Roger Taylor admits recording with Queen could be “long and boring”.

The group’s drummer is thankful with the way he and his bandmates – Brian May, John Deacon and the late Freddie Mercury – were able to work together and complement one another’s abilities, but admits this could make for tedious sessions in the studio.

He said: “It was serendipity. We had this very unusual blend of voices and we made the most of it.

“That said, it meant enormously long and boring hours in the studio, recording vocal parts again and again. We were very painstaking and technically minded and particularly conscious, in the early days, of how long it was taking because studio times cost something like £30 an hour, which was a fortune back then.”

Roger is proud of the fact that there was never any tension in the band, which he attributes to their mutual respect for one another.

He said: “The thing that kept us together was that we all had a job to do and we all felt part of the creative process.

“I know that drummers tend to be the butt of a thousand jokes, usually from the uninformed and untalented, but I always felt I had an important role.

“To me, the drummer is the driver of the whole thing, the conductor. Freddie’s job was to provide the unusual, to be the frontman, to deliver the music.

“There was never any question of resenting him – I could never have done what he did. He had this zeal, this passion, this energy. He not only created his voice, he channelled it quite brilliantly.”