Brian May 'My Planet Rocks' Interview
'My Planet Rocks' is a show on the UK digital radio station Planet Rock, where the guest each week plays and talks about the songs which have influenced them. Brian was interviewed by Liz Barnes on 9 December 2013, and the resulting programme was broadcast on 19 January 2014 at 7pm, repeated on 23 January at 8pm.
Brian talked about his new 'Diableries' book, playing with Kerry Ellis, the Queen Studio Experience, first playing the guitar, the biopic of Freddie's life, the 'We Will Rock You' musical, future concerts with Adam Lambert, and a possible album of Tony Iommi's unused riffs.
The show features seven tracks, namely 'Tie Your Mother Down', 'Made In Heaven' and 'I Want It All' by Queen, 'Anthem' by Kerry Ellis, 'Since You've Been Gone' by Rainbow, 'Maybe Baby' by Buddy Holly and The Crickets, and 'Paranoid' by Black Sabbath.
Below is a full transcription of the interview, which lasts around 52 minutes.
Voiceover: The music that shaped a life. This is 'My Planet Rocks'
('Tie Your Mother Down' (single version) by Queen is played)
Liz: Welcome along to this week's 'My Planet Rocks', and well my guest tonight virtually needs no introduction, after his performance on that opening track, anyway. Not only is he a bona-fide rock guitar god from one of the most successful bands this country has ever produced, but he's also managed to squeeze in time to be a doctor of astrophysics, a CBE, a badger saver, author, and stereo photography expert amongst loads of other things I probably haven't even mentioned. Welcome to 'My Planet Rocks', Brian May
Brian May: Thank you very much, nice to be here
Liz: It's wonderful, wonderful to have you on the show
Brian: Thank you
Liz: I think we could probably do about a week
Brian: Alright. We'll settle in
Liz: (laughs) yeah, yeah, hope you've brought some food, but we've only got an hour, so we're gonna talk about all sorts. But before any of that, you have this incredible, I don't even want to call it a book, because it's, I feel like I'm doing it a disservice if I just say you've written this book
Brian May: It's a toy, yeah
Liz: Um, I don't even know how to say it properly
Brian: Diableries
Liz: Diableries, OK
Brian: Well that's a very, even that's a very English way of saying it, you know, my partner, Denis Pellerin, would call it 'Diablerie' (Liz: OK) without the 's', because the 's' is silent in French, of course, but Diableries is kind of devilments, and that's what it's about. Um, it's about, well you want, do you want me to tell you what it's about?
Liz: Yeah, absolutely, more interesting if you say than I do
Brian: It's easier when you have it in your hand, actually, isn't it, you know, rather than talking about it, but um, it's a 3D book and it's, what it does is channel images from the 1860's in France, which sounds a bit obscure, doesn't it, but actually it's very relevant to today because these images are all of devils and skeletons and a, and satan himself, of course, all having a great time in hell, and these things were depicted for fun and for a little bit of sort of religious overtone, but also, more than anything, satirically and seditiously because they were all about overthrowing the government of their day. So it's very relevant to today, that's what I do, you know I work on overthrowing governments (laughs) (Liz: and why not) when I can, you know, in odd moments. But these, these images have fascinated me for 40 years, they're extraordinary, they were made by sculptors and photographed in 3D, and of course 3D in the 1860's was well advanced, anything that can be done in 3D was done by the 1860's. The book comes with a, with a stereoscope, my patent Owl stereoscope, so you get incredible 3D imaging, very immersive, even more than going to the cinema and seeing 'Avatar' I think, really, and we have every Diablerie image in there except two, which we couldn't find, so there's 180 and there should be 182, but you can enjoy the experience, you can read it as a book because there's lots of research in there about what these things actually mean, because the devil is portraying Napoleon the third, in fact, and all these little things that they get up to, I mean they get up to extraordinary things in hell, they do ice skating and firefighting and stuff
Liz: Yeah, but, I, actually, I'm ashamed to say, when I was going through the book, I genuinely don't think I knew anything about it. I was literally like 'what the heck is this?', like I really, I don't think it's ever
Brian: I know, in fact, 'what the hell is this?'
