Queen want to make sure Freddie Mercury is still involved in their future work.

The band’s frontman died of bronchopneumonia brought on by AIDS in 1991 but guitarist Brian May says the group – who celebrated their 40th anniversary this year – are determined the singer will not be forgotten in any future projects he and drummer Roger Taylor plan.

He said: “We are not actually working on dredging loads and loads stuff up, we just find stuff now and again that is interesting.

“There is a couple of very interesting tapes with Freddie singing with Michael Jackson that we’re looking at.

“Those kind of things we can work on together and it’s nice that in a sense Freddie is still involved in it.”

Only Brian and Roger remain in the original line-up of the group after bassist John Deacon retired from music in 1997, and the guitarist is unsure if they should continue using the band’s name.

He told BBC 6Music: “Are we Queen? in a sense we are but in another sense we never can be.

“We keep getting asked to do things which is great but it’s that being Queen thing, I think we’ll have to make a film ‘Being Queen’, what does it mean?

“The good thing about it is, we are a sort of open book, we can interact with people when it comes up.”