Paul Rodgers recently shed light on his experience as the frontman of Queen between 2004 and 2009 and shared his views on Adam Lambert during an interview with Billy Sloan of BBC Radio Scotland.
Rodgers recalled how he began his collaboration with Queen. Reflecting on that time, he remarked:
“Brian May said to me, ‘Can we get together and just do a couple of shows for fun in Europe?’ And I said, ‘Well, it sounds good.’ ‘Cause we’d played ‘All Right Now’ together, and we played ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘We Are The Champions’, and it sort of made sense at that point in time. They’re very versatile; their music is, I mean, wow. There are so many great songs that they’ve actually — hits that they’ve got. I said, ‘Sure, let’s just do that. Let’s do a couple of dates and see how we go.'”
He then continued, revealing the reason he decided to step away from the band and follow his own path:
“Well, that couple of dates turned into four years. We toured the world twice, and we made a studio album, so it really got involved. At the end of the day, though, I did think that I was getting too far away from my own kind of music, and I wanted to step away from it. But it was a wild and exciting run.”
When asked about Adam Lambert, the ‘American Idol’ runner-up who is currently fronting Queen, Rodgers admitted that he’s not followed their post-Lambert career as follows:
“Well, you know, I think he’s perfect for the band… I haven’t really followed them since then, but from what I’ve seen, he’s great.”
Back in 2019, he told Eddie Trunk that during his collaboration with Queen, the band placed a heavy emphasis on Queen’s songs during their live performances, with only a select few from his repertoire.
Rodgers’ tenure with Queen came to an end in May 2009. He stated that the collaboration ‘was never meant to be a permanent arrangement’ but did not rule out potential future collaborations. Following his departure, Queen soon began a new chapter with Adam Lambert. Under the title Queen + Adam Lambert since 2011, they embarked on numerous world tours.
As for recent news, Rodgers underwent surgery for his vocals after almost losing his voice. It took him around six months to recover enough to perform again.
