Studio chief recalls Bohemian Rhapsody recording 50 years on

Fifty years ago the rock band Queen arrived at Rockfield Studios, the iconic recording venue in countryside just outside Monmouth.

The band had stayed there a year earlier, in 1974, but returned the following summer after the success of their song Killer Queen.

“They hadn’t been very financially well off in [1974], but when they came back in 1975, they were very famous and very well off,” said Kingsley Ward, co-founder of the studio.

During the later visit, Kingsley said the band had been staying at the studio for a week and “hadn’t done much”, something he mentioned to guitarist Brian May as they were playing frisbee outside.

May responded that frontman Freddie Mercury was in the house “writing something”.

Kingsley went back inside and sidled up to the piano where Mercury was practising – it was a new song with the working title Freddie’s Thing.

“I had no idea… but it was Bohemian Rhapsody,” he told BBC Radio Wales.

This week marks 50 years since recording was completed on the song – one of the most iconic of all time – in the Welsh countryside.

To celebrate, last night May and fellow band member Roger Taylor took to the stage with the BBC Symphony Orchestra for the Last Night of the Proms Finale.

The song has also been a recent hit on social media, after a flash mob performance of the song by French pianist Julien Cohen and a group of 30 musicians he assembled brought a Parisian street to a standstill – since gaining more than 11 million likes on Instagram.

Olly Pearson, an electric guitarist from Wrexham, performed in the video, including an energetic take on May’s famous guitar solo.

“It was just so amazing – I don’t even have words for it,” Olly said of the experience.

Rockfield is part of rock royalty, born in the 1960s after Kingsley and his brother Charles chose to go alone after being turned down for a recording opportunity by legendary producer and “fifth Beatle” George Martin.

As well as Queen, it is where Oasis have forged some of their biggest hits, and where the late Ozzy Osbourne, the Prince of Darkness, arrived in 1970 with his new band Black Sabbath.

“We were very loud and Rockfield allowed us the freedom,” Osbourne once said.

“No-one would allow us to play as loud as that. The roof tiles were rattling.”

Of all the musical memories made at Rockfield, Kingsley said hearing Mercury’s solo while recording Bohemian Rhapsody is one of his favourites.

“I remember that particular solo because it was so outstanding,” he said.

Even when Queen finished recording and left the studio, he had still not heard the song – with its range of styles including a ballad, operatic and hard rock components – in full.

“It was done [in the studio] in three sections, and when it left here I only ever heard the sections. They were never actually put together as a unit,” he said.

Kingsley said he first heard it in full on the radio when he was driving down the M4 motorway.

“I was amazed when I heard it. I thought it was fantastic,” he recalled.

Kingsley was also full of praise for the latest version of the song, performed in Paris, describing Olly’s solo as “fantastic”.

“He is brilliant,” he said.

For his part, Olly said he was proud to play a role in such a famous song, admitting he was nervous before the performance, but then “the adrenaline kicked in”.

Olly said his dream is to play in a “big band” at Wembley Stadium, possibly playing alongside music legend May.

Asked if he could help set such a meeting up, Kingsley said: “He’s such a nice person, I’m sure he’d be interested.”