Rock stars fight all the time, both publicly and privately. Sometimes, rock stars will feud with their own bandmates, even on stage; it’s far from uncommon. However, few beefs in the rock music world were quite as one-sided as the one between Steve Walsh of Kansas and Freddie Mercury of Queen.
Back in 2003, Steve Walsh sat down for an interview with Classic Bands’ Gary James. He dished on quite a few bands, and most of his comments were on the positive side. That is, until the subject of one Freddie Mercury came up. Specifically, Walsh recounted his experience touring with Mott The Hoople and Queen in the mid-1970s.
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Steve Walsh Had More Than a Few Choice Words About Freddie Mercury
“Queen and Mott The Hoople were fantastic,” said Walsh. “Real nice people, except Freddie, the lead singer for Queen. He was an a**hole. But, everybody else was great. All of the guys in Mott The Hoople were fantastic. They were just great to us.”
Naturally, the interviewer decided to prod him a bit to elaborate and asked Walsh what the exact problem was with Freddie Mercury. Welsh wasn’t afraid to let it all out, it seems.
“I don’t know,” said Walsh. “He was a primadonna… [a] diva, if you will. That word was not meant to be a compliment, although a lot of people consider it to be. That’s bullshit. That’s having an ego bigger than you are talented, bigger than you deserve. That’s what being a diva is. That’s what a primadonna is, and that’s what Freddie was.”
Interestingly enough, Walsh’s bandmate Rich Williams had nothing but nice things to say about each of the members of Queen, including Mercury. And Mercury, as far as we know, never publicly had an issue with Walsh when he was alive.
However, it is worth noting that Walsh is far from the only person from rock history’s past to dislike Freddie Mercury. Paul Weller famously called him a slur back in the day, and Sid Vicious of Sex Pistols bullied him in the past, though he was quickly (and hilariously) thrown out by Mercury.
I guess you just can’t please them all, even if you’re one of the most famous rock vocalists of a generation.
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