Former Queen guitarist Brian May recorded two tracks with the Foo Fighters recently at Conway Studios in Los Angeles. “Yes, I put a few brush strokes on two tracks for the forthcoming Foos album,” May revealed on the Queen website.
May elaborated, “One track is very aggressively rhythmic, and I contributed some ‘Get Down Make Love’-type guitar as well as some soloing…For this session we improvised with more modern equipment to get a similar effect-in fact slightly different-so it was inspiring and seems to work well with the track…Of course it was all experimental and I did it purely because it was fun to work with my great pals.”
He described the second “unusual” track, a kind of “narrative ballad.” “I contributed some Queen II lush harmony guitar sound figures.”
May didn’t guarantee his stuff would make the cut. “They can use it if in the cold light of day if the group (or [band leader] Dave [Grohl]!) thinks it works!”
The Foos know May’s work with Queen inside out, May added. “[Drummer] Taylor [Hawkins] and Dave [Grohl] are familiar with everything Queen ever did-and as soon as I turned the AC 30 up full, wound off the treble, and fed my guitar into it with all the pickups in phase, feeding back, sustaining like a cello, Taylor said, ‘Ha! the White Queen sound!!’ He was spot on of course-haven’t used that sound in probably 15 years.”
In an interview a while back, May revealed that the Foo Fighters were one of his favorite “new” bands. At last year’s Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame ceremony in New York, May and the Foo Fighters hooked up for a smoking version of Queen’s “Tie Your Mother Down.”
