“I didn’t really get the music”: The band that tried to poach Roger Taylor from Queen
How does one go about easily categorising a band like Queen? There are elements of classic rock in the sound that they produced for several years, there were plenty of segues into pop territory, especially in their later work, and there are so many nods to glam rock in the ebullient hooks they decorated their songs with. However, is there a reasonable argument to be made that you could stretch things as far as calling Queen progressive rock?
Now, ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ is about as far as you can get from prog, with its minimalist bassline providing the backbone for the track, and ‘Radio Ga Ga’ is as radio-friendly as you could expect for a band whose commercial stature was on the rise. On the other hand, you’ve got songs like ‘The Prophet’s Song’ and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, which, while ostensibly a pop song and a major hit for the band, firmly enters prog territory with its multiple disparate sections and winding structure.
Besides, would there really be any issue with labelling Queen as a progressive rock band? Well, it may have stunted their growth and chart performance in a significant way if they’d been marketed as such, seeing as the unwieldy nature of other prog bands was the direct antithesis of top 40 fodder and was generally aimed at a niche audience rather than a mass market. On the other hand, they’d still have been perceived positively in certain spheres for their ambitious approach to composition, despite the divisive nature of the label.
While it’s not certain what the band as a whole makes of the nomenclature, drummer Roger Taylor was perhaps less of a fan of prog rock in general and would have been uncomfortable carrying around the tag for the duration of his career. It might seem slightly over the top to state such a thing without solid ground, but the fact that he turned down an offer to be in an equally treasured band based on the fact they were more proggy than he would have been comfortable with, you get the impression that it’s not his personal favourite.
In 1970, while Queen were still starting out and playing on the smaller end of the gig circuit, Taylor was approached with an offer to come into the studio with Genesis, following the departure of their second drummer in three years, John Mayhew. While he obliged and spent time with the band in the studio and socialising with them afterwards, there was something not quite right for Taylor.
“Well, they invited me to the studio, then we went to the pub,” Taylor explained to Classic Rock several years later. “They didn’t say, ‘Do you want to join the group?’, but I get the impression that’s what they wanted because their drummer had left. I didn’t really get the music, to be honest, it was a bit too prog for me. But they’re all lovely people.”
While the band would undoubtedly have been disappointed at Taylor turning them down, fate would lead them towards their eventual drummer and future lead vocalist, Phil Collins. As many would say, the rest is, of course, history, and they landed on their feet with their eventual recruit. Roger Taylor, on the other hand, would have been equally as delighted to continue with Queen and performing the ‘non-prog’ tracks that took them to the top.