Liz: Yeah well exactly, literally, but it's totally fascinating, I mean what first, how did it first appear to you? How did you get interested in it?
Brian: It was years ago, I was a student and I used to go down Portobello Road and search for anything 3D, because it's always been a fascination of mine, and I could pick up old viewers and things, and then suddenly in a pile of stereo cards was this one skeleton view, and I was fascinated from the beginning, I thought 'what on earth is this? what is it saying? what was it made for?' and then I realised it was a tissue, so you hold it up to the light and instead of it being black and white, it turns into glorious colour, and the eyes glow at you in a very mysterious way, so, because, the technology from the 1860's was incredible actually, they painted these things on the back and pricked out all the eyes and all the jewellery and things that would glitter, and so when you hold it up to the light, it transforms from day into night
Liz: Wow
Brian: I'll tell you what, all this technology we have in the 21st century, I have tried to duplicate this and you just can't, it's incredible, the work they put in, so I started collecting these things, I say 40 years ago, and now I have almost all of them, but not quite all of them, but I know people who have other ones, you know, so I've been able to scan everything, and of course, you use modern technology, digital scanning and restoring in PhotoShop, and you can restore these things to their former beauty, so you will see in this book, the Diableries as they were meant to be seen, in complete 3D and in colour, and people just go wow, it's great, and I knew they would, I knew once we actually channelled this in the, into the 21st century, people would get excited and they do seem to be
Liz: And it's almost like some, a, a, it's a little bit like a, well I suppose it is an underground secret, isn't it, a little bit?
Brian: Yeah, I mean in 140 years, very little has been known about it, and there's never been a book like this which, which gathered them all together. The secret is seeing them in 3D in their stereoscopic splendour and that's why I had to design my own viewer to go with the book
Liz: I mean, you know, it looks beautiful, and when I, when I sort of got it out of it's slipcase and I was looking through it, it kind of felt it's not just a book, it's an experience. It's so fascinating, so fascinating, especially when you know, like I said I really wasn't aware of it at all, so it was genuinely, I was sat in the office and like, 'I should do some work today' and say 'no hang on a minute' (laughs). Brian, I want you to pick a track, I'm not going to make it very difficult at all, um, I'm not gonna, this time, I won't ask you to pick one of yours, I'm just going to ask you to pick a really good guitar track by someone you think is, you know, worth it
Brian: OK, what just popped into my head is 'Since You've Been Gone', because I think it's a quintessential, I suppose you'd call it pop-rock in a sense, you know, but it's, it's uncompromising, you know, it's a great song, and it's brilliantly played, I mean the drums, my dear friend, Cozy Powell, of course, long gone, and I worked with him, and it was a wonderful experience working with that guy, I mean incredible, he had rock all the way through him, you know, an amazing guy, and of course Ritchie Blackmore playing guitar, who's extraordinary, you know, people don't talk about Ritchie Blackmore enough. I don't know why, but you know he was such a trailblazer and technically incredible, unpredictable in every possible way, which is great, I mean, that's what you love, isn't it, you go to a gig and you, you want to see something which is not predictable, which is not like just, you know, reproducing something, so you never knew what you were gonna see when you went to see Purple, when Blackmore was in it, but also Rainbow, and you know, this was his own thing and it was wild and dangerous, and this is a good pop record, but that doesn't take away from the fact that it's great rock music, in my opinion, I think it's perfect
('Since You've Been Gone' by Rainbow is played)
Liz: Rainbow on Planet Rock and our very special guest this week is Mr Brian May, um, and
Brian: Doctor Brian May to you
Liz: Doc, actually, yes, doctor Brian May
Brian: I don't let anybody call me mister these days, because if you go through that torture, you never want to be called mister
