Brian May: the Queen guitarist who built his own guitar | Ultimate Guitarist Reunion

Why fans still care

BRIAN MAY made the guitar sound that runs through Queen’s records, and he made it on a guitar he built at home with his father. He played it with a sixpence instead of a pick.

He also wrote some of the band’s biggest songs: We Will Rock You, I Want It All, Who Wants to Live Forever, Fat Bottomed Girls and The Show Must Go On among them.

And he’s a scientist. In 2007 he finished the astrophysics PhD he had left more than 30 years earlier, and in 2015 he worked with NASA scientists on pictures of Pluto.

Early life and training

He was born Brian Harold May on 19 July 1947 in Hampton Hill, Middlesex, near Twickenham. His father, Harold, was a draughtsman at the Ministry of Aviation, and his mother was Ruth.

Father and son built the Red Special together, an electric guitar made by hand at home. It’s the guitar he still plays.

From 1965 to 1968 he studied at Imperial College London. In 1968 he formed a band called Smile with drummer Roger Taylor, Who’s Who number 14 in · Ultimate Queen Reunion (story coming soon).

Career chapters

1. 1968Forms Smile with Roger Taylor, Who’s Who number 14 in · Ultimate Queen Reunion (story coming soon)
2. 1970Queen form with Freddie Mercury, Who’s Who number 2 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon)
3. 1971John Deacon, Who’s Who number 3 in · Ultimate Queen Reunion (story coming soon) joins
4. 1973Debut album, Queen
5. 1981Under Pressure, with David Bowie, Who’s Who number 16 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon), UK number 1
6. 1991Freddie Mercury, Who’s Who number 2 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) dies
7. 2001Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with Queen
8. 2007Finishes his PhD
9. 2011First show as Queen + Adam Lambert
10. 2023Knighthood

Queen with Freddie 1970 to 1991

Smile became Queen in 1970, when Freddie Mercury, Who’s Who number 2 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) joined May and Taylor, Who’s Who number 14 in · Ultimate Queen Reunion (story coming soon). John Deacon, Who’s Who number 3 in · Ultimate Queen Reunion (story coming soon) came in on bass in 1971, and the first album, Queen, came out in 1973.

May wrote many of their songs: We Will Rock You, Tie Your Mother Down, Hammer to Fall, Flash, Now I’m Here, Save Me and more. His official site says he has written 22 Queen top 20 hits.

In 1981 Queen and David Bowie, Who’s Who number 16 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) made Under Pressure, which spent two weeks at number 1 in the UK. Their Greatest Hits album went on to be the UK’s best seller of all time, past 7 million copies by July 2022.

Solo, and a doctorate 1991 to 2008

Mercury, Who’s Who number 2 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) died in 1991. That December May’s solo single Driven by You reached number 6 in the UK, and in 1992 Too Much Love Will Kill You reached number 5.

In June 2002 he played God Save the Queen on the roof of Buckingham Palace for the Golden Jubilee.

Then he went back to university work. In August 2007 he submitted his PhD thesis at Imperial, about 48,000 words, after leaving it unfinished for more than 30 years.

Queen + Paul Rodgers and Queen + Adam Lambert 2004 to 2026

With Taylor, Who’s Who number 14 in · Ultimate Queen Reunion (story coming soon), May kept Queen on stage. First came about four years with Paul Rodgers, Who’s Who number 16 in · Ultimate Queen Reunion (story coming soon), two tours and the album The Cosmos Rocks in 2008.

Then came Adam Lambert. Their first show as Queen + Adam Lambert was in Belfast on 6 November 2011, the night Queen picked up MTV’s Global Icon Award. Tours followed through to the Rhapsody Tour in 2019. On 12 August 2012 May also played We Will Rock You at the London Olympics closing ceremony.

Craft, sound and style

Two things are always mentioned first: the homemade Red Special, and the sixpence he uses instead of a pick.

Brighton Rock, from 1974, is his big solo spot on record and its solo became a regular part of Queen’s concerts.

The Red Special

He built it with his father in the mid-1960s. The sources don’t agree on exactly when: Premier Guitar says 1964, Guitar Player says it took two years and was finished when he was 17, and Vintage Guitar says he built it at 15. The reason was simple. He told Guitar Player in 1983 that he couldn’t afford a Stratocaster.

