The fierce ego war between Freddie Mercury and David Bowie: behind the scenes of Queen’s hit “Under Pressure”

Freddie Mercury AND David Bowietwo of the most legendary and influential stars in rock history, have managed to transcend boundaries and even death, as today their albums and songs remain as relevant as ever.

Although they shared the English rock scene of the 1970s, They have never sung live together and their artistic paths did not coincide until Fate brought them together in a study in the Swiss Alps to compose the famous hit Under pressure.

They had known each other for a long time, ever since Bowie headlined a small show at Ealing Technical University, where Mercury studied art. And when they worked and composed the song, in the early 1980s, both were already established artists. Super stars.

The meeting in Switzerland

In 1982, What does it has to do with it? released his tenth album warm spacewith which the band not only navigated musical genres such as pop, funk, rock and disco, but also including the collaboration they did with David Bowie.

Under pressure it became their second No. 1 hit. 1 in England for the British group (After Bohemian Rhapsody in 1975) e the third number 1 for Bowie (Space oddity in 1969 and Ashes to ashes in 1980).

The origin of the song dates back to July 1981, when Queen met with the performer and composer of Star man at the Mountain Studios recording studio in Montreux, Switzerland.

The band was there to shape the album that later earned them the coveted gold record in their homeland, the United States, Japan, Austria, South Africa and Canada.

For his part, David Bowie was recording the song Cat People (Putting out the fire) for the remake of the horror film The mark of the panther by director Paul Schrader, with Nastassja Kinski in the title role.

One day, Queen’s sound engineer called Bowie to invite him to a session. “He knew I was there and he asked me if he could come down, and suddenly we were writing something together. It was completely spontaneous,” David recalled.

Queen’s drummer Roger Taylorsaid that: “He came up to us one night when we were playing other artists’ old songs just for fun, and said, ‘Why don’t we write one ourselves?'” “It was a 24-hour session that included great quantity of drugs and wine.”

Initially, Bowie was only going to add his voice to the backing vocals of beautiful catthe tenth track of the album Warm spacebut after recording some footage and being dissatisfied with the results, they scrapped the idea and created Under pressure, whose melody comes from a musical improvisation and from the instrumental basis of Feel likea Taylor song that had been discarded.

Impositions, discord and anger

The guitarist Brian May He admitted that Queen always had strong clashes when creating a new album together, despite the affinity and complicity they had on stage.

“It was as if four different artists were trying to paint on the same canvas. Every time we made an album it felt like we were going to break up,” she confessed.

Adding David to the creative experience was a challenge for them, especially for Freddie Mercury, due to his strong character and personality. “They clashed with the horns, no doubt, but that made sparks fly and that’s why the song came out so well,” admitted the guitarist.

For his part, Roger stressed: “We’ve never collaborated with anyone, so some egos were bruised in the process.”

The first disagreement occurred between Bowie and the bassist John the Deacon while they were trying to compose the melody. “We all contributed our own stuff, but the one we liked best was a riff that John started playing,” May said.

Despite their enthusiasm to create a song together, hunger soon struck and the band realized it was time to take a break for pizza.

When the session resumes, Deacon had forgotten what the riff was like and played several notes on bass without success., David stopped him and, according to May, that attitude created “a moment of tension” between them. The British singer told the musician how to play the melody on the instrument and Deacon didn’t like it at all.

“I remember she went to him and said, ‘No, don’t do it like that,’ and John said, ‘Excuse me? ‘I’m the bass player and this is how I do it!’” the guitarist explained. Eventually, Roger Taylor remembered the bassist’s riff and they moved on.

For his part, Bowie surprised Queen with his avant-garde method of constructing the song’s vocal structure, asking all band members to improvise on the instrumental track inside the booth. “He said, ‘Come with no ideas and sing the first thing that comes to mind. So we did that and then put all the pieces together,'” Brian said.

In this sense the guitarist stated that for By the time they realised, Bowie had already taken control of the entire creative process.. “It was difficult because we were four very precocious artists and suddenly we had this person in the studio, who came forward with a very clear vision of what she wanted in her head and ended up taking charge of the lyrics,” he said. recognized.

The truth is that the creator of Heroes Not only did he put his own spin on the song, but he also influenced most of the decisions, including the name of the track which was originally supposed to be called People on the streets but they decided they should rename it Under pressure.

“In these matters someone has to take the lead to decide what will be done and that person was David. He said, ‘I’ll do it,’ and even though it wasn’t common for us to give up control like that, our position was just to say, ‘Okay,’” May shared.

New York, scene of the fierce combat

During the creation of the song, Freddie Mercury and David Bowie proved this They were friends as well as rivals.. Both accustomed to getting what they want when they collaborate and compose music, they let their more competitive and perfectionist side shine through.

In fact, Brian May shared that the Queen frontman and the British singer used to “compete in subtle ways,” like trying to get to the studio early.

Another of the occasions in which Bowie and Mercury competed was in an improvised vocal session which led to the opening of the song with Freddie’s vocal rambling. Everyone had to record their own stuff without the other listening, but producer Reinhold Mack said Bowie cheated.

“Freddie was recording his part and then I saw David poke his head out the door to listen to him. When David came out and David came in, I noticed that Fred was quite impressed by the incredible counterpoint that his improvisation made to what he had done before. Then he asked me, ‘What do you think about this?’ and I said, ‘It would be easier if you were at the door and listened,'” Mack said, noting the spirit of competitiveness that existed among the singers.

The professional cordiality ended when they met in New York to mix the song. It’s been weeks since I recorded the vocals of Under pressure in Switzerland, when Bowie joined Reinhold Mack in the Power Station studio, as he had asked to be present for that part of the trial.

However, his continued impositions led the producer to ask Mercury to intervene in the situation. “It didn’t go very well. We spent the whole day in the studio and Bowie was telling me: ‘Do this, do that’ so I ended up calling Freddie. I said: ‘I need help’ and he came as a mediator “, he said.

Once Mercury showed up at the studio, he confronted David and they had a heated argument over the final edit of the song. “They had a fierce battle over this. “They both had different views on how it should be done,” emphasized the guitarist of the British group.

“Now that I think of it, Under pressure “It’s a great song, but at the time I felt it should have been mixed and produced differently,” Brian May analyzed.

The Queen musician, despite helping to initially mix the song in Switzerland, decided to stay out of that creative part in North America when he realized there were already enough egos involved in the process.

The album launch

Finally, Queen included Under pressure in your album Warm space in 1982 and its success was such that it climbed the most important music charts in 10 countries after its release as a single on October 26, 1981. Furthermore, the British group also incorporated it into its live shows until 1986.

For his part, Bowie chose not to perform it in public until 1992, when the “Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert” tribute show dedicated to the Queen singer was held after his death from AIDS, a disease which he was diagnosed with in 1987 and which ended up causing costing him his life on November 24, 1991. It was in the legendary Wembley Stadium that he sang it as a duet with Annie Lennox, of the Eurythmics.

Three years later, David Bowie added the single recorded with the historic rock group to the setlist of his 1995 “Outside Tour” with which he arrived in Argentina on 7 November 1997 to perform in front of his fans at the Ferro stadium.

That night in Buenos Aires he sang Under pressureimmediately afterwards The man who sold the world and before that The dirty lesson of the heartof the disc Outside.