Killer Queen Conversations Mini-Pod with Host Shane McDonald

In this special mini-pod / bonus episode of Killer Queen Conversations, the tables are turned as host Shane McDonald steps into the podcast guest seat!

Best known as the creator of Shane’s Queen Site and Celebrating Queen Keyboardist and host of the Killer Queen Conversations Queen fan podcast, Shane answers the very questions he usually asks his guests. From first discovering Queen, favourite albums and songs, treasured memories, live experiences, deep-cut choices, and the magic that keeps Queen’s music alive, this episode offers a personal look at Shane’s own Queen journey.

It’s a fun, reflective, and energetic bonus episode for Queen fans old and new — packed with memories, opinions, stories, and plenty of love for the greatest rock band of all time.

Whether you’re a longtime listener or just discovering the podcast, this mini-pod is a chance to get to know the voice behind Killer Queen Conversations a little better.

EXTENDED PODCAST DESCRIPTION

This episode marks the end of Series 1 and offers listeners a more personal insight into Shane’s own Queen journey — from discovering music at home through artists like The Moody Blues, ABBA, Glen Campbell, and Irish country music, to the moment Queen II became his gateway into the world of Queen. Shane recalls buying his early Queen albums, learning songs by ear, playing along with live concerts, and how Freddie Mercury and Brian May became, in many ways, his musical teachers.

Across this bonus episode, Shane dives into fan-favourite topics including his first Queen memories, the first songs he heard, the albums he returns to most, the Queen era he gravitates towards, and the concerts he wishes he could have attended. He shares memories of watching Live Aid live, seeing Queen with Paul Rodgers in Paris, and performing today with Celebrating Queen, including upcoming shows in California and Las Vegas.

There are also plenty of deep dives for Queen fans: underrated tracks, favourite videos, Freddie’s vocals, Brian’s guitar work, John Deacon’s bass lines, Roger Taylor’s drumming, Queen’s songwriting magic, and why the band’s catalogue continues to resonate so strongly. Shane also reflects on the future of the podcast, plans for Series 2, and upcoming changes to the way episodes and piano tutorials will be produced.

Warm, honest, funny, and packed with Queen passion, this mini-pod is both a thank-you to listeners and a behind-the-scenes look at the voice behind Killer Queen Conversations and Shane’s Queen Site. Whether you’re a longtime Queen fan or a new listener, this bonus episode is a perfect chance to get to know Shane, his musical story, and the Queen songs that shaped it.

This Queen Fan Podcast has Episodes which are released on YouTube and a shorter version released once a month on the Podcast streaming platforms. Currently on a Summer Break the Podcast returns in September 2026. if you wish to take part or wish to sponsor the show please email webmaster@shanesqueensite.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Killer Queen Conversation. Hello, you're very welcome to another Killer Queen Conversation. And today it's actually a mini pod. It's uh basically myself. I've been asked uh on email, I got a few direct messages as well regarding the podcast, uh, telling me that people have been enjoying it, which is fantastic. Um, but this is basically just a small uh mini pod where I can explain what has been happening on the podcast, on the website, and on the YouTube channel in the past few weeks. And also some of the queries were people asking me what exactly are my answers to the questions that I'm posing to the guests on the podcast. So I'm going to go through the podcast as I would if I was asking the same questions to my podcast guests, and I would be answering them for myself, my own thoughts on Queen, on music, that sort of thing. So sit back and relax, and I hope you enjoy this mini pod. But before we start, I'd like to thank everybody who has already subscribed to doing a podcast episode. And I know that the podcast episodes have fallen away over the past few months. I have been very, very busy uh between work and a few other things going on. Um also redesigning this particular uh space, the music space that I have here. And um, it's been quite a busy few months, and uh so therefore putting together a podcast in any form is difficult time-wise. Um, but my main problem was trying to get access to the people who have signed up. In other words, uh they were free when I wasn't, and I was free when they weren't, and so on. So I'm going to change things up in season two. This will be the end of season one. The my mini pod will be the end of season one. And I'm looking to do a different format in season two. So if you are enjoying the podcast, please wait until season two. I think things will get a lot more um enjoyable from the point of view of uh seasonality and uh you know uh ongoing episodes happening a lot quicker, that sort of thing. So I have uh plans afoot to change the way I'm actually engaging with people who've signed up already to do podcast episodes and that sort of thing. So hopefully we can grow this podcast, this Queen podcast, um, as we move forward. It has been a learning process for myself. There's uh quite a number of things that we need to do to get the podcasts on YouTube and also onto um things like Bud Sprout and all of those uh things like Spotify and so on. So thank you for your patience. Thank you so far to everybody who has engaged with the podcast and my guests prior on uh season one. Um, as I said, a learning process, but let's move on to season two in the fall or in the autumn, as we say, over here in Europe. So thank you very much so far. And uh let's go on now and do a mini pod as if I was asking people um the questions for myself on the