Original source is the german Rolling Stone Magazine December 1995 Pages 50 - 53. Producer David Richards talks about Made in heaven and the circumstances of the production.
My translation is rough and content - wise - I have kicked some of the "blablabla" parts.
Rolling Stone (RS)
David Richards (DR)
DR: " "This Studio ( Montreux) would be better placed under the shore line" Mercury once said...but his attitude changed over the years. With " A winters tale" he dedicated a song to this place.
RS: Is it the only Song Mercury has written for the album ?
DR:It is the last song he has written for that album...the last vocals he recorded was "mother love" by BM
RS: Brian wrote it for Freddie or with his inspiration ?
DR: One day they came to the studio,with some chords - Brian gave him a piece of paper with some lines and Freddie starts to sing.That's it.
RS: Your feelings about the release MIH ?
DR: We serve Freddies wish - he wanted to do music until the end - he wants to sing ! A hard time for all of us. He knew that this album would be released after his death.
RS: Do you realized how sick Freddie was at that point ?
DR:I knew that he was really sick. But his voice was still in good shape " My voice is still there so I will sing until the end"( Mercury),...me personally I didn't know it was AIDS. I was assuming that he had cancer. There was a little bit of hope in all of us that something happend for the good - a miracle.
RS: Was his health status a factor during the Innuendo sessions ?
DR: I have noticed some changes but I wasn't sure what it is.
RS: How affected his disease the working progress on this new album(MIH)
DR: We blow more time for his vocals..he was in need for some breaks during the sessions. On the other hand he wantet to be more accurate because he knew that there will be no more touring for him and Queen.
RS: Did he sing along to demos versions. Or is there a specific reason why the band played/ finished their instrumentals for the tracks last year ?
DR: We had various methods. sometimes one member of the Band had a basic idea or a demo - then the whole band jumped in doing some arrangements and put the special"QUEENsound" on the tune. Innuendo for example was inspired by a improvisation. The guys played in the casino hall and Freeddie was upstairs heard it and said " Oh I love it"...walked down and joined in.
RS: Ok...let me ask it in another way...four years ago They played rough versions of the song so Freddie could sing to those tracks ?
DR: No, the tracks were planed for the final use. Of course we edit/ cut some parts but the basic tracks were played live. I remember some problems cause Freddies Microphone catches some of the drum sound.
RS: How long do you work together with Freddie on MIH ?
DR: About one month for the recordings. During this time the songs were written and recorded. After Freddies death nobody touched the material - i think the guys need some space on their own. After some time they said " Ok Let's work...it was freddie's wish to put the final pieces to the mosaic(( (hope it make sense in english)))"...and then they need three or four month to finish it.
RS: What happend in that time ?
DR. Some tracks used unchanged other tracks from his munich produced "Mr Bad Guy" album for example get a whole Queen arrangement. A solo production was turned into a Queen song wich takes a lot of time and was elaborate. The four or five songs from the Montreux session used mainly unchanged - of course they get some extra guitars and bits and pieces but those kind of things are usual.
RS: How Freddie was dealing with that situation ?
DR: He was lucky - lucky that he could sing. He enjoyed it.
RS: was modern technology necessary to finish MIH ?
DR: Yes ( Kicked out a lot of content here / mainly he mentioned that "Too much love will kill you" is the only complete analouge
track on MIH).......
The interview comes to an end with stuff that repeating itself like " Freddie would love it" The bigger the better and so on.
musicland munich wrote:
RS: How long do you work together with Freddie on MIH ?
DR: About one month for the recordings.
RS: was modern technology necessary to finish MIH ?
DR: Yes ( Kicked out a lot of content here / mainly he mentioned that "Too much love will kill you" is the only complete analouge track on MIH)
^ these are the two most interesting things.
So - basically the month of May perhaps?
And saying TMLWKY is the only analog track perhaps supports the idea that the track was finished during The Miracle sessions but just dropped from the album ?
Thanks for doing the translation.
musicland munich wrote:
RS: How long do you work together with Freddie on MIH ?
DR: About one month for the recordings.
RS: was modern technology necessary to finish MIH ?
DR: Yes ( Kicked out a lot of content here / mainly he mentioned that "Too much love will kill you" is the only complete analouge track on MIH)
^ these are the two most interesting things.
So - basically the month of May perhaps?
And saying TMLWKY is the only analog track perhaps supports the idea that the track was finished during The Miracle sessions but just dropped from the album ?
Thanks for doing the translation.
You get the point...but he did not mentioned May as the session date. He just said something like " Let's say about four weeks for to do the recordings" I am not a hundred percent sure even if i am a german native speaker about the "four weeks" He could count them like" Oh there was a week in May and there were two weeks in June" ...speculations of course !!! ..It is a print interview so it's hard to do an interpretation.
My problem is to deal with the german "Sagen wir..." in english "Let's say..." It could be a guess and it could be definitive statement. .
And definitive is the right key word on that "too much love will kill you" question. He said it is from a phase when they still used the analouge equipment. But he didn't mentioned a defenitive session.
Thanks for this.
Speaking of interviews with David Richards, does anyone have the following interview in any form:
DAVID RICHARDS: Royal Engineer; To Queen link