“Freddie’s ideas were off the wall and cheeky and different, and we tended to encourage them, but sometimes they were not brilliant.” Queen’s Brian May reveals one of Freddie Mercury’s grand ideas that got vetoed by the rest of the band

Queen guitarist Brian May shares his memories of his late friend and bandmate Freddie Mercury in a new interview, and reveals that not every idea that the flamboyant frontman had was golden.

“Deep down Freddie was one of the shyest people I’ve ever met,” May tells Queen biographer Mark Blake in the current issue of MOJO magazine, “but he was so full of bluster, you’d forget. Freddie would always be excited, and his excitement would take over. He’d be so full of excitement he could hard speak. “Freddie’s ideas were off the wall and cheeky and different — and we tended to encourage them. Sometimes the idea he brought in was brilliant, and sometimes not brilliant.”

As an example of one of those less-than-brilliant ideas, May recalls an alternate reality where Queen’s 1989 album The Miracle could simply have been called Good, had Mercury got his way.