Recently when Brain May was talking with Total Guitar, he revealed that he was jealous of Led Zeppelin fans. And there is a whole different reason for such a statement.
Queen is one of the most proclaimed bands in the history of rock. The stage performance of Freddie Mercury was so immense, everyone was mesmerized by it. However, Brian recently revealed that their fans singing along annoyed the whole band. May talked about how it would disturb them. He says the band simply wanted them to be there, listen to the band and enjoy music rather than accompanying them.
This is when they started becoming jealous of Led Zeppelin‘s audience. Also, at the same time they worked out a solution and it was a good one. He said, “We had a good following. [But] we had this thing where people insisted on singing along to our songs. And I think we were quite irritated by it. We thought, ‘People, just listen. We’re working really hard, so bloody well, listen!’ But they were unstoppable… They sang every word to every song.”
Brian then compared the audience of Led Zeppelin. He said they simply banged their head and listened to their song. This is something Queen wanted with their fanbase. Brian commented, “When Led Zeppelin played, they listened. They banged their heads, and they listened. And I thought about our concerts, ‘Why don’t you buggers listen instead of singing?’”
Suddenly, he had an idea to counter their problem and it gave birth to one of their most iconic songs. Brian had an idea and recalled, “I said to Freddie, ‘Maybe instead of fighting this, we should be encouraging it. Maybe we should be harnessing this kind of energy which seems to be happening.’ If they can chant, what would they chant? And with that, I could hear it in my head, ‘We will, we will rock you.’”
That’s how ‘We Will Rock You’ was born. They wanted a chant in their song so that the audience couldn’t sing alongside them. He said he was hoping for something which would catch on. That’s how they created a song that was led by the audience and not them. In the end, he said, “We would have a song which would be led by the audience. So that’s why there’s no drums on there. It was all aimed towards getting the audience involved… somehow it worked.”
‘We Will Rock You’ became one of their most popular songs. As Brian said, it was strong, with a great beat and uplifting lyrics. It was more of an anthem for the whole band. It was a commercial success. It also reached number four in the UK and number two on the US Billboard hot 100. Till now, more than 1 million copies have been sold.
Listen to ‘We Will Rock You’ down below.