Quote related to 'Innuendo' from 'Innuendo'

I've always loved Brian's individual style of guitar playing, and the production and recording style that Queen had was very British, and totally true to form. It was very honest, and when you had something, you really knew what you were listening to. What happened was, I was in Montreux. I'd been in Geneva working with my friend Paul, and I love Montreux. I had gone there for lunch, and the next thing I was recording a Queen record, so it was the most in-by-chance incident I can recall - marvelous, some of the by-chance things just like that. I was sitting in a restaurant and somebody saw me and said, “Hey, what are you doing here? I'd love to come down to the studio.” By the time I got there, it was all set up. They played me the whole album, and then they played me Innuendo and said, “We'd really like you to play on this.” I just kind of laughed, and said, “You are joking.” Brian's got some really great guitar stuff on there. “What do you want me to do?” And then they played the particular area, and they said, “We'd like some racing around the guitar a bit.” So, I mean, I think we threw it together very quickly, and maybe even they and I maybe would've liked to have revisited and done it sort of what we call properly. But we didn't apparently need to do that. We went and had dinner, came back and listened to it, and in that time I sensed this tremendous bond between Brian, Roger and Freddie. The bass player actually wasn't there at this time, but these three guys were so tight, they were so close they could say this is the epitome of a band. They could say, “No, I don't like that,” and nobody takes offense. They understood, better than Yes, sometimes, that there was a common goal and when the guitar sounds great, it makes the vocals sound great. When the bass sounds great, it makes the drums, it's all a collective thing. And Queen were really assured of that, and I think Innuendo is a very powerful record. I've got songs on there that bring me to tears. I think they would've done even if I hadn't been there and been around them just that little bit. So I really did a very small thing for them, and Brian did a lot more detailing with the Spanish guitar. But, you know, I'm happy to have added just something they wanted. They wanted a little bit more racy Spanish guitar, and Brian wasn't comfortable with doing that.

Stephen Howe; Goldmine, 16th of January 2010