Queen + Adam Lambert frontman Adam Lambert recently talked about the legendary Freddie Mercury.
Lambert was recently honored with the International Award at last night’s (Friday, June 30) O2 Silver Clef Awards at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House Hotel in London, England.
Queen managed to not only continue after the passing of Mercury, who died in 1991 of complications from to AIDS, but thrive following the arrival of Lambert. Lambert, May and Taylor first shared the stage during “American Idol” in May 2009 for a performance of “We Are The Champions”. They teamed up again in 2011 at the MTV European Music Awards in Belfast, Ireland for an electrifying eight-minute finale of “The Show Must Go On”, “We Will Rock You” and “We Are The Champions” and in the summer of 2012, Lambert performed a series of shows with Queen across Europe as well as dates in Russia, Ukraine and Poland. They have since completed a number of tours and performed at some of the biggest festivals in the world.
Speaking to Music-News.com editor Marco Gandolfi at the event, Lambert said about what it has been like to sing parts originally written and recorded by iconic Queen vocalist Freddie Mercury:
“Listen, there’s no replacing Freddie Mercury. It’s impossible. Freddie Mercury is a mythic rock god. Not only did he sing the hell out of those songs, he wrote so many of them. Those were his stories in a lot of those songs. And if I didn’t have the recordings of Freddie Mercury, I wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am with this music. So he’s incredibly inspiring and he definitely gave me all of the ingredients that I needed to even pull it off on stage. So I look at it always as a celebration and a tribute to him.”
Adam also touched upon Mercury’s cultural legacy, saying:
“I think Freddie’s many things. I think the voice alone, it does something to you when you listen to it. He had an incredible voice, and I think that, as his tool, connected him with so many people out there. And then his songwriting — he wrote beautiful, human, emotive music about the human experience, and I think that also connected him with people. And then once you got him onstage, you look at old footage of him and he was very free and full of joy, and I think that inspired a lot of people as well, including myself.”