Liz: Do you know what? Let's do it again, doctor Brian May (laughs)
Brian: Thank you very much
Liz: Look, I did mention of course, before that the thing that we hold you all so dear to our hearts for is Queen, and very recently in Montreux you opened The Queen Studio Experience. Now I didn't actually know anything about this until I read about the opening, but tell us about it, 'cos it just sounds incredible
Brian: It's nice, yeah, it's something I never would have thought would happen, you know, you go through these things, we used to turn up every day in Montreux, we loved it there, you know, it was a very good escape from sort of the pressures of, of our home lives in London, you know, and we would be there working away, going in the same door every day and then I went back there last week to open The Studio Experience, and suddenly it's sort of been converted into a museum in a sense, you know, it's like being at your own funeral, I'm trying to make it sound positive, aren't I? (laughs). But it's actually a great thing, you know, we, we worked there for many years and we actually made more or less six albums there in this little studio in the corner of a casino on the, on the banks of Lake Geneva in a sleepy little town called Montreux, and Montreux is very quiet normally, um, you know, a little bit of tourism goes on, but when the jazz festival comes on it's massively crowded and nice actually, it's a nice event to do, and in fact Kerry and I just played it this, last July, and we have a DVD coming out of that performance, which is nice, but I digress. We went there and um, we stayed there, David Richards became our sort of regular engineer and producer, and did a fantastic job, so you find a formula, not a formula, but you find a situation which works for you, and you carry on with it. Freddie loved it because it enabled him to get away from the press intrusion, particularly towards the end of his life, you know, 'cos people were sticking cameras through his toilet windows when he was, when he was sick, you know, which was really awful. So in Montreux he really did get peace and privacy and he bought a place there, and there we would work very, how can I say, gently, but it wasn't gentle (laughs), I suppose, you know it was quite turbulent, but um, there have been a trickle of people who go there like a pilgrimage. I don't know if you know the Freddie statue (Liz: yeah, of course) is actually there as well, nearby, on the shores of the lake, which is beautiful. So people go there to see Queen in a sense, they see the statue and to have a look around the studio and see what it was like. So in response to that demand, the casino and the town and some of our people put together this experience, which is basically there's loads of our stuff there, instruments, and you can see where we worked, and in the control room, which has been restored to what it looked like when we were there, apart from it being filled with smoke (laughs), which was crazy, um, the desk has been restored and you can sit there and you can mix a track, so you, there's a few Queen tracks there and you can sit there and work the faders and do your own mix, which is fun
Liz: That's really interesting
Brian: It's a nice thing, you know, so people, I've seen them have a lot of fun with it, and um, yeah
Liz: 'Cos that's part of the magic of I think, of, you know, just as a music fan, what happens in the studio when people's individual parts become, you know, that thing that you, that you love, um, that must be amazing for people to actually have a go. What tracks are they, do you know?
Brian: One of them is 'Made In Heaven', which is very much a sort of quintessential Queen track, it's one of the biggest we ever did. It was never a single, strangely enough, but it's one of my favourite tracks
Liz: Was it not?
Brian: No, which, perhaps it should be
Liz: Yeah, yeah
Brian: 'Made In Heaven' is so enormous, we could play it if you like?
Liz: Yeah, let's have a listen
('Made In Heaven' by Queen is played)
Liz: 'Made In Heaven' on Planet Rock and my guest this week is Dr Brian May (laughs), see I got it right this time
Brian: Thank you, darling
Liz: I just want to talk to you really briefly, 'cos I can't have you sitting here and not talk about the guitar. I actually, genuinely, do not know how you ended up playing the guitar. I genuinely don't know the story of how, how you ended up playing the guitar and not the drums or the piano
Brian: Oh, I see
Liz: What, what led you to six strings?
