“To my utter horror I heard myself noodling all the way through our chat. On Brian’s own guitar!”: The first time I met Brian May – and we were both wearing clogs

(Image credit: Bob King/Redferns)

When I caught up with Sir Brian May recently to chat about his fabulous Gibson SJ-200 12-string, he said to me, “We go back a long way, don’t we?” I reminded him that it was, in fact, 40 years since we first met. I had gone to interview him at Queen’s offices in London all those years ago and, needless to say, I was terribly nervous.

At the time he was the biggest star I’d ever met, and he’d stipulated to my boss – who’d arranged the interview when they’d met at some event or other – that “the interviewer mustn’t be late, as I have another appointment that day”.

As a stickler for punctuality myself, I allotted a good hour or so longer than the time it would take me to get from my home in Essex down to West London. All was going well until the A12 came to a halt at Brentwood. And it stayed that way for more than two hours. Tragically, there’d been a terrible pile-up.

In 1985, mobile phones were not the all-pervasive monsters they are today. I certainly didn’t have one, and looking around, no-one else seemed to, either.

I was in the middle of a blocked dual carriageway and couldn’t leave the car to find a phone box. Panic set in and all I could do was wait. I turned to my A-to-Z and plotted a route across town. But even once the traffic had got moving I had to keep pulling over to check that I was on the correct route. It was getting later and later…

Live Aid (Queen) Full Concert [1985, London, Wembley Stadium] – YouTube

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Don’t stop me nowI finally arrived at the Queen office almost an hour late. I parked my car half on the pavement outside and dashed in, expecting a deserved tirade. I gasped my profuse apologies, but Brian couldn’t have been calmer.

“You’d better move your car, though, or you’ll get a ticket,” he said. This I did, and found my way back, now well over an hour behind schedule. Now, although I was a lover of Queen’s music and a huge fan of Brian’s playing, I didn’t know every little detail about him as a person; for instance, the fact that he wore white clogs…

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Well, guess who also favored exactly the same footwear, and had done since working for Gibson in Holland? Brian beckoned me to follow him up the wooden steps to the room where the interview was to take place, and it was then that I spotted them. My heart sank!

“Oh no, he’s going to think of me as some sad copycat fanboy,” I said to myself as we clattered loudly up to the first floor.

Queen – Tear It Up (Live In Budapest 1986) – YouTube

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Sitting there in the room was a huge flight case. Brian lifted its lid, said something like, “Here’s the beast,” and gestured for me to pick it up, which I duly did. Having primed my Sony Walkman with a fresh BASF C90 cassette, I pressed ‘record’ and off we went. The interview went well. Brian couldn’t have been more forthcoming.

I’ve never asked Brian about the clogs incident, nor me playing non-stop through our first interview

When we finished I loaded the guitar back into its case and we went downstairs, where together we chose the feature’s pictures and cover shot from a filing cabinet full of transparencies. We chatted some more, I bade my farewells, located my vehicle, and started back to the Guitarist office in Cambridge.

I slotted the cassette into my car’s stereo as I always did, to check that it had come out okay. Luckily, it had, but to my utter horror I heard myself noodling all the way through our chat. On Brian’s own guitar! How humiliating.

It must have been subconscious nerves as I’d never normally be so disrespectful. So not only the clogs, now this, too. Would he ever speak to me again? Luckily he did, and it was so nice to catch up with him and hear how proud he is of his new Gibson.

I’ve never asked Brian about the clogs incident, nor me playing non-stop through our first interview. He’s certainly never mentioned it and quite possibly never even noticed it, either, but I still get the chills whenever I remember. Got any star-related embarrassments to report? Do share and I’ll see you next time.

This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

In the late ’70s and early ’80s Neville worked for Selmer/Norlin as one of Gibson’s UK guitar repairers, before joining CBS/Fender in the same role. He then moved to the fledgling Guitarist magazine as staff writer, rising to editor in 1986. He remained editor for 14 years before launching and editing Guitar Techniques magazine. Although now semi-retired he still works for both magazines. Neville has been a member of Marty Wilde’s ‘Wildcats’ since 1983, and recorded his own album, The Blues Headlines, in 2019.