“I had to play this sh***y little kit. It was just awful. I really had a bad time”: Roger Taylor looks back on a problem Queen finally fixed after 50 years

Listen to Roger Taylor’s isolated drum tracks from three different versions of Queen’s first album highlight Liar

Roger Taylor has detailed his frustration about the drum sound on Queen‘s first album, which the band finally fixed when revisiting the recordings for last year’s 50th anniversary Queen I box set.

Prior to being signed, Queen recorded a demo at De Lane Lea Studios in Wembley, North London, in late 1971. The songs included Keep Yourself Alive, Liar, Jesus, Great King Rat and The Night Comes Down, all of which the band rerecorded when they relocated to Trident Studios in Soho to work on their debut album the following year. The studio had successfully played host to the likes of David Bowie, Elton John and Lou Reed, but Taylor wasn’t happy with the setup.

“At De Lane Lea, we’d just turn up and do what we can – and quickly,” says Taylor, in the latest episode of their ongoing video series Queen The Greatest. “At Trident, it did feel like, ‘OK, now we’re in it’, but I didn’t really get on with their ideas. They had a drum booth and it was a well-known sound: very dry and dead, which is not what I wanted.