podcast. So normally on on this part of the podcast, I ask people how things are going and what people are doing. So, right now I'm in the middle of preparing for some shows. Um, I've got a show in California on the 13th of June in a place called Auroro Grande. Um, and after that, then with a summer break, and we have a fantastic, huge show celebrating Freddie's birthday on the 5th of September in Las Vegas. That's in the Hard Rock Cafe. So if you want to find out more, you can visit celebratingqueen.com or you can check out the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas for more information on details on ticketing and so on. They're all on those two places. So right now I'm basically sorting those things out and trying to get prepared for for that. Um, so and also I I work as a trainer, I do training for things like digital marketing and um Microsoft Office and a myriad of other areas that I do private contracting as well. So I've got a busy day ahead of me now after I record this. Um, so yeah, it's it's it's busy enough, and uh I I like being busy, so that's always a good thing. Now, for those of you who don't know about myself, my name is Shane MacDonald. I set up Shane's Green site around 2002 when I realized I had a number of Queen chords for Queen songs already transcribed by myself on paper. So I started typing these onto basically really standard HTML files. At the time, HTML was the way I created the website, everything was done from scratch. I think I had Microsoft front page to help me format some of the items. Um, but yeah, it was a very, very basic time back then, and uh the web has really grown and advanced since then, as we all know. But way back then, like there was no WordPress, there was nothing, you had to create the website from scratch. So um, yeah, I set up in 2002 and it grew and grew. And uh around 2018, I created the YouTube channel. I didn't really engage with it until I realized that the seven seas of rye intro that I recorded was after getting 66,000 views, which was quite large. And um, so I started doing tutorials on YouTube then around 2020 or thereabouts. So this is where we are right now. The podcast is fairly new, uh, fairly new for myself. I'd like to thank uh Daryl Craig Harris, our basis in Celebrating Queen, for helping me kind of get some areas like Buzzprout and um Podbean and all those things set up where we put those out onto Spotify and Apple Music and Amazon Music and those sort of things. He was a great help to me. And I would definitely check out Daryl's podcast, uh Music Matters. It's a fantastic website. I think he gets like a million uh downloads a month on that as a huge um and a really interesting podcast. And he's interviewed people like Steve Stevens and people from Motown and people from uh Muscle Shoals recording studio areas, and it's just he's a phenomenal bassist as well. So definitely check that out. So um another thing I ask on the podcast is what sort of music was playing at home when you were growing up? Now, my dad had a fantastic uh range of albums, and I used to love looking at the artwork because one of the music groups that he loved was the Moody Blues. So there was quite a selection of Moody Blues uh albums at home, and the artwork, if you haven't already seen the artwork on those albums, definitely check it out. It's surrealist, um, it's freaky, it's interesting, it's very well done. Um, and I do remember finding uh Knights in White Satin, and I found it on cassette for some reason. I think he must have recorded it on the cassette, and it was probably for the car, I'm not sure, but um yeah, it was on cassette, and I found I put it on. I think I was about five years old, and it blew my mind. It was like, wow, there's the orchestra, there was poetry, there was flute, there was I never heard anything like it. So that was probably my first experience of understanding that music could play quite an important part in how someone feels, or that there's an emotional link between music and and and and listening to it, you know. So other um other music he had was um there was ABBA, certainly a few albums, but a few Irish country music um albums, and then there was Glenn Campbell. So Rhinestone Cowboy was a favourite of mine when I was young, and that was um definitely one I would play a lot. And I only recently found out that all of the albums of Glenn Campbell that were recorded and sold in Europe were actually pressed at um a vinyl pressing factory that was actually literally in a straight line from where I am right now, about two kilometers. Um never knew that. I found it on a website called rte.i, which is the National Broadcaster for Ireland, and they have an archive and it shows the Ferrybank vinyl pressing um factory that was creating all the albums for certain artists, and one of those artists was Glenn Campbell. So, yeah, growing up, that was kind of the music that I was listening to at that time, and I didn't really engage, in other words, I didn't really buy my own music at that time. It was really late on that I started buying my own my own albums. Um, I just I didn't really engage with it for for some reason. I loved music and I loved hearing it on the radio, but I never actually went out and started buying albums until quite late on. It was probably after Freddy died I started buying more of the Queen music um on cassette and later on on CD. Um, so yeah, that's that's kind of my background on music. Now, so um after this, I asked people kind of do they play any instruments? And I as you know, as you can see behind me, this this piano, and I do play keys um in our creep tribute band in um Celebrating Queen. But I do also play crappy guitar, so I love playing guitar and I can play most of the Queen solos and I can play a lot of the riffs and so on. But when it comes through the amp, it uh it's probably my muting, it's