Yes Guitarist Recalls How Queen Treated Him as Guest on Final Album in Freddie Mercury's Life, Says Actor William Shatner Did 'Rude, Nasty' Thing to Him

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Taken from Ultimate Guitar (Jul 22, 2020)

Yes Guitarist Recalls How Queen Treated Him as Guest on Final Album in Freddie Mercury's Life, Says Actor William Shatner Did 'Rude, Nasty' Thing to Him

"It's not a good thing to do," Steve Howe commented.

by jomatami

During a conversation with Rolling Stone, longtime Yes guitarist Steve Howe talked about some of his musical efforts outside of the Yes fold.

One of them is Steve's Spanish guitar performance on the title track of 1991's "Innuendo," the final Queen album released during Freddie Mercury's lifetime.

Howe commented:

"I was moving around Switzerland at the time, doing some recording. I had some days off and I went to Montreux because of the memories of [the 1977 Yes album] 'Going for the One' being made there.

"I was in a restaurant that was slightly below the ground. A guy walks by that goes, 'Steve!' And I look up and it was a Queen crew member that used to be a Yes crew member. I think his name was Martin. He said, 'Do the guys know you're here? Can you come down to say hello?'

"I finished my lunch and went down there and it was a setup job. I walked in and we chatted a bit and they said, 'We want to play you the album.' I was like, 'I've got loads of time. Play me the album.'

"They play the album, but they save 'Innuendo' for last. When it finishes they go, 'Do you think you could add some guitar to that?' I said, 'I don't think you need any. There are some great parts there.' They said, 'No, no, no. We want something more.' I said, 'I'll give it a run.'

"They had a Gibson Chet Atkins guitar, which was a solid Spanish guitar. That is what Brian [May] had used on it. I used one of his and over a couple of hours in the late afternoon, we took a few takes, took a break, took another take.

"It really was just improvisation. That's what they wanted. They didn't want any structural type of functions that I could do.

"They were just like, 'Play anything.' That has always been something I've been able to do. I don't know how or why, but thank God because it's something that I love to do.

"Very good things happen in that process before a producer can wear you out by saying, 'Can you do another take?' 'Well, I've done 10! What do you want out of me? Blood?'

"The guys were really cool. They wrote me a letter to thank me for doing it and gave me a credit. That was it. It was a wonderful time to meet the guys - before we lost Freddie.

"I found that - particularly Roger [Taylor, drums] Brian and Freddie, they were really kind. That was really a band. They were so tight. They sat together; they agreed. They were so similar. It was a beautiful thing."

However, Steve didn't exactly have fond memories of his guest appearance on actor William Shatner's 2011 cover of Duran Duran's "Planet Earth." He said:

"Get lost! Absolutely get lost! And you can print that! I played some really good things on that and they aren't on the recording. There is none of me there at all. There is some guy playing what everybody else could have played.

"I said, 'Look, I'm not going to play the part that everybody knows is part of that song. That's easy. You can't make anything of it.' And so I did some single-line stuff. God knows what happened. But when the record came out, I put it on and there was none of me on there at all.

"As much as I think that William Shatner is fun and all that - I know he's a good friend of [Yes bassist] Billy Sherwood - but that is rude. To credit me and not have me on there is just about the nastiest you can do. It's not a good thing to do."