BRIAN MAY'S LIGHT
The beginning of the ’90s proved to be a challenging time for guitarist Brian May, both personally and professionally. In 1991, he had lost his father and his longtime friend and bandmate, Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury. The future of the band Queen was undoubtedly in question. And to make matters worse, the repercussions from the dissolution of May’s first marriage only added to his ongoing struggle with depression.
Mercury had given his blessing for May to venture into a solo career, so the guitarist turned to songwriting to cope with the many complicated emotions inside him. It was in this time of turmoil that his creativity helped produce his debut solo album, Back to the Light.
May called on musicians such as his close friend and drummer Cozy Powell, bassist Neil Murray and Queen bassist John Deacon to join him in the studio. May took over the vocal duties. And upon release of the solo album in September 1992, the public embraced it. Back to the Light reached No. 6 on the U.K. album charts, and it produced solid-sounding singles like “Driven By You” and “Resurrection.” It was May’s only non-Queen release since 1983’s Star Fleet Project EP, which included guitarist Eddie Van Halen and drummer Alan Gratzer of REO Speedwagon.
Almost 30 years later, May has decided to reissue Back to the Light with unreleased tracks and live performances. The extras make this reissue an even better release than the original; whether it’s the sonic live rendition of Queen’s “Tie Your Mother Down” (accompanied by guitar hero Slash) performed on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno or the instrumental alternates of songs, which emphasize May’s brilliant musicianship and unique guitar sound.
Recently, Brian May, the iconic guitarist (and astrophysicist), took time out of his busy day to talk to Goldmine about the reissue of Back to the Light.
GOLDMINE: The idea for reissuing your debut solo album, Back to the Light — was this something that was in the back of your mind for some time, thinking about rereleasing and remastering this particular solo album?
Well, yeah, I guess so. Lockdown was very weird, if you want to start there. You know, suddenly, I couldn’t go anywhere. I couldn’t even get into the studio. I couldn’t do anything proper. We obviously couldn’t go on tour. So what do I do? I’m a performer. I went on Instagram and started doing my little micro-concerts, which worked out really good for me, because people started joining in and returning duets and singing. So that was good. But then I had a lot of time to think, obviously, and there’s a thing called stories on Instagram, where you can put a little clip up, which is “Driven By You.” I thought this really is not good. I started to look at it and I discovered that I hadn’t really noticed but none of my material had been available for 20 years or so. None of it had ever been streamed or downloaded or whatever. I just thought, I believe in that stuff, it’s a big part of my life, why don’t I make sure that it is out there. And if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it properly. We’ll remaster it, we’ll make it all beautiful. And I also decided I was going to do it piece by piece. I wasn’t going to do a vast collection and chuck it out there. Because it was too difficult for me. But partly because I think it’s difficult to digest for the people who are buying.