probably my hand position, it's probably how I'm plucking strings. The notes are all there, but not necessarily in the correct order, if you know what I mean. Um, yeah, so I I would definitely love to do a bit more on technique on guitar to make my playing a bit cleaner and to sound that bit more precise. Because yes, I know where all the notes are and I know how to play all the solos, but um, it doesn't sound the same. So now we're on to a section that I call the fan experience and the discovery. So, how did you first discover Queen? Well, my cousin gave me Queen 2. Queen 2 was my gateway drug into Queen, so he gave me this cassette of that, and within 20 minutes I was hooked. And after that, then uh Christmas 1993, I purchased the original 1973 Queen debut album, self-titled Queen. And after that, I started buying more and more of the albums. I think I went backwards from A Day at the Races, and I went back as far as I think it was Day at the Races, Night of the Opera, and then Sheer Heart Attack, and after that, then I started going forwards slightly. I got jazz, and then I got News of the World, and then the game, then the works, then the kind of magic, then the miracle, then in you endorse. So I kind of had a weird route through I didn't go sequentially, I started going forwards, then backwards, forwards, backwards, and after that, then I did start going sequentially after that. Um so yeah, I do remember buying my first queen albums, and uh it's a nice memory to have about listening to them from the first time. I do remember listening to Jazz for the first time and listening to Mustafa, and I was wondering, wow, that's that's a an interesting first song for an album, you know. And I'm not sure if you probably would do it these days. I'm not sure if Queen were around now, if in in right now, would Mustafa work, you know. So um, but yeah, I do remember that. Do you remember the first Queen song ever heard? Well, the first Queen song I ever heard was probably Bohemian Rhapsody. My cousin had greatest hits one on vinyl, so I think he played it for me because it was quite a funny song. As regards, it went all over the place to his piano opera. Um, and then I think after that he moved forward and he played me Fat Bottom Girls. Um, again, you know, eight years old, and there's a song that's just so so weird and so funny. Um, so I think he just played that one for me. Then in 1984, I remember hearing Radio Gag on the radio. Um in 1986, I think I had a now greatest hits one album or one of those things, and a kind of magic was on that. Um, but of course, that after that, then I started getting more into Queen. And uh so they were my first few Queen songs that I remember hearing. Um, so the first Queen album, as I said, that was Queen 2. And how many Queen albums do I have? Well, I have all of them. You you would have to have all of them, I think. If you were trying to learn all the Queen songs, you have to have something as a resource to play. Uh so normally what I'll do, I'll put the album on at the moment. I'm using Spotify, but back back in the day I would put in my cassette and play it through headphones, and then I put another pair of headphones over that. So I have the audio from my cassette player coming through the first set of earphones, and then piano earphones going over that. So I'm playing along with them. Um, and if you're learning piano, it's definitely a good idea to play along live with a band uh or a click track because that keeps you on tempo, that keeps your tempo solid. Um, one of the things Brian May said about Freddie Mercury was that he was like a metronome. So when he played piano, he was percussive and he was really, really on tempo. So he never really lagged or went forward, which is the tendency when you're playing. Um, so when I'm playing, I'm always trying to hear the milestones. So, for example, uh crazy little thing color for example, you have that little bass run, doom doom doom, doom doom doom, and in there there's some some clicks, doom, doom, doom, do, do, doom, doom, doom, and as I see them as milestones. So when I go doom doom doom, stop, and so you're using the music uh to bring you through. So if you are learning piano, try and listen for those little cues that will help you work out like when do I come in? When do I play the note? So that's probably a good tip, and that's kind of what playing with music will help you discover. It'll help you discover, like, it's not always on the note. Some of the queen, when you're playing queen, for example, it's not one, two, three, four. Sometimes you're off the beat, or sometimes Fred will come in just before the beat with the piano. So always be listening out, always be looking at what um musicians are doing because if you are writing songs, then you can use those techniques. Um, I recently helped um a friend of mine, um Ray Mullins, uh fantastic uh songwriter here in Waterford, and um Ray asked me to put some keys to one of his songs, and I the first time I ever used chromatic rundown, so my top note was always chromatically going down through the semitones as I was changing chords, and it was quite an effective technique for the chorus. So um, and again, I don't think without Queen that I will be doing that because it's some of the things that Freddie would do. Um, like Bohemian Raps is a lot of chromatic work in it, so you're going down through all the notes. Um, so next question I would ask uh will be Have you ever seen Queen Live? Well, I haven't seen Queen with Freddie, I saw Queen with uh Brian Roger and Paul Rogers in Le Zenith in March 2005, I think it was, and uh it was an amazing show. Um, I found some bootleg content online of the show. Um just amazing to see it. It was really a really crappy footage because it was taken on Windows and flip phone flip phones back in the day when um video quality on phones