Things You Didnt Know About Freddie Mercury

Everybody knows that Freddie Mercury was a gifted songwriter, a breathtakingly original performer, and frontman of i of the greatest bands of all fourth dimension, Queen. Simply in that location are many lesser-known Freddie Mercury facts that reveal hidden depths to the life and piece of work of the human born Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar, on September 5, 1946. Here are xv surprising things y'all never knew most Freddie Mercury, as told in the singer'south own inimitable style.

Listen to the best Freddie Mercury songs on Apple Music and Spotify, and roll downwards for our 15 Freddie Mercury facts y'all never knew.

Freddie Mercury Facts: 15 Things You Never Knew Almost The Queen Frontman

ane: Freddie Mercury was a brilliant boxer

At school in Republic of india, the young Freddie Mercury was a good table tennis actor. He used to play tennis sometimes, specially when he was on holiday, and enjoyed watching Wimbledon. He also liked watching rugby, but football and cricket did nothing for him.

"I loathed cricket and long-altitude running; I was completely useless at both. Simply I could dart, I was skilful at hockey, and I was just brilliant in the boxing ring," he revealed.

two: He rescued tennis star Billie Jean King

Mercury said he "loved" the nightclubs in New York and went to check out a Brooklyn disco called The Gilded Grape, even though information technology was supposed to be very edgy. "I'd heard information technology was actually exciting, but everyone told me I shouldn't go – or, if I did, at least to make sure I had a fast impenetrable car waiting for me exterior," said Mercury. "Everyone tried to warn me about this society, which of course made me all the more determined to go. Not long afterwards we got in that location, a massive fight broke out, which concluded upwardly at our tabular array. Chairs were being smashed, fists were flying, in that location was blood everywhere. Billie Jean King was petrified, but I loved information technology. I told her not to worry, and as the fight raged I grabbed her and took her on to the dancefloor. Information technology was much more fun than having some cozy dinner dorsum at my hotel."

3: His fashion sense scared his parents

When he was a student at Ealing Art Higher, Mercury began experimenting with different looks, simply it didn't go down well at home.

"My parents were outraged when I told them what I was upwardly to," he recalled in Freddie Mercury: A Life, In His Own Words (Mercury Songs Ltd). "I used to get dwelling house periodically and plow up in these outrageous clothes, with my fingernails painted black, and at that time my mother used to freak out! They used to say, 'My God! Don't let the neighbors see you. Come in hither quick! Use the dorsum door!'"

Photo: Simon Fowler © Mercury Songs Ltd

iv: He designed the Queen logo

Mercury's diploma in Art And Graphic Pattern from Ealing came in useful, every bit he designed the logo for Queen after John Deacon completed the line-up with Brian May and Roger Taylor in July 1971.

"We decided to call the band Queen and I designed the Queen crest logo," he revealed. "I simply combined all the creatures that stand for our star signs [two lions for Leo, John and Roger; a crab for Cancer, Brian; and two fairies for Virgo, Freddie]… and I don't fifty-fifty believe in astrology!"

v: He didn't need much sleep…

Despite his energetic professional life, and partying, Mercury said he could survive on little close-eye. "I can go without slumber for long periods, that's my nature. I can get by on only two or three hours a dark. I don't know what it is, simply information technology'southward true. I wish I could tell you. I relax in ways most people can't understand, by just sleeping on a airplane when I'm flight for xx minutes. That's plenty for me. I recharge my batteries in that brusk a fourth dimension and I'one thousand upwardly again. I accept to be doing something every day.

vi: … But had bad dreams

"Quite oft I accept vicious nightmares, like one night but earlier the Rainbow concert [1974]. Nosotros were sleeping in the Holiday Inn and I dreamed I went out onto my balcony and the whole affair fell downward and I was in a heap on the pavement. Really, I was petrified when I woke upwardly," said Mercury.

7: He stood up to punk rebels

In 1977, when Queen were recording parts of the News Of The Globe album in London, Mercury said that two future members of Sex Pistols were in the next studio. "You lot tin imagine us and the whole punk rock and anti-institution thing under the i roof," said Mercury. "Anyway, I got Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious in to heed to ane of our tracks and I said that I would sing on one of their songs if they sang on one of mine, and you should have seen them. They were like, 'We can't sing with Freddie Mercury!' I was wearing ballet pumps at the time, and things similar that. It was quite funny. I called Sid Roughshod 'Simon Ferocious,' or something like that, and he didn't like information technology at all. I said, 'What are yous going to do about it?' He had all these marks on him, so I asked if he had scratched himself in the mirror, and he hated the fact that I could speak to him similar that."

