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Queen: Will the Real Freddie Mercury Please Stand Up? · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a
0:18
Speaker 1: story about one of rock and roll's great libertines and
0:22
Speaker 1: how that story has become diluted over the years. It's
0:26
Speaker 1: a story about sex clubs and X-rated parties and other
0:29
Speaker 1: places where fantasy becomes reality. And it's also about Queen,
0:35
Speaker 1: how that band challenged accepted norms in the music industry
0:39
Speaker 1: to become one of the best-selling bands of all time,
0:42
Speaker 1: led by their magnetic singer, Freddie Mercury, a man who
0:45
Speaker 1: made great music. Unlike that music that I played for
0:50
Speaker 1: you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music.
0:53
Speaker 1: That was a preset loop from my Mellotron called Magnifico
0:57
Speaker 1: Figaro MK2. I played you that loop because I can't
1:03
Speaker 1: afford the rights to Girls Like You by Maroon 5
1:06
Speaker 1: featuring Cardi B. And why would I play you that
1:10
Speaker 1: specific slice of excessively cheesy cheese, could I afford it?
1:16
Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
1:20
Speaker 1: November 2nd, 2018. And that was the day that the
1:24
Speaker 1: Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, was released. A movie which may
1:29
Speaker 1: have given millions of people around the world a version
1:32
Speaker 1: of Freddie Mercury that never even existed. On this episode,
1:38
Speaker 1: sex clubs, debauchery, turning fantasy into reality. The real Freddie
1:43
Speaker 1: Mercury in Queen. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland.
1:49
Speaker 1: $ 911 million. That's how much Bohemian Rhapsody, the Queen biopic,
2:09
Speaker 1: has grossed worldwide since its release in 2018. $ 911 million.
2:17
Speaker 1: That is a lot of dough for a music biopic
2:20
Speaker 1: to pull down. Enough to make it the highest grossing
2:23
Speaker 1: music biopic of all time. At least it was the
2:28
Speaker 1: highest grossing music biopic of all time until just a
2:30
Speaker 1: few months ago, when the new Michael Jackson movie surpassed
2:33
Speaker 1: a billion dollars and snatched that title away. Still, Bohemian
2:38
Speaker 1: Rhapsody lives in rarefied air. The next highest-grossing music biopic
2:44
Speaker 1: after Bohemian Rhapsody is Baz Luhrmann's 2022 film about Elvis Presley.
2:49
Speaker 1: And that one doesn't even come close. Elvis, as that
2:52
Speaker 1: film is called, made $ 288 million, not even a third
2:57
Speaker 1: of what Bohemian Rhapsody cleared. And Bohemian Rhapsody was more
3:02
Speaker 1: than just a box office smash. It won four Academy Awards,
3:06
Speaker 1: including Best Actor for Rami Malek's portrayal of Freddie Mercury.
3:11
Speaker 1: But all that said, does Bohemian Rhapsody accurately represent the
3:16
Speaker 1: career of one of the best-selling rock bands of all time?
3:19
Speaker 1: And does it give an accurate portrayal of the personal
3:22
Speaker 1: life of its iconic frontman? Not exactly. First of all,
3:27
Speaker 1: Bohemian Rhapsody's narrative is framed by Queen's performance at Live
3:32
Speaker 1: Aid in 1985. The film does not tell you that
3:35
Speaker 1: only months before the show, Queen were seen as pariahs
3:38
Speaker 1: in the music industry, having been fined by the British
3:41
Speaker 1: Musicians Union for playing Sun City in apartheid South Africa. Instead,
3:47
Speaker 1: The film makes Live Aid out to be this emotionally
3:50
Speaker 1: redemptive moment in which Freddie Mercury returns to and reconciles
3:54
Speaker 1: with his bandmates after having left to make a solo album.
3:58
Speaker 1: But Freddie never quit the band. And his solo album
4:02
Speaker 1: was not a point of contention with the rest of Queen.
4:05
Speaker 1: In fact, Queen's drummer Roger Taylor had already released two
4:08
Speaker 1: solo albums of his own by this point. Was Queen's
4:12
Speaker 1: Live Aid performance absolutely riveting? Yes. Was it a kick
4:16
Speaker 1: in the ass to their career? Yes, but any notion
4:19
Speaker 1: of an emotional comeback is simply a dramatic plot device.
4:24
Speaker 1: The film also wants us to think that Freddie Mercury
4:26
Speaker 1: used the Live Aid moment to reveal to the rest
4:29
Speaker 1: of the band that he was HIV positive. Again, Live
4:32
Speaker 1: Aid was in 1985. According to Jim Hutton, Freddie's partner
4:36
Speaker 1: near the end of his life, Freddie did not discover
4:39
Speaker 1: he was sick until later in 1987. And even then,
4:43
Speaker 1: it's unclear how much he actually revealed to his bandmates.
4:47
Speaker 1: And then there's that great scene with Mike Myers as
4:50
Speaker 1: the pompous EMI Records executive who doesn't want to release
4:53
Speaker 1: the song Bohemian Rhapsody as a single on account of
4:56
Speaker 1: it being nearly six minutes long. That EMI executive did
5:00
Speaker 1: not exist. You know who did tell the band that
5:03
Speaker 1: the song Bohemian Rhapsody would never get played on the
5:06
Speaker 1: radio because it was too long? Elton John. All these
5:11
Speaker 1: factual quibbles aside, the biggest dramatic license that the movie
5:15
Speaker 1: takes is is with Freddie Mercury himself. Sacha Baron Cohen
5:20
Speaker 1: was originally cast to play Freddie in the film, but
5:22
Speaker 1: he left before production started because he wanted to tell
5:26
Speaker 1: some of the stories that I'm about to tell you.
5:29
Speaker 1: Stories that the film ultimately could not and would not tell.
5:35
Speaker 1: Freddie Mercury was one of rock and roll's greatest libertines.
5:39
Speaker 1: A man our guy Elton has said out-partied even him.
5:43
Speaker 1: And if you know something about Elton John's hard partying
5:45
Speaker 1: ways back in the day, then you know that that's
5:47
Speaker 1: saying something. Bohemian Rhapsody, however, does not paint a portrayal
5:52
Speaker 1: of Freddie Mercury as a great libertine. Instead, it turns
5:56
Speaker 1: him into a tragic martyr who briefly lost his way.