was uh really poor. Now, question five: if you could go back in time and attend one Queen concert, what would it be? Well, I would definitely love to go and see Queen Live at Wembley or Queen in Montreal in 1981 because they're the two concerts that I would have used in my early days when I was learning Queen. So I put on the whole concert and play along with it. My uncle gave me Queen Live at Wembley on VHS around 89, I think it was shown on the tube, which was a channel four music program at the time. So I definitely played that one to death, um, playing it and watching it. So yeah, it's those two shows have a special place, but definitely maybe going back as we see in the rainbow, maybe that would be amazing to see as well. So uh yeah, uh question six Did you watch Live Aid Live? And if so, where were you? Well, I did watch Live Aid Live, and I was actually in my cousin's house, the guy who gave me Queen 2 back in 1992. So in 1985, in July, I was in his house, and just coming up to around half past six, he said, Right, shut up, everyone. We're watching Queen. And Queen came on, and at the time, yeah, I I really thought it was an amazing show. Um I didn't get who Queen were because I like that was his thing, you know. That that was his music, and I wasn't really deep into music. I love playing music, like so. I would play my piano at home. Um, quite basic at the time. Um, but I wasn't into learning songs at the time purely because I hadn't got that far as regards my my playing technique. So um, but I do remember, I I actually remember it was a really sunny day. Um I do remember it was warm, I do remember that we were where we were and what kind of what was happening at the time. So yeah, I do I have fond memories of Live 8, and I'm very happy I saw it live. But yeah, I've watched it again on YouTube on multiple rotations uh just for pure you know reminiscence. Uh next we move on to things like favourites and deep dives. This is another section where we look at things like favorite songs and favorite members and so on. So, question seven will be What is your favorite Queen member and why? Well, I think all the Queen members are very interesting. I got a book in 1994 or thereabouts, which was uh Queen as It Began, which was um the authorized uh biography of the of Queen. Um, it has been re-released, and I have the re-released version as well. But the Little Blue Book Um was my first book on Queen. And I found all the members very interesting, which is great because not many bands have members who are very interesting. You know, there's a lot of bands out there who you you you don't really know much about. Um, so like Freddie being the artist and Brian being the astrophysicist and Roger being dentist and uh John is into electronics, um, they all had their own backstory, which is really nice. I think myself, Brian is quite interesting um from the point of view of his love of nature and his interest in astrophysics and astro, sorry, astro physics, anyway, but you know what I mean. Um but Freddie as well, from the point of view of how he plays. I love I love the way Freddie plays piano and I like watching him. I think he's very interesting, he's very, very shy as well in interviews. So I don't really have a favorite member because I I think all the members have something that give back to Queen. And I think that's why Queen are so interesting. Um and I did look at other other music artists, Elson John, Abba, Def Leppard. But when I learned those songs, they didn't really stick, they didn't really go in. But yet when I learned this Queen song, it stayed in. And I think Queen is resonating with me. In other words, it is a band that not only the not only the members are interesting, but the music is interesting, and the music is something that just stays with me. So um, yeah, so my favorite member have none um tendency for Freddie and Brian purely because of their interests and my interests, um, that sort of thing. Then we move on to what's your favorite all-time Queen song and why is it special to you? Well, I don't really have a favourite Queen song because that changes with the day. Um, I mean, when I say that to the piano, my first song I nearly always plays doing something now, purely as a finger warmer. Um, but I'll I'll pick a song and it'll change. Like in the middle of winter, if if it's raining out and I'm outside, I might put in my headphones and listen to um a winter tale, that sort of thing. Um, you know, or if it's um if it's a nice summer's day and that sort of thing, I might put on something totally different and it'll affect me differently. So again, I think Queen have quite a large catalogue of songs, each have different flavors and that sort of thing. So, in the same way, you're not going to go in into an ice cream shop and order the same ice cream every single day. Um Queen are the exact same to me because you're going to kind of go, Well, I feel like strawberry today, or I feel like you know, lemon or chocolate, that sort of thing. So, in the same way, when you put on Queen, I think it is a thing like, How do I feel today? And what do I want to listen to? Sometimes you want to feel to it, feel that you want to listen to an upbeat song, and sometimes you want to have a slower tempo song or something that's instrumental, that sort of thing. If I had to pick one Queen song that perfectly encapsulates why you love the band, what would it be and why? Um out there one, but maybe lazy on a Sunday afternoon purely because it's one of those songs, if you show it to somebody who doesn't know anything about Queen, it shows how versatile the band is. A band in 1975 creating a sound that might be akin to something you you'd hear in 1920, you know, and doing it really well. Um also um you have something like Good Company. You know, it's it's the it's the exact same thing. You're showing a a