Queen Reveal Exact Moment They Decided To Include Adam Lambert In The Band
By Logan DeLoye
March 31, 2023
Brian May, Roger Taylor, and Adam Lambert sat down with iHeartRadio ICONS hosted by Jim Kerr to discuss band dynamic, and exciting new aspects of their upcoming tour. May recently moved from London and is now one of Taylor's new neighbors. May said that the two of them will sit down over drinks at a local pub every so often.
"I moved out of London for the first time, and I moved very close to Rog so I'm his neighbor now. We can just slip over and have a drink." Despite the two meeting up often and holding onto a beautiful friendship that has spanned decades, Taylor mentioned how wonderful it is when they include Lambert into the mix.
"We found this wonderful recipe this magical chemistry with Adam and you know, I don't want to retire personally what a horrible thought. I'd just like to do what I love doing and that is this, and thank goodness these two guys want to do it as well."
Queen + Adam Lambert will grace stages across North America from October 4th to October 11th this year as part of The Rhapsody Tour. Though this tour bears the same name as the tour that took place from 2019 to 2022, May assured that it will be very different this time around.
"We just love trying stuff out and seeing how far we can push it. So we're innovating the whole time. We are ripping things to pieces the whole time saying, "'Can we do this better?''' "'Can we do this a different way? "' "'Can we try a different song, and can we move things around?"" All of this stuff contributes, so this tour has evolved a lot since we last saw you. I actually questioned if we should still call it The Rhapsody Tour, but the rhapsody has returned and its significantly changed and revved up."
All three members of the band explained how closely they work with their lighting and set up crews to carry out crazy visions and updated ideas for the show. Kerr noted that Lambert was the youngest person to ever be featured on the podcast, to which Lambert replied that he was honored. The versatile artist explained that he didn't expect to be with May and Taylor for this long, but things just "clicked."
"When it all began, I didn't expect it to continue this long and this successfully. I though, "'Oh this was just a one off it's going to be a great time. We'll do this gig together at the EMA's in Belfast for MTV and that will be that it will be a lovely night."' And I don't know, we just clicked, it was such a nice connection and we had a lot of fun on stage and one thing after another sort of came up as opportunities and I was thrilled to keep being able to say yes!"
To close out the interview, Roger shared that the band actually decided to make Lambert's presence permanent immediately after an iHeartRadio Festival performance in Las Vegas in 2014. To listen to the full interview check out the iHeartRadio ICONS podcast on iheart.com.