Drummer Roger Taylor Forms His Own Queen Tribute Band

Queen drummer Roger Taylor was so fed up of seeing below average tribute acts that he decided to host auditions for his own, with fans being given the opportunity to vote for their favourites on the Internet.

He said: ”The terrible ones [tributes] are cheesy and panto-like, more about dressing up in a Brian May wig and a Freddie Mercury moustache and what they’re missing out on is the fact that the music is quite complicated and actually not easy to perform.”

Taylor’s search for a lead singer led him to a French Canadian man named Marc Martel, whose vocal similarities to late frontman Freddie Mercury won him nearly 9 million likes on YouTube.

Once the ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ hitmaker found his lead singer he built the rest of the act, named ”The Queen Extravaganza”, around him.

Taylor told the Daily Express newspaper: ”I spent some weeks with them in Canada rehearsing but they’ve found out what works and what they’re good at. They’ve got some brilliant arrangements of a lot of our old stuff and I’ve sort of let them get on with it now.

”It’s great – I just go and see them occasionally and they’re wonderful.”