band that is creating amazing. um amazing music that doesn't sound like it's from the time it is in. And then you have something like the prophet song. You know, it's totally out there. It's not a song that I ever go to because I find, you know, it's I'm a more melodic person. I I find that slightly jarring sometimes when I listen to it. And it's just the way I I hear things. I don't hear songs as lyrics and music. I hear things kind of altogether. So it just comes on me too much. So it's uh profit song sometimes I I will listen to it but it's not a my a go-to song for me and I know that's probably controversial but um yeah I because I I play piano as well there's there's no piano on it so um I I kind of tend as have a tendency to go towards the green songs that are have keys or piano on there somewhere um purely because I have an interest in that area. What's an underrated trap that you think deserve more love? Well last Prazzle Last Pra Las De Amor is a fantastic song. I enjoy that one um I think Scandal is under under under listened to underplayed um spread your wings I think should have been on the greatest hits Teotoriate another fantastic song which I really love. Someday One Day I just love that song it's a great song so yeah that that's the a few songs off top my head that I think definitely deserve more love. Which queen album do you listen to most? Well I have Queen 1 Queen 2 and jazz on one of those micro SD cards and that plugs into my uh music system in the car. So when I'm in the car I have those already in the system I'll have Spotify on the phone as well if I if I want to and I would often listen to things like News of the World I would often listen to She Heart Attack which is definitely those two albums are pretty much non-skip albums for me. In other words I would listen to them straight through without kind of going I've heard that too much or I'll I'll skip on to the next one so for me Queen two She Heart Attack probably a Day at the races News of the World and then Night of the Opera they're kind of the top five in pretty much that order that I will listen to probably the most at the moment. So which era do you gravitate towards 70s rock 80s pop or later years? Probably 70s into early 80s uh when Freddie stopped playing more piano on the tracks because he wanted to do more running around on stage I think um yeah I I I definitely love all the piano early early rock stuff that's uh you know that that's my era that I kind of and I think because I got introduced to Queen the Queen of that era so queen too of course is where um I started off and then I went to Queen and then went to um Data Races. So all of my early experience of Queen was all the 70s stuff. So I think I resonate with that more and I gravitate to that as well. So and also the first memory I have of Queen being played in a kind of a public space was when friends of ours were in someone's house and someone put on um greatest hits one a friend of mine um from school fella called Mick uh had greatest hits one and he loved it and he said watch this watch this watch this section and um yeah I remember listening to I remember listening to Now I'm here and and those those those those hits on the drums at the very start so yeah so if you can think of all the albums I had at the early part and then listen to Greatest Hits 1 it's all 70s and very very early 80s with the game so yeah so that's the era I would gravitate towards what did you think of the Bohemian Rhapsody movie? Well I thought it was a very well made movie I really enjoyed it there are certain sections which obviously are not in sequence uh certain sections that have been really jazzed up for the movie um and I think it's it's a testament to Queen I think it's a good testament to putting something out there to say Queen were here and this is what they did. This is live aid they did live aid um and I think it brings the music of Queen to a new generation as well because there's a lot of bands out there from the 70s and 80s that could very easily have died away only for TV for example like think of Kate Bush and Stranger Things um what that did for that song. So I think Bohemian Rhapsody for Queen brought them to a new generation because when I'm for example uh meeting people after shows there's a lot of young people in the audience um I mean I remember meeting a girl I think she was about 1617 when we were in Utah and she told me how much she loved Queen and loved loved the show that sort of thing and only a few days ago um the band we got an email which had a snippet of um a three-year-old singing we were rocking and it was brilliant it was great to hear the this three year old like singing a queen song and queen kind of our 50 years old you know and it's really really interesting. So it I think Rhapsody brings the music of Queen to a new generation so I I think the movie is what it is. Not sure if they should make a second movie um I think the story would be quite dark and I think there's a lot of stuff in there that unless they had a storyline that was so well written that you could say yeah okay I I guess it was tough watch but the storyline was amazing. So yeah that's my thoughts on that. What's my favorite Queen music video? Well I think because it was recreated in Bohemian Rapids they do like Killer Queen where Freddy's in the furry jacket. I do like that one I also like the video that they made in the 90s um or late 80s I think it was late 80s uh it was miracle so it would be in 89 and it was a video for the miracle where there was queen and then there was a young queen um so there is kids playing the versions of Freddie Bryant Roger and John and I thought that was really good I was quite envious at the time of of seeing the kids doing that because I would I would love to have have did have done that you know um but I think the ages would have been all