Roger Taylor (Queen drummer)

For other people called Roger Taylor, see Roger Taylor.

Roger Taylor

Roger Meddows-Taylor, a.k.a Roger Taylor, was born on 26 July 1949 in King's Lynn, Norfolk, England. He is best known as the drummer/percussionist and vocalist with Queen. He contributed songs to the band's albums from the very beginning, composing at least one track on every album, and usually sang the lead on his own tracks, in addition to playing most of the instruments, including guitar and bass parts.

Taylor's life

Roger moved to Cornwall at a young age and joined the local choir there. Before learning drums he taught himself how to play the ukulele and guitar. He built up his first drumset while attending Truro School, a selective private school to which he won a free place. In 1967 he attended Royal London Hospital medical school, with hopes of being a dentist. Eventually he grew bored with this and studied biology at North London Polytechnic, leaving the school with a BSc in the subject. He later said that his sole purpose for going to college was to live in London.

Roger joined the early prog band Smile after responding to an advertisement for a "Ginger Baker/Mitch Mitchell-type drummer" and meeting Brian May and Tim Staffell. There he met Freddie Mercury, who was in another band, and they became close friends. After Smile broke up and Mercury ended up alone again, the three of them (Roger, Brian and Freddie) founded Queen.

Taylor the performer

Being one of the band's three vocalists, his voice is notable for its raspiness, which has been compared to Rod Stewart's. He's quite famous within the Queen fandom for his ability to reach very high notes (e.g. the high B-flat at the end of Bohemian Rhapsody's operatic section) but actually his range went even further than that in both ends. His solo career demonstrates he was very good at the low range as well, for instance in his cover of "I Wanna Testify" in which he did all four voices of the choir (bass, tenor, alto and soprano) multi-tracking himself. In some Queen tracks he recorded his voice in octaves and in "I'm In Love With My Car" he arranged and sang all the cascading harmonies.

Another fine example of his vocal talents is in the music hall-esque 'Seaside Rendezvous' where he and Freddie Mercury imitate tubas, clarinets and kazoos through mere voice manipulation.

His compositions include the hits "Radio Ga Ga", "Heaven for Everyone" and "A Kind of Magic", as well as other tunes that did not receive as much airplay, such as "Modern Times Rock & Roll" (Queen), "Tenement Funster" (Sheer Heart Attack), and "I'm In Love With My Car" (A Night at the Opera), which he also sings. An interesting situation occurred after "I'm In Love With My Car" was written. Roger desperately wanted to include it as the B-side of Bohemian Rhapsody, but Freddie didn't agree. So, what Roger did is he locked himself in the cupboard, and refused to come out until Freddie agreed. Freddie did agree eventually, otherwise the poor guy would've been stuck forever in that cupboard. The UK #1 hit These Are The Days Of Our Lives, though credited to all the band, was actually written by Taylor, as well as Invisible Man, Breakthru (except the intro), You Don't Fool Me (with lyrics by Mercury). A big part of the lyrics in Queen's epic Innuendo are by Roger, too, even though the music is Freddie's.

He released several solo albums and started a new band The Cross in 1987 by putting an anonymous advertisement in the newspaper hinting that he was from a famous rock band and that he was seeking other musicians. This side project did not turn out to be successful - it was not popular, even in Germany.

In 1994 he worked together with Yoshiki, the leader/drummer/pianist of X Japan and released the song "Foreign Sand" and a rework of The Cross' "Final Destination" which were a big hit in the UK.

Trivia

Roger, along with Freddie, was one of the party animals of the group. A heavy smoker until mid 80s, he has been known for his love for fast cars, drinks, and women. Throughout Queen's career he earned a reputation as a ladies' man.

He has also been known to be one of the most politically inclined members of Queen, having in 1994 released a single condemning neo-Nazism. Interestingly, 10 years earlier, the music video for his song "Radio Ga Ga", in which a uniformed crowd numbering several hundred raise both fists and clap in unison, was attacked by one critic for looking "like a Nuremberg rally".

Whenever he played live, Roger would always drink two shots of Scotch before going on stage, "no more, no less".

Roger, a natural blond, was fond of using bleach to lighten his hair. One day in 1979 while doing so he accidentally dyed his hair green. Since it was just before a show, Roger had to go on with green hair, much to Freddie's amusement. Only few pictures of this unfortunate accident have survived, as Roger has got hold of most of them. One fine example can, however, be seen in Jacky Gunn's 'Queen: as it began'.

Roger also temporarily grew a beard shortly before Queen was formed, because he did not appreciate being mistaken for a woman.

His favorite movie is 2001: A Space Odyssey, and his favorite drink is vodka.

In 1999 Taylor appeared in the background of a Royal Mail stamp commemorating the life of Freddie Mercury. This caused controversy as it was an understood rule that the only living people allowed to appear on British stamps could be members of the Royal family.

In 2002, Taylor appeared on the "Twelve Drummers Drumming" Christmas card in the "Twelve Days of Christmas" set sold at Woolworths to raise money for the NSPCC – alongside the "other" Roger Taylor, the drummer for Duran Duran.

Taylor discovered the indie band the Wire Daisies, who features Ol Beach, the son of Queen's manager Jim Beach.

Discography

Singles (not included on albums)

• I Wanna Testify/Turn On The TV (1977)
• Manipulator (1988)

Solo Albums

• Fun In Space (1981)
• Strange Frontier (1984)
• Happiness? (1994)
• Electric Fire (1998)

The Cross Albums

• Shove It (1988)
• Mad Bad And Dangerous To Know (1990)
• Blue Rock (1991)

References

• Roger Taylor Fan Site
• Roger-Taylor.Net
• drummerworld.com