It’s interesting because I was thinking about this recently—somebody had asked me about that: “Was there any effect on you… The fact that Freddie Mercury was gay and you were into Queen?” But I don’t know. It’s weird because I actually thought about it more in later years, and I feel more self-conscious being somebody who is a fan of George Michael now than I ever remember being in high school. In high school I liked Rocky Horror Picture Show; I listened to show tunes and I liked Queen. I think that it may have been that I had fairly large circle of dorky friends that would insulate me. [laughs]
Well, you have a point though. Music at that time was more accepting of effeminate, androgynous front men. It was far more common than now.
Yeah. My friend Rob’s older brother, who is featured in the comic, when I first met him he was the coolest guy and he was into Motley Crew, Striper, Kip Winger and stuff like that. But I was just sort of becoming a teenager and becoming more aware of the context of music. With me I just assumed that that’s just the way that it was. It never actually occurred to me that Freddie Mercury was gay until he died. I didn’t think that the guys in Poison were gay and they all dressed like women, you know?
I’ve talked to some people who were older Queen fans—who actually listened to them in the 70s and stuff like that—and they seemed to be more aware. So maybe in the context of the 70s the glam thing stood out more than the more masculine sort of metal and hard rock.
I became a huge Freddie Mercury fan through George Michael, particularly 1992’s “Concert for Life: A Tribute to Freddie Mercury” that you reference in Freddie & Me. Did you always set out to feature him in the book?
I knew that it was not going to be advertised but it turns out that it is also a lot about George Michael. [laughs] I knew from the beginning that I was going to make the comparison between the way that I felt about Queen and the way my sister felt about George Michael, and our little rivalry about it. But I also started writing the book after my sister and I met George Michael, which, I don’t know if that’s a spoiler or not but, comes together at the end of the book. He is actually kind of a bigger character than Freddie Mercury even is. The two parallel story lines meet up throughout the book. So I knew that I was going to sort of do that. I also actually find him to be more relatable.
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