1968–1970: Smile May formed the band Smile in 1968. The group included
Tim Staffell as the lead singer and bassist, and later, drummer
Roger Taylor, who also went on to play for Queen. The band lasted from 1968 to 1970, when Staffell left, leaving the band with a catalogue of nine songs. Smile would reunite for several songs on 22 December 1992. Taylor's band
The Cross were headliners, and he brought May and Staffell on to play "Earth" and "
If I Were a Carpenter". May also performed several other songs that night. Their final performance was during their European tour in London's All Points East on 28 August 2022.
1970–1995: Queen In Queen's three-part vocal harmonies, May was generally the lower-range backing vocalist. On some of his songs, he sings the lead vocals, most notably the first verse of "Who Wants to Live Forever", the final verse of "
Mother Love", the
middle eight on "
I Want It All" and "
Flash's Theme", and full lead vocals on "
Some Day One Day", "
She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettoes)", "
'39", "
Good Company", "
Long Away", "
All Dead, All Dead", "
Sleeping on the Sidewalk", "
Leaving Home Ain't Easy" and "
Sail Away Sweet Sister" . May wrote many songs for the band, including hits such as "
We Will Rock You", "
Tie Your Mother Down", "I Want It All", "
Fat Bottomed Girls", "Who Wants to Live Forever" and "
The Show Must Go On" as well as "
Hammer to Fall", "Flash", "
Now I'm Here", "
Brighton Rock", "
The Prophet's Song", "
Las Palabras de Amor", "
No-One but You (Only the Good Die Young)" and "
Save Me". After the
Live Aid concert in 1985, Mercury rang his band members and proposed writing a song together. The result was "
One Vision", which was basically May on music (the
Magic Years documentary shows how he came up with the opening section and the basic guitar riff); the lyrics were co-written by the four band members. For their 1989 release album,
The Miracle, the band had decided that all of the tracks would be credited to the entire band, no matter who had been the main writer. Interviews and musical analyses tend to help identify the input of each member on each track. May composed "I Want It All" for that album, as well as "
Scandal" (based on his problems with the British press). For the rest of the album, he did not contribute much creatively. However, he helped in building the basis of "Party" and "Was It All Worth It" (both being predominantly Mercury's pieces) and created the "Chinese Torture" guitar riff. Two songs May had composed for his first solo album, "
Headlong" and "
I Can't Live With You", eventually ended up on the Queen project. His other composition was "The Show Must Go On", which he coordinated and was the primary composer. In recent years, he has supervised the remastering of Queen albums and various DVD and greatest hits releases. In 2004, he announced that he and drummer Roger Taylor were going on tour for the first time in 18 years as "Queen", along with
Free/
Bad Company vocalist
Paul Rodgers. Billed as "
Queen + Paul Rodgers", the band played throughout 2005 and 2006 in South Africa, Europe, Aruba, Japan, and North America and released a new album with Rodgers in 2008, titled
The Cosmos Rocks. This album was supported by a major tour. Paul Rodgers left the band in May 2009. It was not until 2011 that another vocalist,
Adam Lambert, was recruited. Queen + Adam Lambert
toured Europe in 2012 and
toured the world tour over 2014 and 2015. Their most recent outing was the
2016 Festival Tour. They also played the
Big Ben New Year concert on New Year's Eve 2014 and New Year's Day 2015.
1983–1999: Side projects and solo works During 1983, several members of Queen explored side projects. On 21 and 22 April in Los Angeles, May was in a studio with
Eddie Van Halen, with no intention of recording anything. The result of the two-day session was a mini album titled
Star Fleet Project, which was not originally going to be released. In 1986, May contributed to former
Genesis guitarist
Steve Hackett's album
Feedback 86, playing guitar on the track "Cassandra" and providing guitar and vocals for "Slot Machine", which May co-wrote. Although produced in 1986, the album was not released commercially until 2000. Another song co-written by May and Hackett during this period, "Don't Fall Away from Me", was eventually recorded by Hackett in 1992 for release on his
The Unauthorised Biography compilation album. Also in 1986, May worked with actress
Anita Dobson on her first album, most noted for the song "Anyone Can Fall in Love", which added lyrics to the
EastEnders theme tune and reached number four on the
UK Singles Chart in August 1986. May and Dobson married in 2000. In 1988, May contributed guitar solos to the song "When Death Calls" on
Black Sabbath's 14th album
Headless Cross, and the
Living in a Box track "Blow The House Down" on the album
Gatecrashing. Both albums were released in 1989. In the aftermath of the November 1991
death of Mercury, May chose to deal with his grief by committing himself as fully as possible to work, first by finishing his solo album,
Back to the Light, and then touring worldwide to promote it. He frequently remarked in press interviews that this was the only form of self-prescribed therapy he could think of. According to
Def Leppard lead singer