wrong uh at the time for me but uh yeah those two videos are are great um iconic definitely boom raps is a is an iconic video um and I just I do like the the comedic uh element of uh kind of magic where it's all cartoons and that sort of thing so I think they're having a bit of fun there and I know if you listen to the um commentary um of it's a hard life it's hilarious to listen to Roger commentating on what he thought of that particular video because I know he didn't like um the plot or the staging of that moving on now to fan picks so Freddie's best vocal that's tough um I think Freddie has great vocals anyway um but I think if you isolate the vocals um somebody's love is is great it's very very very good um but I I I think I would need to listen to all the songs isolate it before I could pick a Freddy best vocal but there if anybody ever did karaoke I think this is the the the key if you've ever done karaoke try and do a Freddy think of the Freddie Marker should be concert 92 many many many bands had to bring the key down because they just couldn't do a Freddie Freddy's vocals are high so if you ever ever done karaoke and you're trying to sing Freddy's vocals with power it's really tricky. So I think testament to that I think Freddy's best vocal is Freddie um I think he carries off a lot of the songs I mean even think of the show Must Go On when he was in quite a lot of pain um I think they said that he just took a few shots of vodka and just did it the whole way through and I know at the top end you probably can hear the power is gone but that's an immensely high song that's quite a high song to try and sing. So yeah just just have a listen to all that Brian's great at solo um I do like his solo on Killer Queen because he didn't recreate the melody of the song so in other words Brian didn't just go along and say oh I'll I'll do the same um you know the same notes as the as what Freddie is singing. I think that's what key what what the key thing that Brian does in his solos is he never really recreates the um melody. He creates a little little uh counterpoint or a little um a different melody that's influenced by the song itself. So yeah that's that's good. But the first uh Brian solo I ever learned was Hammer to Fall so that that um the the solo when that song was the first one I remember I remember learning on guitar. And I remember my sister banging on the door asked me to shut up because I've been playing it over and over again on repeat just trying to get so I've been playing it on the guitar on my guitar uh quite properly and um yeah so I remember that okay but um his he's got some phenomenal solos and I think again if you have a guitar and you want to try and learn brand solos you realize very very quickly that they're not easy. They're not easy easy solos. I tried doing um keep yourself alive and I can do the rhythm section but there's no way I can transition from the rhythm section into the actual um the bending that he does at the very very start of the song I mean that's that's a fairly basic thing to do but he's just very varied you know he's versatile um I just like his playing and I think when you consider what he did on Good Company creating those trumpets and trombones and flutes from a guitar that's a testament to him you know I remember Freddie actually had a small project before Queen In Between Smile called Larry Lurex and Brian played guitar on it so he played a guitar on a song called I Can Hear Music and somebody reviewed it on the papers and they said great synthesizer work great synthesizer work and Brian had played guitar on it now look at the insides of all the albums from 1973 as far as the game no synthesizers that's where that comes from Brian put that in there because he was really really annoyed that people thought that his fantastic guitar solo on I Can Hear Music someone thought it was a synthesizer so that's why when you see no synthesizers Brian is saying I'm playing guitar and all this if you hear something that's weird it's me. If you hear something that sounds like a trombone or a flute it's me so that's where that comes from so I think Brian you know Brian is a fantastic um guitarist and if you have any war wonderings about what his greatest solo are try and play them and if you can't play them chances are it's one of his greatest solos I mean he's always quoted he's always quoted in the record magazines and the guitar magazines um in the top ten at least um but yeah so John's best bass line I love his baseline on Millionaire's walls that's a fantastic um baseline so if you haven't heard it um go online try and try and find the isolated version on YouTube which will basically search for millionaire's walls baseline only or something like that and you'll hear what he's doing in that in that section Roger's best performance on a queen track um I always liked the drum solo in Keep Yourself alive it's quite interesting um and I think because the reason why I like it is because um it's probably one of the first albums I had so that was that was interesting um I I like the fact that in Now I'm here there's two separate drum fills so for example um he uses two different styles on that track so you'll have to listen to it um but yeah it's it could very easily have just used the same pattern on each section but um it's probably hard to describe we don't listen to the track but um yeah that there's a very interesting way that he merges two different styles um for the fills that he's using and uh I do like that of Roger he's very interesting and and the way he he the way he hits I think he hits the snare and the tom at the same time or something like that he does a very interesting thing and print I think Brian hired him because Brian was auditioning drummers and he had auditioned a few drummers during the day and one of the things that um Roger said when he met