Roger Taylor

His (Freddie Mercury) words got better quickly. There were some very overt lyrics. Don’t Stop Me Now is a good example. He was having a good time, and that was very much a cri de coeur. Some lyrics we wrote together like I’m Going Slightly Mad, which was funny. We had fun coming up with daft things, all those ridiculous phrases. I’d say it was Freddie’s actual musicality which was the cleverest thing of all, the notes, and his harmonic structure was quite brilliant. When he wrote The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke, on the second album, he was crossing sections of six-part harmonies, and I thought: “Bloody hell, that is tricky stuff.” Then there’s The March Of The Black Queen, which is almost like prog-rock, and so outrageously complicated that I can’t even remember the arrangement myself. When you write songs that complex, you have to work hard at it, and it did invoke a lot of head-scratching. But then he’d come up with Killer Queen or, later on, lots of simple things like Crazy Little Thing. He had it on all sides. Freddie evolved. I always called him ‘the man who invented himself’. I think the talent was innate, but he dug deep inside himself and forced it out. His determination was quite something.

I saw Buddy Rich playing. He was wonderful, fantastic. I would say of just sheer technique he’s the best I’ve ever seen.

We’re not going out there with somebody pretending to be Freddie Mercury. We are what we are now; we’re not what we were then, we’re just going out, playing our songs.

Freddie will have been dead for 20 years in November. I was staggered because it doesn’t seem possible that all that time has passed and I still miss him. He was my best friend, my best man. We shared so much and I owe so much to him.

The greatest Rock’n’Roll drummer of all time was John Bonham who did things that nobody had ever even thought possible before with the drum kit. And also the greatest sound out of his drums – they sounded enormous, and just one bass drum. So fast on it that he did more with one bass drum than most people could do with three, if they could manage them. And he had technique to burn and fantastic power and tremendous feel for rock’n’roll. “When the levee breaks” is the archetypal heavy drum sound – it’s never been bettered – it’s like a steamroller, enormous bass drum. Simple but takes feel.

The first time I saw Led Zeppelin, Bonzo (John Bonham) just walked on the stage and just warmed up for about 10 seconds. Freddie (Freddie Mercury) and I nearly fell over we just couldn’t believe the power and the sound. People are still today trying to imitate Led Zeppelin, America is full of drummers trying to play like John Bonham.

So, we come out to Los Angeles. And we met with every network. We met with show runners, directors, writers, everything. And what we had an idea for, they didn’t like. And what they had an idea for, we didn’t like. So, we went home.

That said, my kids are at home right now with my husband and I’m missing something important at my daughter’s school which makes me feel sick inside. It’s a lot of balance and a lot of really hard decision making.

A kiss with anyone, on or off camera, can be intimidating. Ive been kissing for nearly two decades now, and I’m always convinced I’m not doing it right.

I wish everybody would treat themselves like a plant.

At some point, I would like to write a book and other things, but I work best when there is some sort of deadline in my own mind, but not when fifty people or fifty million people are breathing down the back of my neck.

The thing is, I get asked when I first knew I wanted to act so often, and I genuinely can’t answer it. It’s just… I got the bug, and that’s it.

They made a porn movie about Sarah Palin, and the same actress, Lisa Ann, played me in the porn version of 30 Rock. Weirdly, of the three of us, Lisa Ann knows the most about foreign policy.

Friends don’t lie.

I don’t now what situation they came from and I don’t know what they were offered to go somewhere else. It’s the times now, There’s not a any loyalty for anyone or anything – a whole lot. Wherever the money’s at, that’s where they’re going, so I don’t blame them. They’ve got just a few years to get it done and if they don’t get it done then, then they aren’t going to get it done.

Well, I speak for my show only when I say we’re in debt to journalists because we’re just pulling clips all day long which they made in the first place. We know that a lot of people watching our show haven’t been watching the news as closely as we have – they haven’t been following hundreds of reporters on Twitter all day. So I guess our goal is to say: ‘Hey, here’s what happened today in 10 minutes, and hopefully we’ll tell you in a way that won’t make you throw your remote at the television’.

I think they want to keep it separate, but I’ve never been a crossover artist for some reason.

I still like to get carried away – but passively.

There are things that I do that feminists don’t like, and there are things that I do that they do like. I don’t label myself.

There were the Pussycat Dolls, and there’s a band called Perfect Pussy, but they’re white, so they get the pass. I can’t be Junglepussy and black, but I just push through, especially when my mother says she doesn’t have a problem with it.

We often read transcripts of Trump’s speeches, and it’s something that everyone should actually do once in a while. When you strip away his blindingly confident delivery and just read his words, it is staggering how incoherent he is.