8: Small planes scared him

Queen jetted round the globe during thirteen major tours, but Mercury did not like it when they had to travel on a small jet in South America. "I was terrified. I don't like flying in anything smaller than a jumbo jet, and this thing we went in was so minor," said Mercury. "I was told nosotros had photographers and the like at the other end waiting for us to arrive, and then I couldn't mayhap allow them see how shaken I was. My knuckles were white from gripping the arm rests. Only when we arrived I stepped out of that automobile with a smile on my face looking like I did it every day. No i was any the wiser."

ix: He was asked to star on Broadway with Linda Ronstadt

Mercury loved going to the theater, ballet, and opera, merely did not want to tread the boards himself. "I could never exercise a season in a theater, as information technology were. I would run out," said Mercury. "They asked me to practice Broadway one time – La Bohème with Linda Ronstadt – and I thought, You're kidding! It's totally off tangent, merely they asked me to do it. They idea I could sing operatically. The get-go thing that came into my mind was that I tin can't practise matinees and they don't realize that I can't sing for six or seven days a week on the same phase: I'd exist bored to death."

10: He loved to sing in the nude

Mercury battled hard to cope with vocal cord problems – and found that rehearsing without clothes helped. "I have to go easy on the red vino because of my pharynx nodules. To warm up, I do what I phone call 'mock operatics.' I exercise it naked, though, because in that location's a certain piquancy about that. With clothes on, it doesn't work, so I sing in the complete raw. I went to throat specialists – I recall I saw them all – but they ever tell yous to just remainder and non do the tour… or accept an performance. I came very well-nigh to having an operation merely I didn't like the look of the physician and I was a bit perturbed virtually having strange instruments forced down my throat."

11: He was a "demon" at Scrabble

Mercury said he was "pleased" with his vocals on the 1991 album Allusion , adding, "'Innuendo' is a word I often apply in Scrabble – I'm a demon at Scrabble! For Queen, it'south a perfect title."

12: He was nearly in a supergroup with Elton John and Rod Stewart

"Rod Stewart, Elton John and I were going to form a band, in one case upon a time, called Hair, Nose And Teeth – after the three of the states… it's nice when y'all've had a lot of vino and you talk about it and say, 'Yeah, permit's do information technology,' but the adjacent solar day, when you're sober and Elton says, 'I'one thousand not gonna sing with Rod,' and Rod says, 'I'g not gonna sing with Freddie,' and I say, 'Well, I'k not gonna sing with Elton!' you realize information technology'due south never going to happen," said Mercury.

thirteen: Elton John one time gave him property advice

Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor used to sell clothes at Kensington Market when they were young and poor, and then the Queen frontman enjoyed the fact that he went on to earn plenty to buy an viii-bedroom business firm in Kensington, ane of London'south more exclusive areas. "It'south total of marble floors and mahogany staircases," said Mercury. "It even has a garden that is three-quarters of an acre… in Kensington! Tin y'all believe it? An Arab offered me 4 meg pounds for it. I told Elton John and he said, 'Quick, sell information technology to him and alive in a pre-fab!' But it's my dream home and I don't care how much it costs me."

xiv: He filled his house with expensive art

When Dave Clark talked to uDiscover Music about his friend Mercury, he spoke of the Queen singer's love of art, adding, "I always remember he had a Picasso painting in the loo." Mercury would frequently go to auctions at Sotheby's and Christie'south. "I have to be surrounded by something, even if it's just objet d'art. So, I collect a lot, and my whole business firm is filled with beautiful Japanese art and antiques," said Mercury.

xv: And art inspired his songwriting

When the band were making their 1974 album Queen Two , Mercury said he wrote the song 'The Fairy Feller's Principal-Stroke' afterwards beingness inspired by a painting he had seen at the Tate Gallery in London. "That is very, very unusual for me. Being arty, or whatever, I go to art galleries a lot and I saw this pic in the Tate by Richard Dadd, who was a Victorian artist I liked. I was thoroughly inspired. I did a lot of research on it and what I tried to exercise was to put the words into my own kind of rhyme, simply I was using his text, as information technology were, to depict the painting – what I thought I saw in it."

The career-spanning Freddie Mercury box set, Never Wearisome, is out at present. Order it here.

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Source: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/freddie-mercury-facts-you-need-to-know/

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