6:01
Speaker 1: So the question then becomes this. If Bohemian Rhapsody is
6:05
Speaker 1: guilty of creating a false Freddie Mercury, then who was
6:08
Speaker 1: the real Freddie Mercury? To answer that, you'd have to
6:12
Speaker 1: ask the people who knew him best. Like Mary Austin,
6:15
Speaker 1: his one-time girlfriend, a woman Freddie once called his common-law wife,
6:21
Speaker 1: Peter Freestone, a.k.a. Phoebe, Freddie's longtime assistant, Jim Dutton, his
6:26
Speaker 1: partner during his last years, Leslie Ann Jones, one of
6:29
Speaker 1: his many biographers, and also his fellow bandmates, guitarist Brian May,
6:34
Speaker 1: bassist John Deacon, and drummer Roger Taylor. The problem is,
6:40
Speaker 1: all of these people will swear that they are telling
6:42
Speaker 1: you the truth, yet none of them will tell you
6:44
Speaker 1: the exact same story. Consider also the way in which
6:48
Speaker 1: all of these narrators, just like you and me, perceive
6:50
Speaker 1: things in their own way. One's personal experiences and unique
6:55
Speaker 1: points of view can cloud true objectivity. It's also worth
6:59
Speaker 1: noting that in the 1970s and 1980s, one's own truth
7:02
Speaker 1: was often kept much closer to the vest, especially if
7:05
Speaker 1: that truth ran counter to the quote-unquote norms. I'm talking
7:09
Speaker 1: about gay musicians like Freddie Mercury, who rarely came out
7:13
Speaker 1: back then, for fear of what such a revelation would
7:16
Speaker 1: do to their career. But it was a strangely contradictory
7:20
Speaker 1: time as well, because it was a time in which
7:22
Speaker 1: Freddie Mercury could perform in a music video on MTV
7:25
Speaker 1: while wearing a t-shirt featuring the logo of one of
7:28
Speaker 1: the most notorious gay clubs in the world, and no
7:30
Speaker 1: one was the wiser. Because it was a time when
7:34
Speaker 1: people were, well, naïve. A time in which U2' s Bono
7:38
Speaker 1: could be genuinely shocked when Freddie pushed him up against
7:41
Speaker 1: a wall backstage at Live Aid and talked to him
7:43
Speaker 1: like he was, quote, chatting up a chick. Those were
7:46
Speaker 1: Bono's words, by the way. So when we take a
7:49
Speaker 1: closer look at Freddie Mercury, you can't help but ask yourself,
7:53
Speaker 1: is this real life or is this just fantasy? By
7:59
Speaker 1: the early 1970s, rock and roll was a fantasy. Glamrock
8:04
Speaker 1: gave its participants permission to create new characters and dress
8:08
Speaker 1: them up in glitter, feather boas, and platform shoes. And
8:12
Speaker 1: just as David Bowie briefly assumed the identity of Ziggy Stardust,
8:15
Speaker 1: so too did Farouk Balsara assume the identity of Freddie Mercury.
8:20
Speaker 1: Unlike the short-lived Ziggy, however, Freddie was forever. Joining Queen
8:26
Speaker 1: allowed Freddie to leave behind the person he didn't want
8:29
Speaker 1: to be. the shy, buck-toothed, closeted kid from a very
8:32
Speaker 1: religious and strict Parsi family. But not everyone embraced the
8:37
Speaker 1: newly liberated Freddie and his band. The critics savaged Queen's
8:41
Speaker 1: brand of hard rock, which was anchored by the sound
8:44
Speaker 1: of Freddie's robust and theatrical voice and Brian May's homemade
8:47
Speaker 1: electric guitar, unusually picked with British sixpence coins. The New
8:52
Speaker 1: Musical Express called their 1973 debut album a bucket of urine.
8:58
Speaker 1: Another music mag, Record Mirror, said they were the dregs
9:02
Speaker 1: of glam rock. And even when they landed their biggest
9:05
Speaker 1: hit to date, Killer Queen, the tastemakers of the world
9:09
Speaker 1: kept their knives sharpened. And as a result, Freddie Mercury
9:13
Speaker 1: became more distrustful of the press. But there's another reason
9:18
Speaker 1: why he carefully curated his public persona. He is on
9:21
Speaker 1: the record, early on, admitting, as he did to Melody
9:24
Speaker 1: Maker magazine, that, quote, The truth about Queen, however, in 1975,
9:36
Speaker 1: was that they were broke, they were in debt, and
9:39
Speaker 1: they needed a big hit in a bad way. And
9:42
Speaker 1: they managed to do so with a song that was,
9:45
Speaker 1: by design, anything but a hit. Bohemian Rhapsody was a
9:52
Speaker 1: massive undertaking. Freddie Mercury's nearly six-minute song consists of five
9:56
Speaker 1: distinct parts, including an operatic middle section. It required hundreds
10:01
Speaker 1: of vocal and instrumental overdubs. It was funny, sad, moving,
10:05
Speaker 1: and exhilarating. But executives from EMI Records in the UK
10:09
Speaker 1: and Elektra Records in the US demanded that it be
10:12
Speaker 1: edited for radio. So Freddie Mercury slipped a copy of
10:15
Speaker 1: the song to London DJ Kenny Everett. who played it
10:19
Speaker 1: something like 14 times over the course of a couple days.
10:22
Speaker 1: The demand from listeners to get their hands on a
10:25
Speaker 1: copy forced the record label's hand, and on Halloween of 1975,
10:30
Speaker 1: Bohemian Rhapsody was released as a single at its intended length,
10:35
Speaker 1: five minutes and 55 seconds. One month later, it hit
10:39
Speaker 1: number one on the UK chart. Bohemian Rhapsody elevated Queen
10:44
Speaker 1: both critically and commercially. from the so-called dregs of glam
10:48
Speaker 1: rock to worldwide superstars who are headlining their own tour
10:52
Speaker 1: of America. Much has been written about the meaning of
10:55
Speaker 1: the song and of the murder that the narrator confesses to.
