Sir Brian May and Roger Taylor recently released a remastered and expanded version of the band’s debut album Queen I, released 50 years ago.

And now, in new interviews you can watch below, the two rock legends look back on the “very difficult times” they had with Freddie Mercury and John Deacon, long before they became the world’s best-selling band after The Beatles.

It was the spring of 1972 and the first album recording sessions were rather unstable.

Roger shared: “It was difficult in the beginning. Yeah, but eventually we merged into the studio and we were working during the studio’s busiest hours, when the studio was empty because our management owned the studio, it was Trident Studios, and it was kind of considered the studio. moment in the 70s.

“But we were there, arriving at three in the morning and then continuing for all hours possible.”

Sir Brian shared: “It was very difficult because we never knew when we were going to get back there. The tapes got mixed up and sort of got lost and there was a discontinuity. Sometimes we had to have a different engineer who didn’t realize what we were doing before. It really was kind of a mess. It was a mess.” , it was hard to keep it together.”

“I think we were in pretty good shape when we got into the studio. Even though we all had other jobs and student jobs, we literally had to rehearse to death. We devoted a lot of time and attention to this. We rehearsed well. We probably rehearsed too much. And we were used to working together. And I think we pretty much hit the ground running.”

As the narrator shares in the video: “Finally the album was completed and released on 13 July 1973, as Queen prepared for a concert at St Mary’s College in Basingstoke. The statement was met with a muted response, with many journalists confused about who Queen was and what she was about, or as Roger described it…

The drummer openly stated: “A Tsunami that is nothing. Yes. I guess it was a bit depressing, but I think we were focusing on being a live show at the time. To give credit to the management and name a man they hired, American Jack Nelson, as our day-to-day manager. He brought us down. We had the theater at the end of the pier, in Herne Bay of all places, in the dead of winter, in the middle of winter, a desolate place for a week or two, I think, where we were literally rehearsing, performing live.

Sir Brian thought: “Tell me what helped you. We looked at some reviews of Led Zeppelin albums released at the time, some of which were horribly bad. So we thought, if they can crush these people, we shouldn’t worry too much about being crushed either. Being in a group has great benefits. I think if I were a solo artist I think I’d lay on the floor and cry. It was bad, but there were four of us and it was like, ‘Screw these guys, we know what we’re doing.’ This saved us.

“I think the other thing that saved us was that from the Imperial College show onwards we suddenly realized we had an audience. After we released our first album, we had an audience that understood us and really supported us. There is sudden momentum coming from outside. And this is incredibly useful. This gives you the energy you really need. “So we had internal energy and we had external energy coming to us from Queen fans, which is incredible.”

Queen I is out now.