Killer Queen comes to OCNJ July 11
The original Queen tribute band returns tomorrow night to the Music Pier
Growing up in the middle of England, Patrick Myers hoped he’d do something fun with his life. But he never quite imagined that one day he would be onstage performing some of rock’s best songs night after night as lead singer of Killer Queen, a Queen tribute band.
Patrick and his band mates tour all around the world. And on July 11, they are performing here in Ocean City, NJ.
We caught up with Patrick while he was in England at his home near the coast. He was heading to America in a few days to perform on tour.
How are you feeling about the upcoming tour?
It’s exciting because we get to play a lot of the places that kind of blow our mind to play. Like Red Rocks in Colorado. It’s fantastic. Bear in mind we were off the road like every other band for two years. We don’t take touring for granted. We embrace it and go, ‘thank you.’
How was that off time?
You kind of workout how much you need it by not doing it. This is all I’ve done since I left home. These songs are like home to me. Singing them on stage is part of how I function. It’s how I live.
You’ve got all this energy you want to communicate to people. You get huge waves of emotion from audiences that you’re sharing with them, and suddenly you don’t have that anymore.
How does that feel when the audience is singing back to you during the performance?
It’s shared, the emotion. You know that phrase that people use when you put things together that it becomes alchemic; it becomes bigger than the sum of its parts. That’s what happens in particular with Queen music. You give everything you’ve got to the audience, and you perform, and you sing, but you’re sharing music with them and music just invades the soul. It makes your heart sing.
Love that you use the word “share” when referring to musical experience.
When everyone is looking at their phones, they’re just living inside their heads. We all do it. You’re living through your Instagram feed or staring at Twitter endlessly. It’s all a desire to try and communicate with each other but at the same time you’re separate, you’re in your own head. When you go to a concert, we’re all together in one room or one arena or one Red Rocks. Then we’re suddenly thinking, this is the best way to do it. Being on Instagram doesn’t quite give you that feeling.
We want to feel things at the same time together and actually be together and sing together and realize how strong we are as a voice when we sing together. How all these emotions we feel through our lives; we’re not on our own, we’re together. We feel these things. We share these things. That’s why I think music is just stunningly important; stunningly potent; and stunningly powerful.
And Queen I think is one of the first bands who decided to write all that feeling. They decided to say, ‘hey, it’s not just about a cool Led Zeppelin riff then staring at your shoes. Yes, it’s about theatricality and putting on production but it’s also about ‘let’s write a song we all can stamp our feet together with, like We Will Rock You.’ They were drawing from the Gospel traditions; like the call and response things; Ray Charles was doing it; but they put it in a rock environment. They brought in that communality. So, it’s not just Beatles hysteria; it’s not just ‘we’re not worthy’ as you watch Led Zeppelin jam through the riffs. It’s something communal; We Will Rock You; We Are the Champions. A lot of Queen lyrics sound individualistic, and people think they sound arrogant, but they’re not really, when you apply them to a wide arena. It’s not, ‘I’m the Champion, it’s “We’re the Champions.” It’s so powerful. That’s the beauty and the majesty of Queen songs. They are just incredibly well written.
They really make you feel.
You feel happy, excited, like you want to party, you want to roll the clock back.
How long has Killer Queen been touring?
Since 1993. We were the very first tribute out. Tributes weren’t really a thing. It’s been my whole life.
What‘s your favorite Freddie Mercury move?
I do like his walk. He has a crazy walk that he got from a waiter in Munich. He had this crazy strut between tables. Freddie Mercury saw it and said, ‘I’ve got to have that.’ He didn’t used to do that, but he suddenly started getting this great walk. I just think that’s hysterical. The Freddie waiter walk.
Do you ever lose yourself when you’re performing?
I’m never not myself. I’m trained as an actor, so for me, this is natural. The way that Freddie behaved on stage was a performance, so you sort of observe the energy he is using. He’s improvising and that’s what I do. You’re feeling the music and you’re responding. When I talk to the audience, sometimes it’s Freddieish, but sometimes it’s me. You’re communicating, everyone knows the deal, everyone wants to pretend they’re at that magic concert back in time, or they are taking their kids to a concert they saw in Eugene in 1986. It’s reenacted for them; at the same time, they want an experience that feels like now and it’s happening now.
What’s your favorite song to sing?
It varies sometimes… but my failsafe is Bohemian Rhapsody. Save me, or Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy, or These are the Days of Our Lives, which was one of their later songs that Roger Taylor wrote for Freddie. Who Wants to Live Forever. It does change, you know, depending on my mood, depending on the audience. But when you play the opening piano part to Bohemian Rhapsody, and the audience just goes crazy and you can hear them singing, “ahhhh…” really loud. It’s extraordinary. I always think, “when will the last show be and I’ll never hear it again.”
It’s got to be so addictive.
It’s so addictive, that’s why I’m still doing it. It was addictive from the very first time. It should be a classified drug Queen music. It’s highly addictive, so you should approach with caution.