10:58
Speaker 1: Mama just killed a man, put a gun against his head,
11:02
Speaker 1: pulled my trigger, now he's dead. That's what Freddie sings
11:05
Speaker 1: in the song's beautiful ballad section, and it's been suggested
11:08
Speaker 1: by some that Freddie is singing about himself, that this
11:11
Speaker 1: is the coming out song that the man who has
11:13
Speaker 1: been killed metaphorically speaking anyways, is Farouk Bulsara, Freddie's earlier identity.
11:21
Speaker 1: Whether you buy into that reading of the song or not,
11:23
Speaker 1: Bohemian Rhapsody did give Freddie Mercury access to the kinds
11:27
Speaker 1: of things that Farouk Bulsara could never have. The success
11:32
Speaker 1: of Bohemian Rhapsody and Queen's fourth album, A Night at
11:35
Speaker 1: the Opera, turned the band into theater headliners. And that
11:39
Speaker 1: was the song that put Freddie on a plane to
11:41
Speaker 1: New York City, far away from the prying eyes of
11:45
Speaker 1: the UK press, where his fantasies were waiting for him.
11:52
Speaker 1: The black limousine cut down 11th Avenue like a cloaked
11:55
Speaker 1: stranger moving through an alleyway at night. From the Beacon Theatre,
11:59
Speaker 1: it went south, past Lincoln Square, past Hell's Kitchen, into Chelsea,
12:04
Speaker 1: and then to the Meatpacking District, until it finally came
12:07
Speaker 1: to a stop outside a run-down building on Washington Street.
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Speaker 1: The driver put it in park and the engine idled
12:13
Speaker 1: in the cold. Sitting in the back seat, Freddie Mercury
12:16
Speaker 1: looked out through tinted windows at the red door that
12:19
Speaker 1: sat conspicuously on the building's black facade. The only indication
12:23
Speaker 1: of what was behind the red door was written in
12:25
Speaker 1: white to the right. Private Club, it said, with a
12:29
Speaker 1: white arrow that extended from the words to the door,
12:32
Speaker 1: and with the building's number, 835, stamped directly below the arrow.
12:37
Speaker 1: Despite the lack of signage, Freddie Mercury knew exactly what
12:41
Speaker 1: was behind that red door, just like the hundreds of
12:43
Speaker 1: other men who were regulars here. First, there were the
12:47
Speaker 1: stairs that led to the second floor. Then, the posted
12:51
Speaker 1: dress code that prohibited suits, ties, dress pants, and cologne,
12:55
Speaker 1: but allowed for leather, Levi's, and sweat. And then the
12:59
Speaker 1: club itself, the mineshaft as it was known, a nightclub
13:03
Speaker 1: where you didn't dance, you fucked. Freddie stepped out of
13:08
Speaker 1: that limo and went in through the red door, and
13:10
Speaker 1: the smell of it hit him as it always did.
13:12
Speaker 1: It was the smell of skin on skin, of hot,
13:16
Speaker 1: anonymous breath laced with cheap beer and cigarettes. The smell
13:21
Speaker 1: of fantasy. No one knew he was here. Not Brian May,
13:26
Speaker 1: or John Deacon, or Roger Taylor. And not Mary Austin,
13:30
Speaker 1: Freddie's former girlfriend. Because here in New York, Under the
13:35
Speaker 1: cover of night and in the gay club underground, Freddie
13:38
Speaker 1: Mercury had no need to pretend that she was still
13:41
Speaker 1: his girlfriend and that he was just one of the boys.
13:44
Speaker 1: Here in New York, he was one of the men.
13:47
Speaker 1: One of the men who stumbled out of the mine
13:49
Speaker 1: shaft the next morning as the sun struggled to rise.
13:53
Speaker 1: One of the men who weaved their way between bloody
13:55
Speaker 1: animal carcasses hanging on hooks out in the street. Men
13:59
Speaker 1: whose deepest, darkest fantasies... were quickly becoming a reality one
14:04
Speaker 1: night at a time. Freddie Mercury wasn't the only one
14:34
Speaker 1: indulging in fantasies out on the road as Queen grew
14:37
Speaker 1: more and more famous. Roger Taylor, the band's drummer, who
14:40
Speaker 1: wrote The B-Side to Bohemian Rhapsody, the self-explanatory I'm In
14:44
Speaker 1: Love With My Car, was dabbling in his own heterosexual
14:48
Speaker 1: version of Freddie's carnal odyssey. One day, partying with the
14:51
Speaker 1: guys in Thin Lizzy, and the next, finding himself at
14:54
Speaker 1: the center of an alleged sex tape that may or
14:56
Speaker 1: may not have been stolen and held for a king's ransom,
14:59
Speaker 1: but that's another story entirely. Bohemian Rhapsody, the song, the
15:04
Speaker 1: very thing that allowed for Queen's pursuit of fantasy, the
15:07
Speaker 1: thing that preceded Freddie's hiring of personal assistants and bodyguards
15:11
Speaker 1: to help guide him through New York's leather underground, it
15:14
Speaker 1: eventually earned the distinction in the UK as the third
15:17
Speaker 1: best-selling song of all time. But back in 1977, the
15:22
Speaker 1: song's staying power and Queen's ability to endure were constantly
15:27
Speaker 1: being called into question. They continued to get shit on
15:31
Speaker 1: by the British press. Writing in the NME about Queen's
15:34
Speaker 1: fifth album, 1976's A Day at the Races, journalist Nick
15:38
Speaker 1: Kent simply said, I hate this album. But there was
15:45
Speaker 1: a threat to Queen greater than the pen of Nick Kent.
15:49
Speaker 1: It was a new sound that hacked away at Bohemian
15:51
Speaker 1: Rhapsody's overindulgence and bloat. The same sound now lobbing a
15:56
Speaker 1: gob of spit in the face of Freddie Mercury's fantasies.