Brian: Well, Buddy Holly, really. I think that was the moment I thought 'ahh, that's what I wanna do', when I heard that incredible jangling noise, we can play a bit of that if you like, you know, I mean, Buddy Holly and The Crickets I used to listen to on my little crystal set, under the covers when I was pretending to be asleep, you know, and it was magic to me, because in the world that I grew up in, it was the world of soft classical music, and the big band era, and Johnnie Ray, ballads, Bing Crosby, and this guy coming along with this jangling sound and this amazingly kind of spooky sound of the backing harmonies as well. I was just blown away and I still am every time I hear it
Liz: From hearing that and thinking, 'right, that's what I wanna do', and actually putting that into practice, obviously lots of people dream of doing something, but very few actually, you know, get to, get to the endgame, once you actually got hold of a guitar, how quickly did you realise 'actually, I can do it, I can do this'?
Brian: I suppose it was gradual, really, I mean, I was lucky, 'cos my Dad was musical and he taught me ukulele chords, so when I asked for a guitar for my, I don't know, probably ninth or tenth birthday, I got the guitar and I was able to make some kind of noise with it that made sense. But for years I just played rhythm really, and I would sing and play rhythm, so that's my grounding, and I'm happy that that happened, 'cos these days people delve into, you know, playing only, only, only, very quickly, you know, people get into playing singalongs, but the rhythm stuff is very important, that's your grounding, really. But yeah, I could do something, you know, and I had kids around me of my age who felt the same and were passionate about it, so we would go and hide in the cycle sheds and play riffs to each other and swap ideas and techniques and stuff, so it happened very quickly, um, you know, by the age of I don't know, you know, 16 or so, I could play a lot of what I can play now, you know, you develop those skills quite quickly, but, you know, the inspiration was all around us, rock and roll was just burgeoning everywhere, it's incredible, and I was listening to people like James Burton on 'Hello Mary Lou', Ricky Nelson records, I didn't know his name, didn't know who he was, I just heard this guitar, not just doing the jangling thing, and not just making a big noise, but speaking, you know, he could bend notes, James Burton (does an impression) you know, and I was just entranced because that transformed the guitar from a rhythm instrument into a, a lead instrument on a parallel with a, with a lead vocalist, so that really just made the hairs on my back stand up and that's what I wanted to do
Liz: Do you wanna play a Buddy Holly track then?
Brian: Probably 'Maybe Baby'
Liz: Okay then, let's have 'Maybe Baby'
Brian: I remember them so clearly, these records, 'cos it was vinyl in those days, and this was black vinyl, done very cheap with a black label in the middle, with very little on it except the title and the artist, and they were in a brown paper bag with a hole in. It was very kind of cheapo, but God, the magic was in there you know, and I can still smell what it was like, you know (laughs), a perfume, these vinyl singles, and, you know, you put it on your record player and my God, the magic just, just leapt out at you
Liz: Well, let's listen to Buddy Holly and 'Maybe Baby', right after this
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Voiceover: 'My Planet Rocks' on Planet Rock
('Maybe Baby' by Buddy Holly and The Crickets is played)
Liz: Buddy Holly and 'Maybe Baby' on Planet Rock, and my guest this week is Brian May. Brian, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about your work with Kerry Ellis, 'cos we've talked to you and Kerry before, but the two of you first met on 'We Will Rock You', didn't you?
