Queen Return With Paul Rodgers: "Imitating Freddie Would Be Pointless"

Check out this awesome video of Queen with Paul Rodgers performing for more than 350,000 people last week in the Ukraine (they don't come onstage until about four minutes in to the video, so skip ahead). The show, dubbed "Life Must Go On!" raised money and awareness around HIV/AIDS issues in the former Soviet republic, a topic obviously close to the band: "Queen lost its singer many years ago, so we know that this can affect anybody," drummer Roger Taylor told the AP.

Rolling Stone recently caught up with the band as they were prepping the release of their first new material in 14 years (with Rodgers stepping in for Freddie Mercury), October 28th's The Cosmos Rocks. "We could have had any number of people come along and imitate Freddie, but it would be pointless," Brian May says. "Paul's brought us back to a greater awareness of our instinctive side."

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Song Stories

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell | 1974

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.

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