Brian May has revealed how meeting Rory Gallagher backstage in the late 1960s inspired one of his now-iconic gear choices, and says he wanted Queen to have a rhythm guitarist when they first formed.
The Red Special–toting guitarist has been on the promo trail for the recent reissue of the 50th anniversary Queen I box set and has reflected on the band’s early days with Guitarist.
From that first album to their last — 1995’s Made in Heaven — May’s three-pronged attack of his Red Special guitar, a Vox AC30 combo amp and a Dallas Rangemaster Treble Booster pedal has been a quintessential part of Queen’s sound. Yet had he not met Gallagher backstage at London's Marquee club and taken his words of advice to heart, May would have likely ended up with a very different-sounding rig.
As the guitarist explains, he lingered at the club after Gallagher's band Taste completed their show.
“I managed to stay behind at the Marquee when everyone had gone home," he said. “I asked him, ‘Rory, how do you get that sound?’ And he said, ‘Well, it’s easy, I have the AC30 and this little box, and I turn it up and it sings for me.’ The next day, I went to a guitar shop and found two secondhand AC30s for £30 each.”
Importantly, though, while May was inspired by the tones coming out of Gallagher’s little box — most likely with a little help from his heavily worn ‘61 Stratocaster — he didn’t aim to replicate it.
“I found a Treble Booster,” he goes on. “I plugged it in with my guitar, turned it all the way up and it just melted my stomach. That’s my sound. And it’s different from Rory’s. His is much more bright.”
May has fond memories of meeting Gallagher and recounted how it all came about in the documentary What's Going On — Taste Live at the Isle of Wight.
“We were boys and we hung around and hid when the Marquee was at turning-out time, and then we strolled over as if we ought to be there,” he explained.
“He was incredibly patient. He was packing up his own gear — that’s the kind of man he was... and he had the grace to speak to us. He didn’t go, ‘Get out of here!’”
Gallagher’s influence on the band’s sound cannot be downplayed. But if May had his way, their sound would have changed in another way.
“Very early on, we arrived at this view that being a live act was not the same as the studio. Actually, it was simpler because there’s only four of us onstage and no overdubs,” he says.
“It took me a long time to feel confident about being the only guitar onstage. I always felt like I needed a rhythm guitar. But gradually I got into this habit of playing lead and rhythm at the same time — and I realized that nobody noticed the lack of it.
“So we had enough. You could fashion that live performance to make people feel they’d heard an orchestra.”
May is currently recovering from a stroke he suffered last summer and has made limited public appearances since. However, while on a nostalgia trip with Guitarist, he did explain how he had a brief flirtation with Marshall amps later on in his career, only for a tonal disaster “that sounded like an angry wasp,” and schooling from Jimi Hendrix saw him double-down on his loyalty to Vox.
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