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Articles > Queen + Paul Rodgers Articles > 09-14-2008 - Sunday Sun - A union of rock royalty

FOR Paul Rodgers, singing in 1970s super-group Free just wasn’t enough.

After the band’s demise in 1973, three years after their biggest hit All Right Now, the Middlesbrough-born vocalist went on to form another chart-topping band, Bad Company.

The band released a string of international hit albums, while singles such as Can’t Get Enough and Feel Like Making Love — a US chart-topper — can still be heard on the radio to this day.

The rest of the 1980s saw Rodgers kick-start a successful solo career and team up with Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page in The Firm.

He might have earned a break from music by the time the 1990s rolled around, but he got involved in another band, The Law, and jammed with the world’s best-known rock musicians for one-off concerts and musical tributes.

Now he’s lending his world-famous voice to another band, touring the world and, tomorrow, releasing an album of new material, The Cosmos Rocks, under the name Queen plus Paul Rodgers.

During their illustrious career, Queen were one of the biggest bands in the world, largely thanks to larger-than-life frontman Freddie Mercury.

Paul, however, is known for his bluesy vocals and — during his time with Free and Bad Company especially — famous for a no-frills approach to music and performing.

Paul singing with Queen might seem an unlikely union but, as he’s keen to point out, it works.

“There was never really a long-term plan with this whole thing,” said Paul, in his US-tinged Middlesbrough accent. “We did a TV show together. I sang with Brian May and Roger Taylor. We did a couple of Queen songs, and then did one of my songs. It started after that, when Brian asked me if I’d like to sing with them on a couple of European shows, as Queen plus Paul Rodgers, just for a bit of fun.

“A couple of shows turned into a full-blown European tour, which then developed into a worldwide tour. It’s taken on its own momentum.”

This happened in late 2004. Since then, the band and Paul have toured the world and released DVDs of their concerts, all the while readying themselves for perhaps the biggest challenge . . . recording new music.

The Cosmos Rocks sees a slight change in direction from the Queen we all know and love.

Paul’s rootsy influence, as well as his unmistakeable voice, is all over the album, while May and Taylor provide harder, rockier backing than anything we heard on Queen’s last few albums.

Current single C-lebrity mocks today’s fame-hungry culture, while Voodoo and Warboys in particular feature Paul’s finest vocals of recent years.

“Voodoo was a song I had already when I came into the studio,” explained Paul, who looks much younger than his 58 years.

“We really just jammed on it and then recorded the second or third take. It ended up being quite a sparse song with not much instrumentation on it, and, dare I say it, very bluesy, very loose. We didn’t know what we were going to do or sound like, so we were just playing to see what came up. Some of the songs on the album are different; some are very natural and organic, like Voodoo, but there are others that are beautifully produced, too.”

Of course, as impressive as The Cosmos Rocks is, it’s difficult to comprehend Queen without Freddie Mercury, who passed away of an Aids-related illness in 1991.

It was Mercury’s showmanship that made Queen what they were, together with his operatic voice and songwriting. No one could replace him but, as the affable Paul points out, that’s not the point of the new music.

“In my mind, this is two forces joining together,” explained Paul. “No one is trying to take Freddie’s place, no one ever could. I accept that.

“The most important thing for me is the music, it always has been."

Strangely for artists so big during the same era, before Paul and Brian’s meeting a number of years ago, Paul had only met the other members of Queen once before.

Paul explained: “I saw them briefly on a stairway once, when they were looking for a manager. They were talking to Peter Grant, who managed me and Led Zeppelin at the time.

“They were coming out of his office, and we bumped into one another.”