Queen and David Bowie May Have Recorded Cream Covers
Queen drummer Roger Taylor revealed that the band had jammed some Cream covers with David Bowie during their 1981 studio sessions together.
In 2017, guitarist Brian May said there was probably more to be heard from the brief collaborative period that resulted in the release of the Queen and Bowie hit “Under Pressure.” In a recent interview with Record Collector, Taylor hinted at what might remain in the vaults.
“If we look to the archives, there’s probably stuff,” he said, noting that they’d played “all sorts of old songs … whatever came into our head. ... We would do the odd thing like covering old Cream songs. I remember we did ’N.S.U.’ and ‘I Feel Free,’ just for a laugh really, and then we decided, ‘Let’s write one for ourselves.’”
May recalled that the sessions – which came about simply because Bowie and Queen happened to be in Switzerland at the same time – found focus once “Under Pressure” began to take shape. “That became very much the priority,” the guitarist said. “So there are only little sketches apart from that.” One of those became “I Go Crazy,” a 1984 B-side, but May said it turned out “very different to the version that we started off when David was around.”
Four years ago, he said the session experience “wasn't easy, because we were all precocious boys and David was very ... forceful.” He recalled how Bowie and Freddie Mercury “locked horns” in “subtle ways, like who would arrive last at the studio. So, it was sort of wonderful and terrible. But in my mind, I remember the wonderful now, more than the terrible. ... But those are the things that happen in a studio, that's when the sparks fly, and that's why it turned out so great.”