8 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Queen

Freddie Mercury of Queen in concert, 1986. Photo by Ilpo Musto/REX/Shutterstock (1271607af)

Queen is undoubtedly one of the greatest rock bands in the history of music. Thanks to their stadium anthems and the incredible talent of frontman Freddie Mercury, the group is now loved by all generations.

Recently the band’s music gained even more exposure thanks to biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, which was released in October. While this was a great movie, many interesting facts about these legendary British rockers were skipped in it, so we decided to do you a solid and bring you 8 things you probably didn’t know about Queen.

1. Before joining forces with Freddie Mercury and forming Queen, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor played together in a band named Smile.

2. The Queen’s crest was designed by Mercury, who used the astrological signs of the band’s members as inspiration.

3. If you are not a diehard Queen fan, you probably didn’t know that they have a Christmas track. Titled “Thank God It’s Christmas,” the song was released in 1984 and achieved moderate success. It was never released on any of the band’s studio albums.

4. The band holds several Guinness World Records including the one for UK’s best single of the past 50 years for “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

5. Speaking of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Queen recorded the music video for the song in just four hours. Another interesting thing about the song is that Freddie Mercury didn’t like to play it live since he was unsure about his abilities to play the piano.

6. Queen didn’t think that “Another One Bites The Dust” has a potential to become a hit. They decided to release it as a single only after Michael Jackson recommended that.

7. Their collaboration with David Bowie, song “Under Pressure,” was born accidentally. Bowie happened to be in the same studio were Queen recorded, and they decided to do a song together.

8. Freddie Mercury was a big cat lover and had up to ten of them at various points in his life. He was so attached to his pets that he called home to talk to them while he was on tour.