Guitar Player says the neck came from an old fireplace mantel and the body used oak from an old table. Vintage Guitar describes two layers of hollowed blockboard under a mahogany veneer, with an oak insert.

The first pickups were hand-wound, and their pole pieces were set north to south, which gave a rushing sound on bends. He swapped them for pickups bought from Burns. Each of the three pickups has two switches, one for phase and one for on and off, so there are six in all.

The vibrato is homemade too. It pivots on a knife edge, with motorcycle springs and a roller bridge. Vintage Guitar says the arm was made from a bicycle saddlebag support, tipped with a piece of his mother’s knitting needle. The one catch, he told Guitar Player, is that if a string breaks the whole system goes out of tune.

When Premier Guitar filmed his rig in 2014, the guitar was still original apart from the tuning pegs and the bridge rollers. The copies on that tour were built by Andrew Guyton, including a green one in dropped D for Fat Bottomed Girls and an f-hole version with a piezo inside for Crazy Little Thing Called Love.

AC30s and a treble booster

Before Queen he copied the rig Rory Gallagher, Who’s Who number 21 had told him about: a Vox AC30 and a Rangemaster treble booster. Guitar Player says he bought two secondhand AC30s for £30 each, and that plugging in “just melted my stomach”.

The AC30s never left. On the 1983 Star Licks video he ran a treble booster modified by Pete Cornish, a Boss CE-1 Chorus Ensemble and digital delays, through three amps so the effects stayed apart from the main sound. He called that “very important”.

By the 2014 tour with Adam Lambert it was three Vox AC30s set up wet, dry and wet, with the reverb and tremolo circuits taken out. A Fryer treble booster sat on his guitar strap, the wah was a Dunlop in a rack, and two TC Electronic G-Major 2 delays were set to 800 and 1600 milliseconds. His tech, Pete Malandrone, did the switching offstage. For more drive, May just turned up the guitar’s volume knob.

Brighton Rock and the delay

The long solo on Brighton Rock is May playing against his own repeats. Guitar.com says he used a modified Echoplex tape delay, later fixed at about one and a half seconds for touring, and stacked harmonies on top of the echoes. The twin 800 and 1600 millisecond delays on the 2014 rig carry the same idea.

Sixpence and strings

The sixpence is chosen for touch. Premier Guitar says he uses the coin’s serrated edge against the string. In 2014 his strings were Optima 24 Carat Gold, .009 to .042.

How he plays

“I just cannot play if I’m not enjoying the sound,” he told Vintage Guitar. In the same interview he said he can play rhythm and sing at once, but not while he’s really thinking about a solo.

In 1983, during the Star Fleet Project sessions, he swapped guitars with Eddie Van Halen, Who’s Who number 34. May told Ultimate Classic Rock that he still sounded like himself on Eddie’s guitar, and Eddie still sounded like Eddie on the Red Special.

Stories people still tell

1. The question at the Marquee.

   In the late 1960s May stayed behind after a Taste show at the Marquee in London to ask Rory Gallagher, Who’s Who number 21 how he got his sound. As May tells it, Gallagher, Who’s Who number 21 pointed to his Vox AC30 and a “little box”, a Rangemaster treble booster. May went out and built his own sound on the same pairing.

2. Pluto in 3D.

   In July 2015 he worked with NASA scientists on the New Horizons pictures and put together a stereo image of Pluto. He also runs the London Stereoscopic Company, which publishes Victorian 3D photographs.

3. A guest spot for a friend.

   May plays the guitar solo on Death Wake, from Tony Iommi’s, Who’s Who number 23 solo album From the Dark. He’s the only guest on the record, and Iommi, Who’s Who number 23 calls him his best friend.

4. Sir Brian.

   He was knighted in the 2023 New Year Honours. He said he would use it to “be a voice for those who have no voice”, meaning animals. He started the Save Me campaign for animal welfare in 2009.

Legacy

He went into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Queen in 2001, inducted by Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins of Foo Fighters.

He has been open about his health. In May 2020 he said he had had a heart attack and three stents, and in September 2024 he said a minor stroke had briefly taken away control of his left arm. He was soon playing again.

In October 2026 he said he had stepped back from touring to make time for family, his wife Anita Dobson and astrophysics. He also said he had “never said QUEEN won’t ever tour again.”