Brian he says just give me a few minutes while I tune up my drums and Brian went wow he's tuning up his drums I never heard that before and that was one of the things that um Brian said that kind of influence why he took Roger on as drumming as drummer so yeah so that was for smile. So there you are um if you could ask the band one question what would it be? A very simple question any chance I could spend an hour and jam with you pretty much that's that would be it you know um I'd love to you know grab a piano someday near Brian and Roger and say right let's let's hit out a few a few classic queen tracks. So Brian if you're listening um send me an email um who do you think wrote the best songs I think Freddie wrote some great songs and the few songs that Freddie wrote and I don't that I don't like if you know what I mean I think they all contributed. Brian has the songs that I think play best on piano like there's a lot of songs that Brian writes that play really well on piano All Dead All Dead Save Me Favourite songs and they're Brian's songs. But yet like Freddie writes very interesting songs on piano so I mean I mean we are the champions for example really beautiful piano on that I do like it's a hard life I do like obviously Bohemian Rhapsody is very interesting to play. So I I again it goes back to what's your favorite song I I think who wrote the best song depending on what type of song you listen to at the time and what you want to listen to and what you want to play. I think it was last year I did a piano tutorial on on nevermore and when you think you're playing it right you're not have a listen you've got to really listen to the detail within the song and the chords were correct but my patterns on how I was playing it was wrong and I think it's very interesting that Freddie writes piano sections in the way he writes um and Brian as well that they they write diff they've they play differently if you know I mean they play different styles and um I like that because when you're playing queen songs you're actually expanding your knowledge of how you play music and one of the things I always tell people is that my piano teachers were basically Brian and and Freddie because of the fact that everything I learned as regards piano and music pretty much comes from learning other queen songs. So if you are not interested in learning piano um from lessons when you got to learn Mozart and all that sort of thing there's definitely room for you to pick up a few good songs on piano learn a few chords and it's it's not overly tricky to learn chords. I think I did a tutorial as well on how to base play basic chords. So if you search through the content on my site you'll probably find that tutorial on how to play basic chords major minor that sort of thing um and if you know the formula for constructing chords then when you pick up a book and you see the chord of D major or E minor or a minor or B flat minor that sort of thing you would always know how to play those chords using the formula that I show on that tutorial. So um that's just an aside but um who wrote the best songs there's a lot of fantastic songs in the Queen catalogue and that's the that's the joy of Queen we've got four fantastic songwriters they've all contributed fantastic songs to the Queen catalogue so moving on to the last section of the podcast interview that I would normally ask is the questions made famous by Bernard Pivot and James Linton. So people who are doing the podcast can certainly opt out of these but um what's your favorite word that's a tricky one um joy you know I I have I like joy is a great word to have in your life and um it's always it's always associated with good things. Least favourite word uh hate uh I it's a word I really really don't like at all um no I wasn't gonna go there I wasn't gonna say it but um yeah no the it's it's a word that uh years and years ago I used to have a boss that used to oh I hate that I hate that and can I go well there's better ways to say it you know like if you're if you don't like something articulate what you don't like about it. You know don't don't just say I hate it or don't just say I hate her or I hate him. You know I mean that you have to really articulate your feelings about something and not use that word if you know what I mean. It's definitely not something that I I um I like seeing you know so definitely my least favorite word would be that what turns you on well purpose. I think having a purpose in your day is is what what turns me on having something to do and having something at the end of the day where you can kind of go yeah I'm delighted a good day I got that done and what turns me off um I think acceptance of sloth in other words people who would just kind of go nah we bought it I'm not gonna do that I'm not I'm just gonna lay here now and just not do anything at all. I think that that's why I don't like that because I like purpose. I just couldn't live my life um not wanting to do something. There's a difference between being able to do something and not wanting to do something. You know so um you know there's been days when I've been sick and there's no way I could have done anything. But that's the diff that that's not the same as not wanting to do something. I definitely wanted to do something just had no energy or that sort of thing. So um it's the acceptance of uh or the indifference actually um to doing something what sound or noise do you love? Um I like laughter I like music um birds singing I'm not sure if you can hear but there's uh where we live there's tons of birds and they're all singing right now and I remember being on the phone one day and someone said what what what TV program do you have on I can hear birds and I said that's not a TV program that's my garden. You know so it's um it's amazing to hear hear that nature just love nature so any