The Queen guitarist answers your questions, on regretting never playing with John Lennon, his love of Pink and Avril Lavigne, and his beef with Michael Eavis
Which guitarists influenced you the most as a young player? Waydgroods
The Shadows Hank Marvin was an inspiration for all of us kids. He had an amazing, melodic, fluid sound. At the more rock’n’roll end, there is James Burton, one of the originators of rock guitar playing, who played for Elvis and Ricky Nelson. I was lucky enough to play with him recently. He’s a real inspiration. It’s not just the sound – it’s the fact that he can bend strings, and make the guitar speak.
If Queen didn’t exist, which band (from any era) would you most want to have been in? Mr_202
The Beatles, probably. I’m sure it wouldn’t have been easy to be a Beatle, but that incredible level of creativity, I would relate to. I watched a lot of Get Back. I got a bit sad watching the first one, because it reminded me of us – sometimes Queen in the studio would be [inhales nervously], “Here we are, and things aren’t quite fitting”. I felt they were in quite a painful place – but the second one, I felt like they were really finding each other again. It’s a textbook of how to be in a studio. If it wasn’t the Beatles, it could’ve been Led Zeppelin. If they let me in.
