Footage of the last ever on camera interview from legendary Queen frontman Freddie Mercury has been released.
The interview which you can check out below, took place in 1987, the same year that the singer was diagnosed with AIDS. Freddie Mercury passed away from the illness in 1991.
Ferddie Mercury was promoting his promotional tour for his single ‘The Great Pretender’, a track which was originally performed by rock’n’roll group The Platters.
Speaking to Austrian filmmaker Rudi Dolezal, Freddie Mercury shares his excitement over embarking on a solo career, collaborating with opera music legend Montserrat Caballe, while keeping his illness a secret.
Rudi Dolezal was also responsible for Mercury’s documentary ‘Lover of Life, Singer of Songs’.
“like acting”
Freddie Mercury speaks in great detail about what attracted him to performing the track ‘The Great Pretender’.
Mercury mentioned that he had a lot of “pretending” to do, a vague reference to putting on a brave face in light of his illness.
“Most of the stuff I do is like acting. So you go on stage and I pretend to be a macho man and all that. In my videos you go through all the characters and you’re pretending anyway”, Freddie can be heard saying.
He also added, “So it’s a great title for what I do, and it suited to what I was doing. The meaning in the song is that he is pretending about love but I take it a stage further…The way I see it is that all this is a pretence. It’s fun”.
Elsewhere, Freddie also speaks of his excitement of working with Montserrat Caballe.
“These last couple of weeks I’ve been working with this amazing woman, she’s a big operatic star, her name is Montserrat Caballe, she comes from Barcelona”, he said.
“And she just called up a few weeks ago and said she’d like to sing with me. So of course, I fell flat on the floor and thought ‘My god’. But I’ve loved her for years”.
Mercury and Caballe joined forces to release their single Barcelona, which featured on their collaborative album under the same name.
The pair performed the track to welcome the Olympic flag in 1988, and were due to perform the track for the 1992 Olympic Games in Madrid.
However this performance failed to materialise following Mercury’s death a year earlier.
Explaining how this collaboration came about, Freddie Mercury continued, “I went to Barcelona on a TV show and I said she’s the best singer in the world and I’d love to sing with her and she must have seen it. She called up the office and said she’d like to do things”.
“It’s amazing. I’m into opera now. Forget rock n roll… It’s such a challenge, I’ve never thought of writing songs like that”.
“I’m sure the opera critics will slam it but it’s a good challenge at this time in life”.
See this interview for yourselves below.
Back in January, another previously unseen interview showed what two famous people that Freddie Mercury would have happily dined with. Find out who he picked here.
