Loxwood Drive-In Movies: meet the man who helped shape Queen sound

As Tim Staffell says, every successful band has got “the bloke who left before they became famous.”
Tim Staffell - then and nowTim Staffell - then and now
Tim Staffell - then and now

When it comes to Queen, then Tim’s that man – a role he wears very easily, as we will discover when he heads to Loxwood Drive-In Movies to help introduce their screening of the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody on August 1 and 2.

Tim was at school with Brian May and played with him and future Queen drummer Roger Taylor in the band Smile which is depicted at the start of the film. Tim’s art college friend, always there in the background, was Freddie Mercury.

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After Tim left Smile, Brian, Roger and Freddie got together, eventually found John Deacon and Queen was born – with Tim elsewhere pursuing his own musical journey.

Tim isn’t remotely filled with regrets: “In general we value financial success above all and fame above all else, but I think I have had at least as engaging a life as I would have had. I have gone on to do some terrific and enjoyable things (including being chief model maker for the first TV series Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends). I have always stayed in music. I am working on my third solo album as we speak.”

Just as importantly, they have all stayed mates: “We have always remained friends, and they have always given me name-checks in books and biographies. They have always been very gracious… and I was thinking why. And I think it is because Smile was, when you think about it, the embryo of the Queen sound. It is pretty undeniable. People have always said that I sound like Freddie. I would say that it is Freddie that sounds like me!”

Tim, a longstanding friend of Maurice Bacon, organiser of the Loxwood Drive-In Movies, will be giving a pre-film talk on his friendship with Freddie Mercury and his days in Smile when Bohemian Rhapsody is screened on August 1 and 2. He will answer questions from the drive-in movie audience and will also be playing three songs, among them his co-write with Brian May, Doin Alright which is the first song in the film.

The film-makers brought Tim in to do the voice-over.

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“That’s my song that the members of Smile are performing in the movie, co-written between me and Brian May. Queen had recorded a version of the that song, but the problem was that Queen’s version was a much more genteel and delicate version that the original Smile version. But they couldn’t use the original Smile version because it was recorded in 1969 and the recording technology was pretty primitive then, so I did the voice-over.

“Brian and I were students at Hampton School and we had a band called 1984. That would have been in 1964. I was 16 or 17 and Brian was the year above me. And it was fairly lucrative, I think… I don’t mean megabucks, I just mean in a pocket-money kind of way. We had regular gigs.

“And then the time came to go on to further education. Brian went to Imperial College to read astronomy and I went to Ealing Art College which is where I met Freddie Mercury. Brian and I had always said that once the band broke up from school, we would stay in contact and try to get our dream together which was like a power trio. At that point I took on bass, and we auditioned (future Queen drummer) Roger Taylor to join us, and Smile was born, but right from the word go, Freddie was always in the background. You’ve go to remember, if you were a teenage musician in the 60s, then music was the focus of your social life as well. If you went out to see a band, it would be related to your own. Sometimes we went to see Freddie’s band; other times he would come to see us. We were all as thick as thieves.

“I think when you look back at it, you synthesise it in your memory, but at the time we were just all ordinary students together, just as everybody else was. We just had this joint passion which was music, but we really didn’t think anything in particular of each other. I had no idea that Freddie was going to become a megastar. Freddie would say things like ‘OK, darling, I am going to become a star!’, and the rest of the class would just say ‘Sure you are, Freddie!’ We just found his burgeoning confidence slightly amusing. When I first met him, he was no more confident that the rest of us, which wasn’t very confident at all. But he was certainly developing his skills and his performance.”

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Smile lasted from 1967-1969. Tim left the band in late 69: “I suppose I was drifting off musically. I was a little bit dissatisfied with the way the style was going, and I don’t think that’s a criticism of them. I was just changing. When I left, I went off to the States. I had became gradually a Yanko-phile in the sense that I was digging jazz and the blues a lot more than the heavy rock that we were playing. So I just went off on my own musical journey.

“I was in a succession of bands, and I spent quite a bit of time in the States. When I came back to England I was signed to RCA in Italy, and we did two albums in a band called Morgan in Italy (Maurice Bacon was the drummer). They are a bit of a cult prog rock band for those dozen or so people that know about them! But it was great.”

In the meantime, Brian and Freddie and Roger had become Queen…

The full run of movies for August 1 to 4 (matinee; evening) is:

August 1: Grease; Bohemian Rhapsody (with Tim Staffell)

August 2: Mamma Mia; Bohemian Rhapsody (with Tim Staffell)

August 3: Back To The Future; Jurassic Park

August 4: The Goonies; A Star Is Born

Tickets must be booked in advance and for the full film programme and to book tickets, visit the Loxwood Drive-In Movies website at http://www.loxwooddriveinmovies.co.uk

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