Brian: Well, she was the original Meat, yeah. She came in to audition when we were putting the show together for the first time, you know, very tentatively, because we didn't really know what we were doing, you know (laughs) we were learning very fast. But Kerry came in and sang 'No One But You' and just slaughtered us all, it was amazing, so she got the part. I had actually seen her, I kind of poached her in a sense 'cos I'd seen her in 'My Fair Lady' of all things, something very different, but she was astounding in that as an understudy, and so I think it was me who actually asked her to come in and audition for the part, which is incredible, and created that role, and I immediately thought, 'ah, this is the kind of voice I would like to work with', because, you know, I don't have Freddie any more, and she's just a very inspiring interpreter of material. So gradually over years and years we, because we're both incredibly busy, you know, we found time to put some tracks together, produced some tracks for her, and we made that first album, 'Anthems' album, and then we figured we could go out on tour. So we've, in various forms we've been on tour, and it's great for me, it's very different, there's not the expectation of being Queen, which is kind of a release for me, you know, I love being Queen, but, you know, not all the time, sometimes it's nice to get out and just be fresh and different, so we did our, the last thing we did was our 'Acoustic By Candlelight' tour, which is great, 'cos it's very intimate, we can tell stories and have a joke with the audience and it's turned out to be something very good, so we'll do some more of that, I think we start around the end of February this year, doing some gigs in England, and we have some gigs in Russia, and in Malta, and I think maybe South Africa, I'm not sure. So I enjoy that, it's great, and you know it's stimulating for me, it's a way of just having a very fresh look at things, we play a couple of Queen songs, and I do actually play some electric guitar, even though it's called 'Acoustic by Candlelight', but it's very intimate, it's very different from the huge, grand Queen experience, which we may be doing again, you know, I think we may do some Queen gigs later on this year. I’m probably not supposed to say this but (laughs) we’re looking at doing something, you know, and of course, Adam Lambert is a great frontman and we know already that that works, so we would be looking towards doing some gigs with Adam, hopefully. I’m excited about that, if it happens, if it happens
Liz: Do you know what, I'm gonna make you hold that thought really quickly and I'm gonna, and I'm gonna ask you a little bit more about that, if you just pick me a track of you and Kerry's, and then I'll ask you the big Queen question
Brian: Yeah okay, the track I would pick is called 'Anthem' and it's from the Chess musical, and this is something which I grabbed hold of because I thought this is really a rock track, and this is what I shall make it with Kerry, and she's got this enormous voice and so we did our own adaptation, and I'm very proud of this as an arrangement, its very rock, you know, it's got loads of loud guitars on it, which is kind of what I do, I suppose (laughs) it's also got a nice, you know, a very big orchestral arrangement, which I did with Steve Sidwell, which I'm also very proud of, and then on top of it sits Kerry with this extraordinary passionate delivery. Yeah, so this is something, we actually performed this at The Festival Of Remembrance a couple of years ago and it was a great moment really, this is the kind of thing which I strive for, I love to make events happen, you know, and something special happen, so yeah, this is 'Anthem'
('Anthem' by Kerry Ellis is played)
Liz: You just heard 'Anthem' on My Planet Rocks. Kerry Ellis and Brian May, or Brian May and Kerry Ellis, I'm not sure which way round it is?
Brian: It can be either way
Liz: Either way, either way, but um, great stuff. Now just as we were talking then, you sort of casually mentioned that there might be a little Queen action later on this year, um, wow
Brian: Well, we have a busy year coming up, 'cos we are doing this Freddie musical, and that's now, you know, the engine has started rolling
Liz: And is this, is that the biopic, or is that the?
Brian: Yeah, it's the biopic, you know, and it's about Freddie and, of course it has to be about us as well, and I think it's gonna be a really interesting film, you know. We've been through various alleyways, you know, we've been through all kind of thoughts as to what the film actually should be, and I think it's now very clear to us, we have a great director and we think we have a great guy playing Freddie, but we feel that we understand what our brief is now, you know, because it's a film about Queen as a family in a sense, because there's, a group like us forms organically in a sense, you know, we weren't put together from the outside, we just evolved very luckily, you know, into a, into a unit which democratically worked, and organically, was creative, and, you know, the sum of its parts were greater than the parts, if you know what I mean, but also it's very much a family, because we were together longer than any of our, you know, relationships (laughs) outside, our marriages and stuff, you know, and um, and so the film really is a kind of exploration of the dynamics of that kind of family and what happens, how it comes together and how what happens when it gets disrupted, and out of balance and how it can regain its integrity. So it's a fascinating project really and I think the script is reflecting those thoughts, and, of course, it's about Freddie, you know, it's about how he functioned in this environment
Liz: Yeah, and the thing is, you know, lots of people know 'that' Freddie, you know, the on-stage Freddie, or feel they know him because that was the only bit they saw
Brian: Yeah
Liz: But I'm sure, obviously you knew him so well, there must have been a million other facets of him?
