Suddenly I am rehearsing with Roger and John, having dinner with them and being joined by the likes of Bob Geldof and others. He came to the studio for us to run through the songs and was showing me the riff for Another One Bites the Dust and how he’d recorded the rhythm guitar part. How was it to play alongside John Deacon in one of his last public performances? Suddenly I was sharing a dressing room with Pink Floyd, Genesis and Eric Clapton! I admit to feeling the pressure of replacing Brian May for that gig, but the nerves passed and I was in my element as soon as we stepped on stage. He put trust in me even though I didn’t have a track record of such gigs and I hadn’t performed live with him beforehand. With Brian May busy on his solo tour, what was it like to be lead guitarist that night? In September 1993, Roger and John Deacon were billed as ‘Queen’ at the star-studded Cowdray Park charity concert. Yoshiki sent the stereo mix, Roger’s vocals were added and then it was put together in Japan. The only song that was put together differently was Foreign Sand. The only things that might have been there that I did again would be something like straightforward power chords, but never actual song parts. There were never guitar demos for me to follow or anything. Roger would ask me to try something on a track and I would improvise, which really suited me.
It wasn’t like we had a whole song ready to be recorded in fact, some of the time, he just had a few chords that were worked on and built up. It was always professional, but very relaxed and good fun. It was on and off for a week at a time, but we still managed to get a lot done. How would you describe the sessions for ‘Happiness?’ that took place over the following 18 months? It wasn’t sterile like many studios and I loved the place. The way they had converted the mills meant you still knew you were in an old building. In great surroundings in the countryside, the whole vibe was really nice. What were your initial impressions of the Cosford Mill Studios at Roger’s home? So to discover his voice had this amazing gravelly sound was a big surprise and I really liked it. I was unaware Roger had taken lead vocals on many of his earlier Queen songs and my only knowledge of his voice was the infamous high parts in Bohemian Rhapsody. Not being starstruck was probably an advantage and it was only gradually that I realised just how huge Queen were! To be honest, I knew very little about Queen apart from the big songs that were unavoidable. He seemed to really dig my sound and style, and it all went from there. Shortly after, Roger invited me back to make some noise on the Nazis 1994 track he was working on. Roger was leaving for a trip but I went to his studio and got to know Joshua Macrae, Roger’s in-house producer and audio engineer. But I’d been approached before by people with great ideas that always came to nothing… so although I thought it was really cool, I didn’t get particularly excited until Roger telephoned me the next morning. He liked what he heard and when we spoke afterwards, he was very friendly and seemed a really nice guy. Roger was there and with it fortuitously being a rock-orientated set on that occasion, my electric guitar playing caught his attention. In early 1993, I was unsure about pursuing a career in music and was playing one of my last gigs with The Falloons in Surrey, close to where Roger lived. Playing folk, blues and country music, I was in a band called The Falloons that had quite a following in pubs and clubs, particularly in the south of England and Germany. How did you first come to the attention of Roger?
BAD GUY BASS TUX GUITAR FULL VERSION
This interview originally appeared in the winter 2020 Official International Queen Fan Club magazine and the full version is available in the fan club’s members-only archive. With Roger recently teasing about a new solo album, Jason explained to Dave Fordham how a chance meeting led to him playing lead guitar on Roger’s last three studio albums and the ‘Happiness?’ and ‘Electric Fire’ tours. Jason Falloon has been Roger Taylor’s go-to guitarist for his solo projects since 1993.
Roger Taylor: “Jason is one of the finest guitar players I have ever come across… he should be famous!"
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