During an appearance on BBC Radio, Queen guitarist Brian May revealed what the "very insecure" Freddie Mercury really was like backstage.
When asked if Mercury was always the confident front man he seemed to be, May replied (via Ultimate Guitar), “Well, Freddie is on different levels too, because on one level he's always been a rock star, he sang on that Walking around Kensington Market calling everyone he met, just being a flower in general, a very confident … "
He continued, “He was acting like Robert Plant at the time and nobody cared about him because he just had that aura about him. But underneath – no – massive insecurity, massive shyness, right up to the end. "
“He had a very private side. He faced his insecurity by building himself the way he wanted to be. He is a very self-made being. If you peeled all the layers of the onion, you'd find a lot of complexity that he denied much of which is wise. "
May went on to say that there was "a lot of personal meaning" related to Mercury's life in the lyrics to the Queen songs.
“People said, 'Is your music important, Freddie?” He said,' No, I don't think my songs are worth anything. ”But underneath, yes, of course, he felt like he had something to say. And the weirdness of some of his early texts is also very imaginative, they are very fairies and ghouls and goblins, ”he said.
“But even then, there was a lot of personal meaning in these texts, I think. Something we didn't talk about, we didn't do that in Queen. "
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“But I have a feeling that Freddie was always quite daring, and that was a very insecure person. But outwardly he was a warrior, so he built himself into it, ”he concluded.
You can find more information on this topic in the Classic Rock Observer.