16:00
Speaker 1: Punk rock was poised to render Queen irrelevant. You could
16:05
Speaker 1: not avoid it. Lord knows, Freddie tried. Johnny Rotten's nasal
16:10
Speaker 1: whine was echoing down the halls. Just as Johnny's band,
16:14
Speaker 1: the Sex Pistols were echoing throughout London and beyond. More
16:19
Speaker 1: a rumbling than an echo. A gathering storm was coming
16:23
Speaker 1: for them. Coming for Freddie's intricate compositions. His songs with
16:27
Speaker 1: five distinct sections and hundreds of overdubs. Johnny Rotten looked
16:31
Speaker 1: at Freddie Mercury and saw something that was broken, decayed.
16:34
Speaker 1: Something that needed to be tossed in the fire. Here,
16:40
Speaker 1: at Wessex Studios in North London, Freddie and Queen were
16:43
Speaker 1: working on their sixth studio album, News of the World,
16:46
Speaker 1: while Johnny and the Pistols were simultaneously recording their debut
16:50
Speaker 1: in another room. Punk was the giant killer, or so
16:54
Speaker 1: went the thinking. And Queen, going on their seventh year
16:57
Speaker 1: as a band, was the Goliath in need of toppling.
17:01
Speaker 1: The press glommed on to the whole ordeal. The headline
17:04
Speaker 1: of an interview with Freddie Mercury read, Is this man
17:06
Speaker 1: a prat? And those reading had to stop and wonder.
17:10
Speaker 1: The bodysuits, the one-pieces, the riot of chest hair that
17:14
Speaker 1: exploded just above the cucumber-sized bulge in his trousers. Queen
17:18
Speaker 1: was slick. Queen was contrived. Queen was utter fantasy. And
17:23
Speaker 1: as Johnny Rotten liked to point out, there was nothing
17:26
Speaker 1: real about that. But that's where they were wrong. The
17:30
Speaker 1: punk ethos may have sought to vanquish their kind, but
17:34
Speaker 1: Queen used it to their own advantage. Not only to survive,
17:38
Speaker 1: but to thrive. We Will Rock You, recorded at Wessex
17:42
Speaker 1: while the Pistols were busy making Nevermind the Bollocks, stripped
17:45
Speaker 1: Queen's typically ornate sheen down to the bone. Its naked production,
17:49
Speaker 1: just stomping and clapping, And Brian May's guitar solo accompanying
17:54
Speaker 1: acapella voices was as shocking as it was rousing. Equally
17:59
Speaker 1: so was another song, We Are the Champions, which threw
18:03
Speaker 1: the Sex Pistols challenge back right into their faces. We
18:06
Speaker 1: Are the Champions is a song that says, you come
18:08
Speaker 1: for Queen and you better not miss. Both songs forged
18:13
Speaker 1: an even stronger connection with Queen's growing audience, in part
18:17
Speaker 1: because they were inspired by the communal chants of football fans.
18:21
Speaker 1: A similar strategy that Noel Gallagher would later employ to
18:24
Speaker 1: great effect when writing some of Oasis's biggest hits. When
18:28
Speaker 1: We Will Rocky became the band's biggest hit in the U.S.
18:30
Speaker 1: to date, it further validated the power of Queen in
18:34
Speaker 1: the eye of the punk storm. But the music wasn't
18:37
Speaker 1: the only thing the punk stripped down. Freddie was streamlining
18:41
Speaker 1: his own physical appearance. Those flamboyant bodysuits were soon a
18:45
Speaker 1: thing of the past. In their place, Freddie began dressing
18:48
Speaker 1: more like the man in New York's gay club scene
18:51
Speaker 1: the gay clone or Castro clone look as it was called.
18:55
Speaker 1: Tight sleeveless shirts, tight denim, studded leather belt, mustache. Freddie
19:01
Speaker 1: may have adopted the look of a working class everyman,
19:04
Speaker 1: but he was still the consummate rocker. He remained rock
19:08
Speaker 1: and roll's reigning libertine. He was dropping 4,000 pounds a
19:12
Speaker 1: week on cocaine. He was whisking his band away to
19:15
Speaker 1: faraway places, to Switzerland, In France, where they recorded their
19:19
Speaker 1: next album, Jazz, like the Rolling Stones before them, Queen
19:24
Speaker 1: were exiles, dodging the tax man in the name of art.
19:28
Speaker 1: There they took in the Tour de France. There Freddie
19:31
Speaker 1: took a cyclist to bed. The one-night stand inspired him
19:34
Speaker 1: to write Bicycle Race, which, along with Fat Bottom Girls,
19:39
Speaker 1: are the two songs referenced in the three-panel fold-out image
19:43
Speaker 1: of naked women riding bikes that came packaged with Jazz's
19:46
Speaker 1: first pressings that I have framed and hanging on my wall,
19:49
Speaker 1: by the way, but that's another story as well. That
19:53
Speaker 1: image alone may have added to the smokescreen of Freddie's sexuality,
19:57
Speaker 1: but it merely hinted at the outright hedonism that was
20:00
Speaker 1: now part and parcel of Queen's modus operandi. When it
20:04
Speaker 1: came to the truth, hinting was all the Bohemian Rhapsody
20:08
Speaker 1: biopic could do. Because the truth went far beyond fantasy.
20:14
Speaker 1: The truth became unfilmable. No studio on earth would have
20:18
Speaker 1: greenlit that movie if they had to tell the story
20:21
Speaker 1: of what really went down with Queen in the 1970s.
20:27
Speaker 1: On Halloween 1978, Freddie Mercury, Brian May, John Deacon, Roger Taylor,
20:34
Speaker 1: their crew and entourage, along with many celebrities and journalists,
20:38
Speaker 1: descended upon the Imperial Ballroom at the Fairmont Hotel in
20:41
Speaker 1: New Orleans. The occasion was the celebration of the impending
20:45
Speaker 1: release of Queen's new album, Jazz. According to a number
20:49
Speaker 1: of articles written about this night in the pages of
20:51
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone, Interview Magazine, Playboy, and Uncut, as you approached
20:56
Speaker 1: the door to the Imperial Ballroom, you were met by
20:59
Speaker 1: a greeter who offered to procure you oral sex from
21:02
Speaker 1: a man or woman of your choice. Inside the ballroom,
21:06
Speaker 1: Your senses were overwhelmed. Naked women were spread out on
21:12
Speaker 1: banquet tables, somehow smoking cigarettes from their vaginas. More naked
21:18
Speaker 1: women writhed around in a bathtub of raw liver. Fire
21:22
Speaker 1: eaters swallowed balls of flame while circus geeks bit the
21:26
Speaker 1: heads off of chickens. Minstrels in fucking blackface. Strippers dressed
21:32
Speaker 1: as nuns dancing in bamboo cages. Little people walking around
21:36
Speaker 1: with trays of cocaine strapped to their heads. Lobster, oysters, caviar, cristal.