Brian: Yeah. The Freddie we knew was pretty shy, really, but he had an extraordinary way of using his talents and also very good at bringing out other peoples' talents, you know, and by that I include me and Roger and John, you know, he was very, he had very generous nature, I think, and also a very far-seeing nature, very focussed, because he realised that if he got the best out of everyone around him, then it would benefit everyone, so yeah, he's a very unusual person, Freddie
Liz: And I guess finding someone to represent that is equally difficult. I'm not gonna make you tell me who it is, but… (laughs)
Brian: Yeah, well, the rumours are out there, I know (laughs)
Liz: Everyone can Google it. What about someone playing you? Have you ever had anyone play you before?
Brian: No, not really (laughs). That's an interesting thought. We have someone, I think, on the cards, you know I don't, I probably can't reveal this either, but you know, I'm excited about the guy who's at the moment the front runner for playing me. It's gonna be weird, I mean, that is very weird, and I, to be honest, that's one of the things which has stopped us doing this before, I think, you know, I don't know if we were ready for this. I remember coming up with the same thing in the musical, you know, the musical originally, 'We Will Rock You', was gonna be a bio musical, and it was gonna be about the history of Queen and stuff, you know, and the history of Freddie, and we actually workshopped it that way, and then we just hated it. We just didn't feel it was, it felt comfortable to portray us on stage that way, so that's why 'We Will Rock You' became about the future and kids in the future, and thank God for Ben Elton who had the vision to make it happen that way, 'cos 'We Will Rock You's much, much more interesting than the sort of biographic musical, I think, and it's a good story, you know, it's funny, it's satirical, but it has a warmth to it, so I think when people come out from 'We Will Rock You' they feel like they've kind of seen us and they know us in a strange way, and they feel like they've been on some kind of journey and they wanna do it again. That's why 'We Will Rock You's still there after 11 years
Liz: Is there a track that appears in the show that we can play now, seeing as we're talking about, we've just talked about Freddie, we've talked about 'We Will Rock You', what, what track should we play that appears in the musical?
Brian: (laughs) well 'I Want It All' is interesting, you know, because 'I Want It All' is, is a sort of cornerstone of the play, you know, of the story of the musical, because it's about kids wanting it all, you know, and the song was about reaching out and, and grasping what you want in life and really that's kind of the theme of 'We Will Rock You', so, it's funny how the songs that we had, you know 'I Want To Break Free's another example, the songs actually dovetailed into a story like this very easily, 'cos a lot of Queen's music was about normal people, like you and me are normal people, you know, with normal dreams and normal frustrations, trying to grab the kernel of life, so 'I Want It All' sums that up quite well
('I Want It All' (album version) by Queen is played)
Liz: 'I Want It All' from Queen, who else, on Planet Rock, and my guest this week, Brian May, and Dr Brian May
Brian: You got it right
Liz: I don't want to say it now without the doctor at the beginning. Um, so we were talking before about more live Queen shows this year, how difficult is it to crank that machine back into action, because I assume it is quite a machine
Brian: It's slightly frightening because it's big, you know, as soon as the word Queen is over the top then things change in scale and we do have some great people we can call up, you know, but from the moment you press that button, you feel this sort of energy starting up again, you feel the, the engine start to turn, and it's, it's exciting, I mean I can feel the excitement in me, the thought that we may be going out, and it's energising, you know. It also brings, brings other stuff, you know, being Queen and sort of stepping back into that sort of battle ground, internal battle ground, you know, is not that easy for me, because I'm used to getting my own way I suppose, and Roger and I always see things completely differently, we're like brothers you know, we, there's a certain amount of love there, but there's a certain amount of hatred as well, not hatred, but you know, we pull in opposite directions the whole time, which is partly the strength