Queen drummer Roger Taylor has defended the inclusion of former Free vocalist Paul Rodgers in the band's line up. The group are currently touring in support of new CD 'Return Of The Champions', and Taylor says that Rodgers' vocals have added something to the Queen sound without taking anything away from late frontman Freddie Mercury.
He told VH1: "I think that Paul's vocals have added to our sound. In a way, they've given us more. We did actually come from the blues, although might not sound like that all the time...He's added that blues edge to this big world of sound that Brian and I kick up with our other guys. He's Paul Rodgers, he's not trying to be Freddie Mercury, and I wish people would just understand that we're not doing this to cash in on anything. We're not going out there with somebody pretending to be Freddie Mercury. You know what's the point of that? Paul is great to come back with. He's one of our all-time favourites. Certainly one of Freddie's favourite singers ever. And we used to listen to him before we ever made a record."
Paul Rodgers said, on his role with the band: ''I love to take a song and grip it from somewhere way down here and deliver it back to people. Queen actually have a lot of songs that I can relate to on that level. Strangely enough, 'I Want To Break Free' is one of those. Because to me, I feel most of us have something that we want to break free from. A relationship, a job. The place you live, whatever it might be. And so it has meaning on lots of levels. And there's another song that I really am particularly fond of that we do live called 'The Show Must Go On.' That's something that Queen themselves only experienced in the studio. And, so we have the opportunity, it's like virgin territory when we go out and play that live onstage.''