Queen once hired a man who “moved under meat”.
The original Queen line-up
The ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ hitmakers have been at the heart of various rumours about their wild parties in their hey day, and while drummer Roger Taylor insisted stories about them having dwarves circulating among guests with cocaine on their heads are false, he thinks they did some “stranger” things.
He told Uncut magazine: “There’s lots of myths. One of them is the bald dwarves at the party in New Orleans with cocaine on their heads.
“It’s rather funny but it is a myth – I didn’t see any anyway.
“But there was a man who moved under meat.
“He lay on a table covered in cold cuts, and when somebody approached the table, he would wobble, and all the meat would move and freak people out.
“I think that’s much stranger than a dwarf with cocaine on his head.”
The 75-year-old musician infamously sported tiger skin trousers on occasions, but they were stolen from the band’s office – and after the thief was caught, he turned up to court sporting the lurid garments.
Asked if he still has the trousers, Roger said: “Good god, no. Somebody stole them from our office years ago.
“He was caught and arraigned, and he turned up in court wearing them.
“They were fun, but I wouldn’t go around wearing them now.”
Before finding fame, Roger and late frontman Freddie Mercury worked on a London market stall - and the sticksman once sparked fury from his pal by selling his coat to a customer.
He recalled: “He came in very late one day, I was a bit annoyed with him.
"He hung up his jacket and went for a coffee in the market.
“This lady came through, quite well-off, and said, ‘That’s a nice jacket.’ So I sold it to her for 10 pounds!
“Freddie came back, swivelled round and said, ‘Where’s my f****** jacket?’ I said, ‘Now look, we have to eat…’
“But Freddie got it out of me who it was and he went tearing down Kensington High Street, caught her up just outside the underground station, ripped the jacket off and threw a tenner at her. He was furious! That’s a very typical story.”
Tagged in Brian May Roger Taylor