of Queen I suppose, but to step back into that arena can be quite hard, I know for him aswell, as me. We don't have John any more, you know, because he's opted out, you know, he's quite reclusive really, and we respect that, we don't have Freddie, so you know, here we are, and I think there's always a big question mark, you know, a lot of people think oh, we shouldn't be trying to be Queen you know, or whatever, but you know, it's in us, that's what we spent half our lives building, and the demand is there, people want to see Queen in some form, and we can give it. Someone like Adam Lambert comes along, and formerly Paul Rodgers, you know, which was a great success, but Adam Lambert is um, I suppose a little bit more like Freddie in some ways, you know. He has that extraordinary sort of theatricality to him, which Freddie had as well. He doesn’t copy Freddie in any sense whatsoever, which is great, I would hate to do it with a copyist. But Adam has an amazing range, he's one of the few singers in the world, male singers, who can handle all those vocals at their original pitch, and he’s an entertainer and he’s nice to be around, you know, this is so important, you’ve got to work with people that you like and feel comfortable with and he definitely qualifies for that, so I, you know, if it happens this year, it will be with Adam, and um, well, you know (laughs) I can feel the, feel the warm draft beneath my feet, you know
Liz: I like that. That's a good way to put it. I was just thinking there, it's kind of a shame this isn't TV, 'cos just the look on your face then, something, something changed, but um
Brian: It is kinda scary, but you know, most of the best things in life are scary, aren't they?
Liz: Yeah, makes you feel alive, definitely, definitely. Well, I think we will all, and I probably speak for everyone here at Planet Rock as well, to say that we will all, we'll be there on the front row most definitely, most definitely
Brian: Brilliant, brilliant, well thank you to Planet Rock, 'cos you do us good and we appreciate it
Liz: Well, there wouldn't be much Planet Rock, to be honest, if it hadn't been for Queen, so thank you, I think I say that from, from our listeners as well
Brian: Ah, that's great, ah, that's great
Liz: But I just want to play out with one track before we go, and I think the last time you were really on the airwaves on Planet Rock was with our good friend, well not my good friend, your good friend, Tony Iommi. Good friend of the station
Brian: Ah, the great Tony Iommi, yeah, Tony's great and he's one of my very few real friends in the business, you know, and he's a great, great, great friend. He's just, I think, you know, one of the people who, well obviously, he's kind of the father of heavy metal, really, this man came up with a million riffs, which are the cornerstone of heavy metal music, but he's totally modest, you know, he'd laugh, well he does laugh when I say that, you know, and in fact he has so many riffs that didn't get used, we've talked about a project of putting those riffs all together
Liz: That rings a bell
Brian: Yeah, it's something, we haven't had time to do it yet, but when we do get a moment, that's what we're gonna do, sit down and in fact we've laid, we've, we've done some preparation and so, you know, there's a lot of these tracks we're gonna listen to, and he just had so many riffs that not all of them got converted into Black Sabbath songs, or even solo songs, you know, so we thought how interesting it would be to have this stuff out there and maybe other people could use 'em, you know, like a
Liz: The lost riffs of rock
Brian: They will love it, yeah, really, Tony Iommi's riffs, how does he do it?
Liz: Well, shall we bring it, I'm gonna bring it back to the beginning and I'm just gonna remind everyone that your book, 'Diableries', 'Diableries', I'm gonna say it in a Northern accent (laughs) that's the only way I know, Brian's book 'Diableries' is out now and...
Brian: 'Stereoscopic Adventures In Hell'
Liz: And I think a good sort of soundtrack for that would be a Black Sabbath track
Brian: I think it would, yeah
Liz: So what shall we play out with?
Brian: I wouldn't mind 'Paranoid' myself actually, it just always does it, doesn't it really
Liz: Yeah, let's have a bit of 'Paranoid'
Brian: Is that OK? Are we allowed?
Liz: I think we're 100% allowed and I'm sure Tony will be pleased. Brian, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you on My Planet Rocks
Brian: Thank you again. Nice to be here
('Paranoid' by Black Sabbath is played)