21:42
Speaker 1: All in, the party cost upwards of 200,000 pounds, equivalent
21:47
Speaker 1: to well over a million American dollars today. But as
21:52
Speaker 1: wild as this would all seem to you or me
21:54
Speaker 1: were we to stroll into the Fairmont Hotel's Imperial Ballroom
21:58
Speaker 1: in 1978, to Freddie Mercury and Queen, it was just
22:03
Speaker 1: another party. The bar was set here, high above and
22:08
Speaker 1: beyond anything anyone could imagine. Above and beyond what you've
22:12
Speaker 1: been led to believe about Freddie Mercury and Queen throughout
22:16
Speaker 1: the annals of music history and in some music biopic.
22:22
Speaker 1: Roughly one year later, Freddie Mercury paid to fly more
22:25
Speaker 1: than 100 of his friends from the UK to New
22:27
Speaker 1: York in order to celebrate his 33rd birthday. Freddie's appetite
22:31
Speaker 1: for drugs and sex at this time had become difficult
22:34
Speaker 1: to satiate. Men he'd met at the Mineshaft and other
22:38
Speaker 1: New York clubs joined in on the action, and again,
22:40
Speaker 1: according to some who were there, a five-long-day orgy ensued. Now,
22:45
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go into any more salacious details here.
22:47
Speaker 1: I'm not going to talk about how the sideshow carnival
22:49
Speaker 1: nature of the New Orleans party continued unabated or about
22:53
Speaker 1: how certain men and women performed certain sexual acts that
22:56
Speaker 1: you might say were impossible or downright deadly, because I'm
22:59
Speaker 1: not looking to sensationalize what went on, but I'm also
23:02
Speaker 1: not looking to sanitize what went on like the biopic does.
23:06
Speaker 1: And I'm certainly not looking to shame anyone either, least
23:09
Speaker 1: of all Freddie Mercury. But what was happening seemingly every
23:13
Speaker 1: night on the regular in Queen's orbit was truly insane.
23:18
Speaker 1: And to understand what happened next, to Freddie, to Queen,
23:22
Speaker 1: to the gay community in New York and in the
23:24
Speaker 1: world at large, you have to understand where Freddie Mercury
23:27
Speaker 1: was coming from at this very moment. Here's a quote
23:30
Speaker 1: from Freddie, and it's one that wasn't in the movie either.
23:34
Speaker 1: New York is Sin City, he said. And here I am,
23:38
Speaker 1: free to slut myself to the hilt. We'll be right
23:47
Speaker 1: back after this word, word, word. As the 1970s gave
23:55
Speaker 1: way to the 1980s, New York's gay clubs continued to thrive.
24:00
Speaker 1: I said clubs, plural, because the mineshaft wasn't the only
24:03
Speaker 1: spot where men like Freddie Mercury went to turn their
24:05
Speaker 1: fantasies into reality. There was Uncle Charlie's on Greenwich Avenue,
24:10
Speaker 1: the Eagle or Eagle's Nest on the West Side Highway,
24:13
Speaker 1: The Spike on 11th Avenue, The Anvil on West 14th,
24:17
Speaker 1: and The Saint in the East Village, to name just
24:19
Speaker 1: a few. But the stigma surrounding homosexuality at this time
24:24
Speaker 1: was attracting unwanted attention and unwanted guests as well. In 1977,
24:32
Speaker 1: a man named Paul Bateson was arrested and later sentenced
24:36
Speaker 1: for the murder of Addison Verrill, a reporter for Variety magazine.
24:41
Speaker 1: Bateson had met Verrill at Badlands, a gay bar on
24:45
Speaker 1: Christopher Street, where they partied for a while before heading
24:48
Speaker 1: over to the mine shaft. Around sunup, Verrill took Bateson
24:52
Speaker 1: back to his 17th floor apartment in Manhattan, where, after
24:56
Speaker 1: the two had sex, Bateson beat Verrill's head in with
24:59
Speaker 1: a metal skillet and then stabbed him to death with
25:01
Speaker 1: a kitchen knife. This happened around the same time that
25:05
Speaker 1: the so-called bag murders were stumping the NYPD. Black plastic
25:09
Speaker 1: bags containing mutilated and dismembered body parts had been washing
25:13
Speaker 1: up on the shores of the Hudson River for years.
25:16
Speaker 1: It remains unclear to this day who these body parts
25:19
Speaker 1: belonged to. But clothing found in the bags was a
25:22
Speaker 1: match for clothing that had been sold at a local
25:24
Speaker 1: shop popular with gay men. The bag murders and the
25:29
Speaker 1: murder of Addison Verrill directly inspired director William Friedkin to
25:33
Speaker 1: make the 1980 crime thriller Cruising. In the film... Al
25:38
Speaker 1: Pacino plays a New York cop who goes undercover in
25:41
Speaker 1: the city's leather and S & M clubs in order
25:43
Speaker 1: to catch a serial killer who is targeting gay men.
25:46
Speaker 1: But when it was released in theaters, Cruzan was not
25:49
Speaker 1: lovingly received by the gay community. In fact, it was
25:53
Speaker 1: thoroughly denounced as trashy and exploitative. There was real concern
25:58
Speaker 1: that the film painted a picture of gay men in
26:00
Speaker 1: gay clubs as ultra-violent and immoral, thus adding to the
26:04
Speaker 1: destructive stigma. And while Paul Bateson was only one man,
26:09
Speaker 1: while there weren't serial killers stalking gay clubs, it was
26:12
Speaker 1: nonetheless impossible at the time to see the real killer
26:16
Speaker 1: that would soon infiltrate places like Freddie Mercury's beloved mineshaft.
