Early days of Queen
Brian May was a student at Imperial College in London when he recruited Roger Taylor to join a band they called Smile. The band’s bass player, Tim Staffel, was a friend of Freddie Mercury, who was still going by his birth name at the time. In 1970 Staffel left the band and with the encouragement of Mercury, who joined them around that time, the band changed its name to Queen. Several bass players worked with the band before they brought John Deacon in during early 1971.
Beginning in the summer of 1971 Queen began playing live in the lineup which became famous. They also made changes to management in attempts to sign a contract with a record label, recorded numerous tracks of new material, and worked nearly continuously. Mercury developed his campy, flamboyant stage presence during this time, designing costumes which matched the performance, and became known for being outrageous and carefree.
Mercury also developed his use of a broken microphone stand as a part of his act, using it to gesture to the crowd, twirling it like a baton, thrusting it about suggestively, and other gyrations which became a major part of Queen’s reputation. The use of the stand came from when Freddie had performed with an earlier band called Wreckage, when a microphone stand did break during a performance, necessitating Freddie to hold the stand throughout the set.
In 1973 Queen released their first album, on Trident Records, which received welcoming reviews from critics on both sides of the Atlantic. A single released from the album, Keep Yourself Alive, was likewise well received critically, but neither the single nor the album achieved much in the way of sales. In 1974 they released a second album, Queen II, and another single, which wasn’t as praised as the first album and likewise achieved sluggish sales.
In 1974 Queen toured the United States for the first time, as the opening act for Mott the Hoople, which was cut short when Brian May developed hepatitis. Later that year the album Sheer Heart Attack was released, and the single Killer Queen reached number two in the UK charts, as did the album. In the US the single reached number 12. Queen prepared for a massive worldwide tour to be conducted in 1975, with a stage show and costumes designed to stun audiences.