How do you become Freddie Mercury?

Its an odd question you might think. I know the real answer is....you don't! But you can try and try I will. I joined Queen II 2 years go. When I joined I was slightly overweight, sounded nothing like Freddie and moved nothing like Freddie and so a journey began in learning how to do this. How do I imitate one of the best vocalists and performers in living memory? As I was about to find out.....not easily. Let me show you how I looked in my audition video. Shot before I knew I even had the job and before I knew what kind of a rollercoaster I was in for!

Aside from losing weight there was so much to look at. I had to reassess my vocal technique before I even looked at how Freddie sounded tonally. In order to hit some of the notes and be able to sing for 2 hours a night correctly and keeping vocal health at the top of the list I had to change everything about my technique so as not to do any damage to my voice. I had regular 121 sessions, hours at home practicing and training to re-learn 20 years of poor technique. Then I started looking at Freddie's voice, how did it sound tonally? How does he phrase vowels, consonants and words? Where does he add distortion to the sound or sing it lightly. Through the technique I found about gears. Gears in singing are much like a car and you move through them to produce volume from low to high. Freddie was unique in so many ways but what I found was that he uses all of these gears regularly unlike most singers. This was going to be a real challenge. But one as you'll see I jumped in to with both feet!