In the early part of 2020, Queen + Adam Lambert were on an upward momentum performance-wise. The band performed at the Fire Fight Australia benefit concert in February of that year in response to the devastating bushfires in Australia, and were scheduled to embark on their Rhapsody Tour of the U.K. and Europe. Unfortunately due to the COVID pandemic, Queen + Adam Lambert had to postpone their tour until 2022. To Queen drummer Roger Taylor, the lockdown period was a weird and uncertain time, but it provided him an opportunity to work on what would become his first new solo album in eight years.
“Who’s to know that this pandemic would be so global, such a massive impact globally,” Taylor tells Newsweek. “I guess a lot of the songs on my album came out of having all that time on my hands and all that uncertainty. So I thought I put the time to some kind of creative use.”
The result of that creative use of time is Outsider, another benchmark in Taylor’s long musical career that spans now over 50 years as a member of Queen and as a solo artist. Released last Friday, Outsider follows in the tradition of his previous solo albums like 1981’s Fun in Space in which the British drummer not only sang and wrote his own songs but also played all the other instruments like guitar, bass and keyboards.
“It’s not an ego thing,” Taylor says of the mostly one-man-band approach. “It’s really just the easiest and fastest way to get what I had in my head. It’s easier to do it yourself although there are times when I wish I had a really hot type band to play the songs with. Maybe that would be better, I don’t know. I guess it is so highly personal if you can play virtually all the instruments yourself.
“I do have guests,” he continues. “I have the great Jim Cregan playing acoustic guitar on a song called “Foreign Sand.” He was with Rod Stewart and he’s an old friend of mine. It was nice to have him on the record. And of course, I’ve got [singer] KT Tunstall as well, so it’s not all absolutely entirely me.”
Prior to lockdown and the recording of the album, a few of Outsider‘s songs like “Journey’s End” had been previously released. “I recorded them in my studio here,” says Taylor. “It just happened because of enforced captivity, so it gave me a creative burst. I found myself with an album’s worth of stuff and some of it sort of pertaining to lockdown.”
In describing Outsider, Taylor acknowledges that his new album sounds more reflective compared to his previous works. The subdued and introspective tracks “Tides” and “Journey’s End” perfectly bookend the record as they tackle the theme of life and death. “I think you become more reflective as you get older,” he says. “Let’s face it, you’re more aware of your mortality. [It’s] slightly a bit more adult, reflective or autumnal, as I call it. [“Tides” and “Journey’s End”] kind of sum up the sort of mood of the whole thing.”
Yet amid its sobering moments, the album also conveys a message of hope and unity during unusual and difficult times. Along with the track “Isolation,” the sublime “We’re All Just Trying to Get By,” a duet between Taylor and Tunstall, feels timely in the pandemic era. “I thought during the lockdown, ‘Oh boy, here we are stuck here and we’re just trying to get by,'” he says of writing the song. “And then you think, ‘Well, it’s not just humans. It’s animals and plants. They’re all just trying to get by there or they’re all just trying to survive one moment to the next and by various means.’ So it’s a sort of simplistic universal truth.”
Being a solo artist allows Taylor to express his own commentary about the state of politics and society as he had done on his previous songs like “Nazis 1994″ and”Dear Mr. Murdoch.” For Outsider, he returned to the protest theme with “Gangsters Are Running This World,” rendered in two different versions: a reflective ballad and a heavy rocker.
“Queen never tried to be political,” Taylor explains. “There were four different minds [in the band] as well, so we might not agree on everything. But with a solo record, you’re able to stretch out and make personal statements, so it’s an immense freedom there, which is good. The “Gangsters” thing—you look at the news, you look at Putin, there’s a lot of tyrants out there at the moment. You think, ‘Wow, gangsters are this running this world’ (laughs). Everybody has their views, and I’m just lucky enough to have a sort of conduit to express mine.”
Fans of Taylor’s work with Queen will also recognize on the new record not only his trademark drumming and singing but also his hard-rock sensibilities as heard on the aforementioned “Gangsters,” a cover of the 1965 Shirley Ellis hit “The Clapping Song,” and the explosive “More Kicks,” which sounds like a throwback to his debut solo record Fun in Space from 40 years ago. He also remade “Foreign Sand”, which previously appeared on his 1994 album Happiness?, this time as a more back-to-basics version. “I had made the record with Yoshiki, my friend in Japan [who co-wrote it]. He’s a very big star there. I felt [the original version] was very almost over-arranged, orchestral and grandiose. I thought I’d strip the song down to its absolute kernel and really have the song there naked and exposed for what it is.”
In promoting the release of Outsider, Taylor has just embarked on a mini-tour of the U.K. throughout October in which he will play both his solo music and some Queen favorites. It marked the first time he has performed live on his own in over 20 years. “I am excited that we’ve just finished the rehearsals here in the country in England,” he says ahead of the tour. “I’m very excited. I won’t say I’m not nervous, I haven’t been on stage as a solo performer for a long time, and I am looking forward to it. But we shall see.”
The arrival of Taylor’s new record this year fittingly coincides with the 50th anniversary of the classic Queen lineup of Taylor, the late Freddie Mercury, Brian May and John Deacon. Throughout his tenure with Queen, Taylor has penned mostly rockers for the band like “Modern Times Rock and Roll,” “Sheer Heart Attack,” “I’m in Love With My Car,” “Radio Ga Ga,” and “A Kind of Magic,” along with the occasional ballads such as “These Are the Days of Our Lives” and “Heaven for Everyone.” The band has commemorated that special milestone in a number of campaigns: a 50-part weekly YouTube series that documents notable moments in Queen’s history; the reissue of the band’s first and biggest-selling Greatest Hits album from 1981; and a pop-up shop that recently opened in London. Next year, Queen and singer Adam Lambert are slated to resume their Rhapsody Tour. Taylor marvels at the band’s continued popularity after five decades.
“We find ourselves continually amazed that we still have some relevance, and people seem to enjoy our music so much. It’s a wonderful feeling. Who would have thought? Nobody expected it to last so long, and here I am with Brian. We’re still together, we still get on. We had our ups and downs obviously, but when you have strong-minded people together in the same room—that’s gonna happen. We still get on great. We intend to keep playing as long as we feel we’re doing it to the required standard. I think if I feel unable to perform at a high level, I think that’s when we retire.”