of those noises what noise or sound do you hate well we don't have kids so a crying baby to me would be uh like nails on a blackboard I just just don't know what to do I can't cope with that so yeah so for me that would be a you know uh a word that I just are a noise I just can't can't can't fathom or do anything with so yeah what's my favorite course word well my favorite course word is not a word it's normally three or four that are run together so I'll take random swear words and I'll shove them all together and you know bollocks and piss and fucking bastards and that's you know that sort of thing so I'll they're kind of the words that will run together and I'll I'll I'll normally do a German on it and you know in Germany they put loads of words together and shove them together as one word and that's kind of what I do when something goes wrong I'll I'll I'll run a few of them off at once. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt well I have a huge interest in aviation and um if you ever look at my personal Instagram which is at shanemacdonald.ie um on Instagram there's lots of aviation there and I've actually done a few professional flight sims in the really the really professional um setup where you have the full canopy over your head with all your panels so you know you can do things like turning on off the seatbelt sign or turning on off the pressurization or you know do reject the takeoff and you know put on your your spoilers and your reverse trust and that sort of thing and so you have the full control over everything. And you know I have a really interesting really interesting that I actually applied for Erlingus back in 1992 they were taking on pilots. I remember filling out the form and sending it off or did I send no I didn't send it off I had filled out and I decided not to send it off because for some reason I Thought that I I would get my first choice on what's the college application system, which over here in Ireland is called the CAO, which I totally messed up and had to redo the leave and serve because I just um I totally missed messed up that form. So I really probably should have sent off the form. I mean, I I'm happy with what I did, but um I I still have the interest in aviation. So um maybe at some point I might get a pilot's license. What profession would I not like to do? Um hospital work because I can't stand the sight of blood. If I see blood, I'm on the floor. So I'd be no use in that particular situation. If I were stranded on a desert island, which queen album would you take? I would probably take one of the queen box sets and I would cheat. So that's and finally, if heaven exists, what would you like God to say to you when you arrive at the pearly gates? Um, probably good job. You know, or you know, you're early. That's what I think. Something along those lines. So they're all the questions. Um, I hope you enjoyed this little mini pod. As I said, it's um a lot of work to try and get these podcasts out, and I was really, really hoping to do up to 10 in this first season up until the Chris the sorry up until the summer break. Um so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna re-evaluate how we do things on the podcast. And in September, then I will send out, or probably in August actually, I'll send out the emails to everybody who has um signed up so far, just to get an understanding of people's availability as regards times of day, days of week, that sort of thing. And what will happen then is when I have a schedule availability that works with one of those slots, I will make contact three or four days in advance and we'll uh actually uh do the podcast then. So that's kind of one of the things we're doing. I'm also going to re-evaluate how we do piano tutorials. So um in the past, I've been trying to figure out figure out what people want. Do they want the full explanation of how you play all the chords and how you do all the patches, or do you simply want to watch the actual um tutorial itself? Basically, the the the top-down view of the my fingers over the keys and the chords being displayed on top. So, do you want to see that, or do you want to see a full, full um explanation of the song from start to finish, all the chords being shown individually, um patches being shown, that sort of thing. So, again, we're I'm seeing different requests. Um, people are just saying just show the tutorial, and other people saying show us the full um explanation. So I'm I'm reevaluating all that. So in September, hopefully, you should see a brand new um setup as regards the Shane Queen's YouTube channel um podcasts. So, again, if you have any comments um on YouTube, please leave them in the description below. Um, I'm not sure if you have the facility to leave comments and that sort of thing on whatever platform you listen to the podcast online. Um, but for now, thank you very much for everybody who has taken part on the podcast to date. And thank you also to people who've subscribed. We will be in touch in in the next uh portion of the year, which will be September. Um, we hope to get a lot of them done at that point, and I will try and do two a month at that stage, purely because we're going to reevaluate how we do all of the allocations and the recording processes and that sort of thing. So I hope you enjoyed this mini pod. And for now, thank you very much for watching, and we will see you again very soon. I will be releasing one more piano tutorial before the summer break, and that would be One Vision. It would probably be the shorter version, in other words, the just showing the tutorial, no introduction. And um, if people want to see the introduction, then with more information about how to play the chords, how we play patches, uh, we can do an extended version from that. So, thanks for watching, thanks for listening, and I'll see you again very soon.