hippest places in town, the main attraction there lay in his developing friendship with one of Biba’s sales assistants, Mary Austin. They had begun to date, Mercury presumably choosing to suppress his homosexual tendencies. His feelings for the petite blonde, and hers for him, were strong enough for them to start living together in a tiny first-floor flat, close to Kensington market. It was the beginning of a lifetime’s devotion to one another.

  Mercury’s involvement with Mary Austin was to offset any doubts among his friends about his sexuality. ‘I’d no idea he was gay until long after I’d gone,’ admits Tim Staffell. ‘In those days it was f
ashionable to adopt campness as a kind of social passport, as if it implied artistic integrity or sensitivity.’

  ‘Freddie had just started living with Mary when I met him,’ says Mike Bersin, ‘which I guess threw us off the scent, because in his behaviour in every other respect he was wonderfully camp in that beautifully English foppish way. In many ways, you know, Freddie almost wasn’t real.’

  What was real to Mercury was the perpetual shortage of cash. Although still averse to getting his hands dirty, he realised that independence meant he needed a paid job. But he was not only unwilling to spend time out of the Kensington area but was also only interested in music and art. His solution was to rent a stall in Kensington market. By August 1968 Roger Taylor had left medical school with only the first part of his dental degree. Seeing a golden opportunity to solidify his connection with Smile, Mercury asked Taylor to join him in business.

  They rented a stall for £10 a week in an avenue that traders depressingly dubbed ‘Death Row’. Years later, in early Queen publicity releases, it would be grandly elevated to the status of ‘a gentlemen’s outfitters’, but, as Ken Testi confirms, their market stall was the size of a telephone box. Stocking it was easy, Mercury’s art-school friends brought paintings and drawings to sell, and occasionally he displayed his own work. But sales were so slow that they switched to selling clothes and soon turned a small profit.

  Tim Staffell recalls this time: ‘I had a stall of my own for a couple of months trying to sell original artwork, mine and that of other Ealing-ites. It was some place. I particularly remember an extremely uncomfortable pair of calico trousers that some shyster sold me.

  ‘Freddie and Roger worked part-time at their stall selling fashion items. There was a strong emphasis on personal adornment; naturally, I suppose, since that would be the motivation for wearing and selling the stuff. But there was an air of narcissistic coquettishness about the place that I loathed. I guess it was very influential in creating the sense of outrageousness that Freddie cultivated. But I didn’t like it. It was all a little too deliberate for my liking.’