The Brilliance of Freddie Mercury | Joe Rogan & David Lee Roth

Well, there's movies like that too, right? There's movies about really important subjects that are terrible movies. Like how many awful war movies? And you cause me to think that if it's a really, really important subject, it probably is a terrible movie. Yeah, most likely. Why do I think that? Right. Well, there's no way to really get an important subject and boil it down to two hours. Oh, I didn't think of that. Give me two hours. No, you're right. An important subject. Yeah, I mean, especially like one thing that drives me crazy is when they take liberties with someone's biography. Like if they do a biography on someone's life and they change things around or add things to it for theatrical flair. Did you see the Queen movie? No, I did not see it yet. I haven't seen it either. No, I heard it's very good though. You heard it's very good. Did you ask the person who told you that why it's good? Yes, yes. And what did they share? They said, first of all, the guy who plays Freddie Mercury apparently is brilliant in it. Had they seen Freddie live? Yes. No, not live. I saw Freddie live at the Forum. I was in the maybe 20th row. Wow. Six in when Bohemian Rhapsody had just come out. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I saw him in his absolute, that is major, major prime there. So I'm very curious as to, well, stagecraft is one thing, but what Freddie was and what he brought was way more than what you saw on stage. Yeah. What was he bringing? Well, his sensibilities in terms of music weren't just three chords in an attitude. And don't fall for that shit either. If Keith ever sits here and tries that shit, it's all right, Rogan. You just made three chords in an attitude. Yeah. And you need to know the inversions of each one, all seven modal. Fuck you, Keith. What I need is a... He does know all those and the trick tunings and whatever. Yeah. Freddie brought a whole wealth of listening to different kinds of music, whether it was orchestral, big band, bistro. You mean... That's bistro... what do you call it? Musette? Small, something you might hear in a coffee shop in France. Well, his music was so different. His singing was so different than anything else from his era. When you listen to We Are the Champions... He didn't try to sing black, okay? He sang Freddie Mercury. He sang European non-black, what we're very used to, even in country. I had a very famous black producer, African American producer, say to me, David Lee, do you know what it means to be a black man in the United States today? Every time I step up to the mic, I try. That's what I grew up with. Trying to sound like Motown, trying to sound like Wilson Pickett, trying to sound like... and on and on. That voter block had such an impact on music, much less the overall culture.