John Deacon, being totally in his own world, came up with this thing, which was nothing like what we were doing. We were going for the big drum sound: you know, quite pompous in our usual way. And Deakey says, 'No, I want this to be totally different: it's going to be a very tight drum sound.' It was originally done to a drum loop - this was before the days of drum machines. Roger did a loop, kind of under protest, because he didn't like the sound of the drums recorded that way. And then Deakey put this groove down. Immediately Freddie became violently enthusiastic and said, 'This is big! This Is important! I'm going to spend a lot of time on this.'
This song was written ‘cause I always wanted to do something in direction of black music, disco music I got it through, that this song came on the album, like it was. It's not a typical Queen song and I do not know if we ever will do something similar again. We had disagreements about this song. Our company wanted this song as a single because it was very successful at [so-called] black radio stations. Roger tried to avoid that, ‘cause he said it's too disco-like and that is not good for the reputation of Queen.
There is meant to be something in the words. Not so much in Another One Bites the Dust, but there's meaning in my other songs. I try to put in a thought or two, a story or a meaning. The thing is we all write individually, so it's mainly attributable to the personality of the character who has written the song. Certain songs don't have a lot in them. They're all different. I have a Music Man..., which I use on bass for certain numbers, like Another One Bites the Dust. You can get quite a tight bass end. I tend use Telecaster guitars. It's the most cleanly cut for the rhythm involved in the songs.
Another One Bites the Dust was the biggest we've had, but it was so un-me, something I really wouldn't have thought about doing. It was a big hit, so it was great, thank you - I made money.
John's always been R & B orientated, our bass player, who wrote Another One Bites the Dust, which I never thought would be a hit, which turned out to be the biggest selling record of the year. And I think that was the song that catapulted us into taking that road. The guy that picked the song for the single was Michael Jackson. He came along to the Forum and after the show, he said because he liked the record and he liked a lot of our old songs as well. We didn't think it would ever be a hit! Eventually we did release it and obviously, you know, it was a hit.'
I have to tell you, I do remember John singing the lines to Another One Bites the Dust to Freddie, so it's possible you know, but he's a bit shy about it, he doesn't like to sing in public.
I actually helped John put Another One Bites the Dust together. But, no, that style of music wasn't my kind of thing. As I remember, it was Michael Jackson, in our dressing room, who first said we should release it as a single. I thought he was mad - turns out I was right - but I really couldn't see it as a single. But then the urban stations in the US picked it up, and so it had to be a single - and it sold about four million copies in America. How delightfully wrong can you be? But it wasn't where I was at, no.
Another One Bites the Dust, for instance, is built on a drum loop. There was the main riff and a bunch of backwards piano notes, cymbal crashes and claps, some guitar fragments. Stuff everybody has in their sample library these days. It would be comparatively easy to build this thing today, if you had the right muse in the first place. The idea was less is more, and it worked pretty well. The band would have never contemplated going about recording in this manner, ever.
It was Michael who heard our track Another One Bites the Dust when he came to see us on The Game tour ... and told us we were mad if we didn't release it as a single. Of course this was way before Michael's monster solo career began… but he was already in search of that fusion between Funk and Rock, Black and White, and the Thriller album was the consummation of that quest.
Freddie appreciated the fact that he never had to wait to do something creative. He did not mind my placeholders, like the backward piano in Another One Bites the Dust, the guitar slide down in Princes of the Universe, the intro to One Vision or Fred Mandel's keyboard solo in I Want to Break Free years later.
One of Deacy's masterpieces. Immortal. I think we slightly… it's fair to say we had no idea what on earth he was doing when he started this, which was the antithesis of the way we felt we should record it at the time normally. A fantastic bit of work from Freddie really. I mean, I remember Deacy having this idea, but Deacy doesn't sing of course, so he was trying to suggest to Freddie how it should be and Fred just went in there and hammered and hammered until his throat bled, making… you know, he really was inspired by it and took it to a new height, I think. And that fabulous rhythm guitar is Deacy. This is not me. You know, the dirty stuff is me, but the spine of the guitar, that rhythmic stuff, is actually very hard to play and in the Queen live shows, I've got to say that's probably the hardest thing I have to do. I guess that's part of the strength of the band, that we had so many different influences and this is a direction which Roger and I never would have gone unless we'd been kind of coerced and it just turned out to be brilliant.
I remember laying down the backing track with him and he really wanted the drums as dry as they could possibly be, so I just stuffed it all with blankets and made it as dead as I possibly could and very low tuned. We never really liked that kind of thing. We weren't going to release this as a single and I think it was Michael Jackson who actually suggested that we release it as a single and I thought he was nuts.
That's a drum loop. That was built out of boredom, from my side, because nobody would show up in the studio! I started this loop and, in order not to step on anybody's toes, I put in these ominous, backwards piano notes. It's just a different piece of tape turned over. Things you can do when you're playing by yourself in the control room. Deacy said, “I've got some notes for this.” Freddie said he had some lyrics; he didn't have them written down, but had them memorized. “It's called Another One Bites the Dust. The bits before and after? I didn't get to those.” He didn't have any! He had a phrase. The riff, which is really, to an extent, the Chic thing with a couple of alterations, was put down and it started taking shape. We did some drum rolls and little cymbal crashes. For instance, that percussion thing in the middle section is some weird mistake going down. That was the Infernal Machine that I had on loan from Publison - the French manufacturer. I tried to mute something; my finger hit the knob and it turned up and went through the Machine – it sounded good! Even the end has a mistake. John told me months and months later, “It's number one, but it's still not perfect.” I asked why, but he went, “I won't tell you.” Finally he said, “Well, at the very end there's a hi-hat going ‘chhh' that should have been muted.” But nobody has written in or complained.
I had no idea that that would be a single and we were playing in The Forum, I think, in Los Angeles and Michael Jackson used to come and sit in the corner, and he said, “you guys, you gotta release this”. It was actually taken up by the black radio stations in New York and Detroit, I think, and they were playing the hell out of it, and the next thing I knew they put it out and I think it's the biggest ever record on Elektra / Asylum, sort of four million copies in America.
I was perfectly happy with Another One Bites the Dust. I remember Roger didn't want to play drums that way. But Roger played the pattern John wanted him to and made the drums sound very rhythm'n'blues, or disco, if you like. He did a brilliant drum loop.
I was never opposed to Another One Bites the Dust. I just didn't think it would be a hit.