queen project

queen project

mitch drums

time

play

01 Some Day One Day

May

4:06

3.8mg

02 Long Away

May

3:23

3.1mg

03 Sail Away Sweet Sister

May

3:14

3.0mg

04 Just You and I

Mercury

3:21

3.1mg

queen project

chuck drums

time

play

05 Fight From the Inside

Taylor

2:59

2.8mg

06 Sleep on the Sidewalk

May

3:02

2.8mg

07 I Want To Break Free

Mercury

3:14

3.0mg

08 Crazy Little Thing

Mercury

2:41

2.5mg

09 Hammer To Fall

May

4:26

4.1mg

10 Fat Bottom Girls

May

4:15

4.0mg

11 Cool Cat

Deacon

3:31

3.3mg

Queen project

produced and mixed by Guy with Mike
all songs by Queen
recorded at Fabulous e.g. studios, Brandon, FL

Session One (pre-Malicious Intent sessions)
Some Day One Day
Guy bass, acoustic guitars
Mike lead vocals, electric guitars
Mitch drums

Long Away
Guy backing vocals, bass, acoustic guitars, lead & harmony electric guitars
Mike lead & backing vocals
Mitch drums

Sail Away Sweet Sister
Guy lead & backing vocals, bass, lead & rhythm acoustic guitars, harmony electric guitars
Mike lead & backing vocals, lead guitar solo
Mitch drums

Just You & Me
Guy lead & backing vocals, bass, acoustic guitars, lead & harmony electric guitars
Mike backing vocals, lead solo
Mitch drums
Freddie piano

Fight From the Inside
Guy lead & backing vocals, bass, electric guitars
Chuck drums

Session Two (pre-Bad Crazy sessions)

Sleeping on the Sidewalk
Guy bass, backing vocals
Mike lead vocals, electric guitar
Chuck drums

I Want To Break Free
Guy lead & backing vocals, bass, ARP synth, lead, harmony & rhythm electric guitars, drum program
Mike backing vocals

Crazy Little Thing
Guy lead & backing vocals, bass, acoustic guitars
Mike backing vocals, electric guitar
Chuck drums

Hammer to Fall
Guy lead & backing vocals, bass, electric guitar, 3rd lead solo, keys
Mike backing vocals, electric guitar, 1st & 2nd lead guitar solo
Chuck drums

Fat Bottom Girls
Guy lead & backing vocals, bass, electric guitar
Mike backing vocals
Chuck drums

Cool Cat
Guy backing vocals, bass, keys, drum program
Mike lead vocals, electric rhythm guitar

Notes:

Mike and I are Queen fans from way back, and we conceived a project for several purposes: to help me test and get proficient with my new 8 track (then 16 track) recorder, to learn how to do complicated stacked vocal parts, and, on my part, as a way to get Mike back into music after he’d taken a break after leaving Brat.

We did these in two batches, the first four with my brother Mitch on drums. We also recorded Leaving Home Ain’t Easy, but it came out too poorly to keep.

These are admittedly very half-ass versions and in no way meant for public consumption, I merely include them here as an interesting way of seeing how the band Vengeance progressed.

We recorded these between Predator and Malicious Intent, and the second batch right before Bad Crazy, and you can easily see how they influenced us on those albums.

Since the studio was in my house, I did the lion’s share of rhythm parts and backing stuff, because I could just walk in and do it at any time, but I left most of the lead solos for Mike, since he’s a huge May fan. I did do almost all the stacked harmony guitar, however. Sleeping on the Sidewalk was done in one take (out of several tries) with the bass, guitar and drums the original, live in the studio with no overdubs tracks. The vocals were added later.

Some other interesting stuff: I didn’t have a good piano sound keyboard at the time (this was just before I got the Ensoniq) so I dubbed Freddy’s piano part at the beginning of Just You and I on to the beginning, you can hear it drop out subsequently. The only keys I had at the time were a very old and beat ARP synthesizer, but it works for the few songs on which I used it.

Fight From the Inside is a song I was always very high on, so I did all the parts myself, as Taylor did on their album. Sail Away Sweet Sister is a blend of Mike and me on lead vocals on almost all of it.

There are plenty of time breaks, awkward vocal moments, bad mixing, out of tune backing vocals and broken drum rolls, but the intent of these sessions was merely an exercise, they weren’t meant to be polished for release.

We did try to do most of them as well as we were able, but if something came out under par we didn’t alway do innumerable tries at getting it right, as we did on the Bad Crazy backing vocals.

We would frequently spend an entire 8-12 hour night getting one song done, then go back and listen to it, deem it unsatisfactory, and clear the tracks and start over. This was not the case on these songs.

However, they did help me learn how to utilize my tracks to stack 32 part harmonies, the best way to arrange them, how to figure them out and notate them, then record each part, how to do counter-melodies and backing vocals that don’t necessarily follow the lead vocals, but work within the chord, etc.

Please take these for what they are, interesting artifacts in our evolution, and not polished product meant for release. They are what they are, and I put them up with no embarrassment because they are work tapes, rehearsal for the real deal. Judge us on the Bad Crazy, Love Kills and other stacked vocals we did for release.