26:24
Speaker 1: The month that Cruising was released, February 1980, Freddie Mercury
26:28
Speaker 1: was not in New York. He was in Munich, Germany,
26:31
Speaker 1: with Queen, finishing recording what would become their next studio album,
26:35
Speaker 1: The Game. Freddie wasn't in Munich just because of the
26:38
Speaker 1: recording studio, Giorgio Moroder's Musicland, who was state-of-the-art and was
26:42
Speaker 1: located in Munich, and he wasn't there simply for the
26:45
Speaker 1: old-world charm. Let's be honest. He was there for the debauchery,
26:50
Speaker 1: to party every night at places like old Mrs. Henderson's, Frisco,
26:54
Speaker 1: and the Deutsche Eich. These clubs were every bit as
26:57
Speaker 1: hedonistic as the ones back in New York, and they
27:00
Speaker 1: were under less scrutiny at the time, too. No one
27:03
Speaker 1: was making a polarizing movie about a serial killer targeting
27:06
Speaker 1: German bathhouses. It's not hard to imagine that being inside
27:11
Speaker 1: these spaces, absorbing a soundtrack of cutting-edge Eurodisco and electronic music,
27:16
Speaker 1: had an effect on the music the Queen was making
27:18
Speaker 1: at the time. Sure, John Deacon's bass line for Another
27:22
Speaker 1: One Bites the Dust, one of the singles released from
27:25
Speaker 1: the game, was inspired by Chic, an American band. But
27:28
Speaker 1: the sleek, aerodynamic sound of the song is more Autobahn
27:32
Speaker 1: than Route 66. And just like Bohemian Rhapsody before it,
27:37
Speaker 1: there was some heartburn around releasing the song as a single.
27:40
Speaker 1: This time, the problem wasn't the song's length. The problem
27:44
Speaker 1: was how it sounded. Roger Taylor, for one, didn't get it.
27:49
Speaker 1: He didn't even like it. You know who did like it, though?
27:52
Speaker 1: Queen superfan Michael Jackson. and Michael Jackson convinced Freddie Mercury
27:57
Speaker 1: to release Another One Bites the Dust as a single.
28:01
Speaker 1: And because Freddie chose to listen to the king of
28:03
Speaker 1: pop over his own bandmate, Another One Bites the Dust
28:06
Speaker 1: became the band's best-selling song of all time. But hold up.
28:12
Speaker 1: This isn't the Bohemian Rhapsody biopic, and I don't want
28:16
Speaker 1: to give the impression that Freddie Mercury was simply basking
28:18
Speaker 1: in the moment, writing and recording mega-hits by day and
28:21
Speaker 1: unwinding at the club by night. Just like you and
28:24
Speaker 1: just like me, Freddy was complicated. There were highs, there
28:28
Speaker 1: were lows, there was a darkness. There was that time
28:31
Speaker 1: where Freddy became frustrated with one of Queen's roadies. And
28:34
Speaker 1: he grabbed a nearby mirror and smashed it over the
28:37
Speaker 1: roadie's head. And then ordered the roadie to find a
28:41
Speaker 1: broom and clean up the mess. And speaking of mess,
28:44
Speaker 1: there were the relationships. Freddie was in a romantic relationship
28:49
Speaker 1: with a number of men, though he continued to have
28:51
Speaker 1: sexual encounters with other men while in those relationships. And
28:55
Speaker 1: he can be hypocritical too, like when he flew one
28:57
Speaker 1: lover from the UK to the US under false pretenses,
29:01
Speaker 1: only to dump him immediately upon his arrival because he
29:04
Speaker 1: had cheated on Freddie. I say all these things not
29:07
Speaker 1: to give Freddie Mercury a hard time, or to shield
29:10
Speaker 1: my own hypocrisies, because come on, I'm only human and
29:12
Speaker 1: so are you. We're all hypocrites. I'm just saying all
29:15
Speaker 1: this to underscore that the Freddie Mercury presented to us
29:18
Speaker 1: in the Bohemian Rhapsody biopic is a sanitized version of
29:21
Speaker 1: the real thing. It is an uncomplicated version of the
29:24
Speaker 1: real thing. It is a fantasy. What was very real, though,
29:30
Speaker 1: was the looming AIDS crisis, which became front page news
29:35
Speaker 1: in the New York Times in May of 1983, along
29:37
Speaker 1: with the headline came the public misconception that AIDS was
29:43
Speaker 1: exclusively a gay disease which of course it was not
29:47
Speaker 1: it was hard enough just to be gay at the
29:49
Speaker 1: time having that sexual preference now be associated with a
29:52
Speaker 1: deadly disease suddenly made an ugly stigma even uglier Freddie
29:57
Speaker 1: refused to get tested at least until years later in 1987,
30:02
Speaker 1: according to his longtime partner, Jim Hutton. Why? Was it
30:06
Speaker 1: because he feared he would test positive? Did he willingly
30:09
Speaker 1: choose to ignore reality for as long as he could?
30:13
Speaker 1: Or was he worried that going through the process would
30:15
Speaker 1: out him? And what consequence, if any, did not getting
30:19
Speaker 1: tested for AIDS have for all those sexual partners Freddie
30:23
Speaker 1: Mercury had throughout those years? We don't know, but here's
30:28
Speaker 1: what we do know. Queen played in America for the
30:31
Speaker 1: last time in September 1982, when they taped a performance
30:34
Speaker 1: for Saturday Night Live. This was when they were riding
30:38
Speaker 1: high on the success of Under Pressure, their collaboration with
30:41
Speaker 1: David Bowie. This is absolutely crazy to me because they
30:45
Speaker 1: continued to tour the rest of the world for the
30:47
Speaker 1: next four years, until 1986. But once AIDS became headline news,
30:53
Speaker 1: American insurers lobbied hard to require tests for all touring musicians.
