Why All Queen Members Fought With Each Other

Queen bass guitarist John Deacon has always been the member who is regarded as the shy one among other dominant personalities of Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor. Hence, following the passing of his best friend, Freddie, Deacon decided not to continue performing with Queen and now lives as a semi-retired musician, his last show being the tribute concert to Mercury.

Following his tenure with Queen that lasted for more than two decades, the bassist and his former bandmates don’t talk to each other anymore. The main reason behind this has always been mentioned as the bassist’s decision to quit the band and live a life far from being famous. This doesn’t explain why the band had fought previously and little did we know, the explanation was once made by Deacon many years ago while they were still bandmates. Let’s take a look.

John Deacon Said Every Member Insisted On Their Opinions

During an interview that took place on the set of ‘These Are The Days of Our Lives’ music video back on May 30, 1991, a few months prior to Freddie Mercury’s passing, John Deacon opened up about the band’s dynamics when it comes to fighting. Despite not being known for speaking publicly, the bassist claimed to be a noisy person himself just like other members.

According to Deacon, Queen members have been through tough times which made their music career quite difficult for them but each time they managed to pull it together and made their peace. While it’s not unusual for bandmates to have disputes, it was surprising to hear that they often have a quarrel over not being able to make teamwork.

Although Queen has always seemed like they have perfect harmony and team effort out there, John Deacon said every member was caught up in the feeling of defending their own songs from time to time. These ego-wars resulted in disputes naturally and considering the fact that the bassist revealed this while he was still in the band, it must be genuine rather than just blaming his bandmates.

In the interview, the Queen bassist said:

“Often it is singers and guitarists who are more outspoken. But behind the scenes, I can be as noisy as anybody else. I think we all had our fair share of craziness over the years. I can’t say it’s been easy, it’s been difficult at times, we’ve had good times and bad times when we’ve fallen out and made up…

I never thought I would still be playing in a band or recording at this age. When you first join you think perhaps five years, ten years at the most when you first start playing music. I think we’re all throwing in different ideas, there’s a lot more teamwork but people still get very precious about the songs they think they started off.

John Deacon had a point since much of the conflict between Queen members was about the ownership of songs. They had a longtime struggle for deciding who would get the songwriting credits and royalties over their tracks since they were like ‘four painters with a brush each but one canvas’ as lead guitarist Brian May once said. While the remaining members of the band don’t have a problem with it nowadays, it’s obvious that it caused quite the trouble for them back then.

You can watch the interview below.