What's In? [Deaky-topics in this week]
- Drums on "One Vision"
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About Sebastian's question last week, Philipp sent me the following answer (thanks for helping!):
Sebastian's considerations are certainly interesting, but I unfortunately
have to say that John most certainly wasn't involved in the drum parts (or
the backing vocals). First of all it's important to note that most Queen songs
contain more than one percussion track and that Roger was used to record some
additional overdubs. So additional drum parts on One Vision (and there actually
aren't as many as it may seem) do not automatically denote an additional player.
Apart from that John himself confirmed that he only can play a very simple rhythm
and hit some cymbals and that he isn't an actual drummer as such. It is thus
pretty unlikely that John every played drums on any Queen record (most especially
as Roger is the best drummer in the band and thus usually took over this task
to ensure highest possible quality). The most striking point, however, is the
fact that most (if not all) of the footage shown in the "One Vision" video
does NOT show the actual recording of the song. In fact most of it is
clearly mimed or represents outtakes of some fun jamming during recording-breaks
(e.g. Freddie arseing around the drum-kit whilst Rog is playing). The same
goes for the shots of John behind the drum-kit. This was most probably filmed
during a recording-break and John simply wanted to try out some drum-patterns
(which is pretty common among bands. Quite often the other musicians spend
more time behind the kit than the drummer himself), just for fun or it was
added to contribute to the comical tone of the video-clip.
The shots that show the whole band doing backing vocals are clearly mimed
and were filmed specifically for the video-clip.
It simply looks good when the whole band sings into a mic at the same time.
Backing vocals are not recorded this way. The voices are recorded separately
and John most certainly did not contribute to them. It's the same
with the backing vocal-scenes (that included John "singing") in
"Somebody To Love" and "Headlong". Just like "One Vision", these
video-clips were filmed in the studio, but not during the actual recording
of the song (in the case of "One Vision", the recording sessions actually WERE
filmed, but only very few of that material is included in the video-clip.
Most of it was mimed).
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