30:59
Speaker 1: And this resulted in a fight between corporations and activists
31:02
Speaker 1: over patients' rights. And as that fight raged on, Freddie
31:06
Speaker 1: Mercury allegedly became concerned about what would happen should an
31:09
Speaker 1: insurer succeed in making him take the test worthy to
31:13
Speaker 1: attempt a tour of the United States. Besides, at this point,
31:18
Speaker 1: people were already talking. A disgruntled former manager had gone
31:21
Speaker 1: to a UK tabloid and sold them details about Freddie's
31:24
Speaker 1: sexuality and his relationship with Jim Hutton. Another tabloid printed
31:28
Speaker 1: a false story claiming that Freddie had tested negative for
31:31
Speaker 1: the AIDS virus. Queen star Freddie in AIDS shock was
31:35
Speaker 1: how the headline read. When he was later cornered by
31:38
Speaker 1: a reporter at Heathrow, Freddie shot back. Do I look
31:41
Speaker 1: like I'm dying from AIDS? And then that became a
31:44
Speaker 1: headline too. The reality of being Freddie Mercury at this
31:47
Speaker 1: time was nothing short of oppressive. So it's no wonder
31:52
Speaker 1: that he turned once again to fantasy as a means
31:55
Speaker 1: of much needed escape. They warned her that it was
32:00
Speaker 1: nothing more than a room full of sweaty, hairy men.
32:04
Speaker 1: They said the place wasn't for her, or for any
32:06
Speaker 1: woman for that matter. But she didn't care. Her mind
32:10
Speaker 1: was made up. Princess Diana wanted to go to the
32:13
Speaker 1: Royal Vauxhall Tavern, a notorious gay bar in London. But
32:18
Speaker 1: how to sneak actual royalty, currently the Princess of Wales,
32:23
Speaker 1: one of the biggest celebrities in the world, into a
32:26
Speaker 1: packed bar? How could they avoid causing a scene of
32:30
Speaker 1: outright pandemonium? Freddie Mercury and Kenny Everett, the former DJ
32:35
Speaker 1: who propelled Queen into the stratosphere when he played Bohemian
32:38
Speaker 1: Rhapsody on the radio all those years ago, had an idea.
32:43
Speaker 1: They'd dress their friend Diana in drag. They'd dress her
32:46
Speaker 1: like a man, just as Freddie had dressed as a
32:48
Speaker 1: woman in the music video for Queen's I Wanna Break Free.
32:52
Speaker 1: And Diana wanted to break free. But freedom for Diana
32:56
Speaker 1: meant hiding her true self. There were the aviator's sunglasses,
33:00
Speaker 1: a cap made of leather, an old army jacket, very butch,
33:04
Speaker 1: very clone. The Royal Vauxhall Tavern was packed to the hilt. Freddy, Kenny,
33:10
Speaker 1: and Diana bellied up to the bar and ordered a round.
33:13
Speaker 1: All eyes are on Freddy, as usual. Royalty on stage
33:17
Speaker 1: and on the air in places like this. Few paid
33:20
Speaker 1: any mind to his feminine-looking companion with the leather cap
33:23
Speaker 1: and high cheekbones. Twenty minutes later, They were gone. Diana
33:30
Speaker 1: back to Kensington Palace and Freddy back to Garden Lodge,
33:33
Speaker 1: the two-story, eight-bedroom house he'd purchased years earlier. He would
33:38
Speaker 1: live there until 1991, until his death at the age
33:41
Speaker 1: of 45, upon which his friend Diana would think back
33:46
Speaker 1: to the night they had smuggled her into the Royal
33:48
Speaker 1: Locks Hall. It was like they had gotten away with
33:50
Speaker 1: something unbelievable, like they'd pulled the wool over everyone's eyes
33:54
Speaker 1: as easily as she had pulled the leather cap over
33:56
Speaker 1: her short blonde hair. It was a secret they both shared,
34:00
Speaker 1: a secret that Diana would then keep for another six years,
34:04
Speaker 1: until the Mercedes she was riding in raced into one
34:07
Speaker 1: end of a dark tunnel in Paris and never came
34:10
Speaker 1: out the other side. The Princess Diana story that I
34:32
Speaker 1: just told you comes from a book called The Power
34:34
Speaker 1: of Positive Drinking, which was written by British actress Cleo
34:37
Speaker 1: Rockos in 2013. Rocco says she was there that night
34:42
Speaker 1: with Diana, Freddie Mercury, and Kenny Everett drinking champagne while
34:45
Speaker 1: watching The Golden Girls on TV when they came up
34:48
Speaker 1: with the crazy idea to sneak Diana into the Royal
34:51
Speaker 1: Vauxhall Tavern. There are many people who will tell you
34:55
Speaker 1: that this never happened, just as there are many people
34:57
Speaker 1: who will tell you that other things written about Freddie
34:59
Speaker 1: Mercury in other books never happened. Take the author Leslie
35:03
Speaker 1: Ann Jones, for example. Leslie Ann Jones has written numerous
35:06
Speaker 1: biographies on Freddie Mercury, some that are even noted as
35:10
Speaker 1: editor's picks on Amazon. But Google Leslie Ann Jones and
35:14
Speaker 1: Freddie Mercury and click on the first Reddit thread that
35:16
Speaker 1: comes up. Queen fans are merciless when it comes to
35:20
Speaker 1: discrediting Leslie Ann Jones. Most recently, fans online went after
35:25
Speaker 1: Jones for her 2025 book, Love, Freddie, in which she
35:29
Speaker 1: made the claim that Freddie had secretly fathered a child
35:32
Speaker 1: with the wife of a close friend way back in 1976.
35:36
Speaker 1: You can also find an equal number of Queen fans
35:38
Speaker 1: online who dismiss the book written by Freddie's partner, Jim Hutton,
35:42
Speaker 1: as complete fiction. And when it comes to the Bohemian
35:45
Speaker 1: Rhapsody biopic, some corners of the internet complain that the
35:48
Speaker 1: film paints Freddie as bisexual in order to conveniently make
35:51
Speaker 1: his gayness more palatable for, I don't know, jocks, I guess,
35:56
Speaker 1: who like to crank up We Will Rock You in
35:58
Speaker 1: the locker room. While others argue that the film actually
36:01
Speaker 1: does see him as gay, and by doing so, downplays
36:03
Speaker 1: bisexuality in general. And even some Queen fans are listening
36:07
Speaker 1: to this episode right now and they're pissed off about
36:09
Speaker 1: whatever it is that I've said about Freddie Mercury. So
36:12
Speaker 1: which is it? If not the Rami Malek version or
36:15
Speaker 1: the Leslie Ann Jones version or the Cleo Rakos version,
36:19
Speaker 1: who was the real Freddie Mercury? I think asking this
36:23
Speaker 1: question is the whole point, actually. Let me explain. I
36:28
Speaker 1: think we are incapable of knowing the real Freddie Mercury.
36:32
Speaker 1: And that fact has been staring us in the face
36:35
Speaker 1: ever since the release of Queen's second album. 1974. Freddie
36:42
Speaker 1: Mercury is just four years old. He's just killed a man.
36:45
Speaker 1: Not literally. Freddie Mercury is actually 24, but the idea
36:49
Speaker 1: of Freddie Mercury is still much younger. And while there
36:53
Speaker 1: was a time when he was someone else, that person,
36:55
Speaker 1: Farouk Basara, the idea of Farouk Basara is dead. Freddie
37:01
Speaker 1: will not speak of Farouk again. Certainly not to the
37:05
Speaker 1: journalists for Melody Maker magazine sitting across the room from
37:08
Speaker 1: him now. His satin pants and satin shirt, his red
37:12
Speaker 1: velvet Dickensian jacket, his white boots. These are things befitting
37:17
Speaker 1: the character of Freddie Mercury, who in theory is only
37:20
Speaker 1: four years old and who in practice is being defined
37:23
Speaker 1: in real time. But Freddie the man is not the
37:27
Speaker 1: only one defining Freddie the character. Freddie Mercury is a
37:31
Speaker 1: product of every set of ears that listen to him,
37:34
Speaker 1: and every pair of eyes that take in his grandeur.
37:37
Speaker 1: They see a man of affluence, so they assume he
37:39
Speaker 1: comes from affluence, even though he actually comes from a
37:42
Speaker 1: middle-class family. They see a man who indulges in everything,
37:46
Speaker 1: from fashion to sex, but cannot see that he doesn't
37:48
Speaker 1: indulge in the truth. Actually, that's not quite right either.
37:53
Speaker 1: There is truth, but it's Freddie's truth. He looks into
37:57
Speaker 1: the journalist's eyes. The last thing I want to do,
38:00
Speaker 1: he tells her, is give people an idea of who
38:02
Speaker 1: I really am. I want people to work out their
38:05
Speaker 1: own interpretation of me and my image. I don't want
38:08
Speaker 1: to build a frame around myself and say, this is
38:11
Speaker 1: what I am or this is all I am. The
38:14
Speaker 1: journalist scribbles in her notepad and Freddy fumbles with his hands.
38:19
Speaker 1: Years later, in the early 80s, he will take up
38:22
Speaker 1: smoking Marlboro Reds at first and then onto Marlboro Lights,
38:25
Speaker 1: not because he necessarily enjoys the habit, because it gives
38:28
Speaker 1: us something to do with his hands. He finds the
38:31
Speaker 1: journalist's eyes again and continues. To be honest, he says,
38:36
Speaker 1: I think mystique, not knowing the truth about someone, is
38:39
Speaker 1: very appealing. There's a lot of freedom today, and you
38:42
Speaker 1: can put yourself across any way you want to, but
38:45
Speaker 1: I haven't chosen this image. I'm myself, and in fact,
38:49
Speaker 1: half the time, I let the wind take me. It's
38:54
Speaker 1: all right there. in an interview Freddie Mercury gave way
38:57
Speaker 1: back in 1974, long before Queen were cemented as one
39:01
Speaker 1: of the biggest rock bands in history. Freddie didn't want
39:05
Speaker 1: the whole truth about him out in the open, not
39:07
Speaker 1: because he was hiding anything, but because he found it
39:10
Speaker 1: more interesting that way. And he didn't want to know
39:13
Speaker 1: the whole truth about you either, by the way. He
39:15
Speaker 1: wanted to figure it out and make up his own version.
39:18
Speaker 1: Freddie said it himself. He was taken by the wind.
39:21
Speaker 1: Whatever you saw, that's who he was. He was your
39:25
Speaker 1: creation He was the person Leslie Ann Jones has written about.
39:29
Speaker 1: He was the person Jim Hutton has written about. He
39:32
Speaker 1: was the person portrayed by Rami Malek in the film
39:34
Speaker 1: Bohemian Rhapsody. But then he was also the person that
39:38
Speaker 1: Sacha Baron Cohen wanted to portray. And he's the person
39:43
Speaker 1: that all of you who are at this very moment
39:46
Speaker 1: shaking your heads and telling me I'm wrong about thinks
39:49
Speaker 1: that he was as well. This would have cracked Freddie up.
39:54
Speaker 1: It's exactly what he wanted, known and unknown at the
39:58
Speaker 1: same time. To be anything else would be a disgrace.
40:03
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan. This is Disgraceland. All right, discos, thanks
40:22
Speaker 1: for checking out this episode of Queen. In light of
40:25
Speaker 1: everything we discussed, question of the week this week is
40:28
Speaker 1: a simple one. Which music biopic gives the most honest
40:32
Speaker 1: depiction of a musician's life? That's what we want to know.
40:35
Speaker 1: Not just your favorite music biopic, but your favorite because
40:38
Speaker 1: you think it's an honest depiction. Is it, I don't know,
40:41
Speaker 1: the Johnny Cash biopic, the Serge Gainsbourg one, the, is
40:44
Speaker 1: there an Amy Winehouse one? There isn't one. They're making one.
40:47
Speaker 1: They just made the Anthony Bourdain one. I know that's
40:48
Speaker 1: not music, but what do you, what'd you think of that? 617-906-6638,
40:52
Speaker 1: voicemail and text. Let us know. Make sure you got
40:56
Speaker 1: Apple downloads turned on. And as always, here comes some credits.
41:03
Speaker 1: Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in
41:06
Speaker 1: partnership with Double Elvis, The Exactly Right Network, and iHeart Podcasts.
41:11
Speaker 1: Credits for this episode can be found on the show
41:13
Speaker 1: notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland
41:18
Speaker 1: All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We
41:21
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a
41:23
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41:29
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41:33
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41:35
Speaker 1: and Facebook at DisgracelandPod and on YouTube at YouTube.com slash
41:40
Speaker 1: at DisgracelandPod. Rock and roll up. He's a bad, bad man.