Joe Elliott, "It was undoubtedly an enormous and terrible blow to lose someone he was so close to. Personally, I know it ripped the heart out of Brian, but having said that, he was in great spirits after the album was finished." In late 1992,
the Brian May Band was officially formed. May had loosely formed an earlier version of the band for 19 October 1991, when May took part in the Guitar Legends guitar festival in
Seville, Spain. The line-up for his performance was May on vocals and lead guitar,
Cozy Powell on drums and percussion,
Mike Moran and
Rick Wakeman on keyboards, and
Maggie Ryder,
Miriam Stockley and
Chris Thompson on backing vocals. The original line-up was May on vocals and lead guitar, Powell on drums and percussion,
Michael Casswell on guitar,
Neil Murray on bass, and Ryder, Stockley and Thompson on backing vocals. This version of the band was together only during the South American support tour (supporting
The B-52's and
Joe Cocker) on five dates. May later made significant changes, feeling the group never quite gelled. May brought guitarist
Jamie Moses on board to replace Mike Caswell. The backing vocalists, Ryder, Stockley and Thompson, were replaced by
Catherine Porter and
Shelley Preston. On 23 February 1993, this new line-up of The Brian May Band began its world tour in the US, supporting
Guns N' Roses and headlining a few dates. The tour included dates in North America, Europe (support act: Valentine) and Japan. On 15 June 1993, the band did a show in London that would end up as
The Brian May Band's only release as a collective, namely
Live at the Brixton Academy. At the show, May would sing a few lines of
"Love of My Life", and then, as Mercury used to, let the audience join in. After the tour ended on 18 December 1993, May returned to the studio with fellow surviving Queen band members Roger Taylor and
John Deacon to work on tracks that became
Made in Heaven, the final Queen studio album. The band took Mercury's solo album demos and last recordings, which he managed to perform in the studio after the album
Innuendo was finished, and completed them with their additions both musically and vocally. After Mercury's death, work on the album by Deacon and May began originally in 1992 but was left until a later date due to other commitments. and other collaborations. May subsequently changed the approach from covers to focus on those collaborations and new material. The songs included
Another World, and featured mainly
Spike Edney, Cozy Powell, Neil Murray and Jamie Moses. On 5 April 1998, Cozy Powell was killed in a car accident on the
M4 motorway near
Bristol, England. This incident caused an unexpected disruption to the upcoming tour for the Brian May Band, which now needed a new drummer on short notice.
Steve Ferrone was brought on to help May finish recording the drum tracks and join the band for the early stage promotional tour of five dates in Europe before the world tour. Following the early promotional tour,
Eric Singer replaced him on the 1998 world tour. The 1998 tour saw the brief introduction of a 'support act' known as T. E. Conway. Conway (Brian May in a wig and colourful suit playing the part of a
teddy boy crooner) would play several 1950s
rock and roll standards before May's 'arrival'. A bonus T. E. Conway EP titled
Retro Rock Special was attached to some pressings of the
Another World album. The Conway character was retired at the end of the tour. In May 1999, May recorded lead guitars for the Guns N' Roses song "Catcher in the Rye" on
Chinese Democracy, but his performance was removed from the album by the time it was released in 2008.
2000–2010 From his last solo release in 1998, May has been performing as a solo artist, as part of an ensemble, and infrequently as Queen with Roger Taylor. On 22 October 2000, he made a guest appearance at the
Motörhead 25th Anniversary show at
Brixton Academy along with
Eddie Clarke (former Motörhead guitarist) for the encore song "
Overkill". As part of the
Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II celebrations on 3 June 2002, May performed a
guitar solo of "
God Save the Queen" from the roof of
Buckingham Palace, with the performance appearing on the 30th Anniversary DVD edition of
A Night at the Opera. May played guitar on the Foo Fighters cover of Pink Floyd's "Have A Cigar", which appeared on the
Mission Impossible II soundtrack. In 2002, May played guitar on the
Foo Fighters song Tired of You for their album
One By One. May played guitar on the song "Someone to Die For" on the
Spider-Man 2 soundtrack in 2004. On the Queen's birthday honours list of 2005, he was made a
Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire "for services to the music industry and for charity work". In the same year he played the guitar on the song
Il mare... for Italian singer
Zucchero Fornaciari, on his album
Zu & Co., and he took part in the concert at the
Royal Albert Hall in London held in May 2004, with the other guests of the Italian bluesman. May was a celebrity guest at the Genesis reunion concert at
Twickenham Stadium in 2007. May and Genesis frontman
Phil Collins worked together on two previous occasions, at
The Prince's Trust Rock Gala in 1988 and the
Party at the Palace in 2002, when Collins had played drums with Queen. In 2011 he contributed to a feature about Collins for
FHM, praising him as "a great guy and an amazing drummer". During the late 1960s, May became an enthusiast of stereoscope photographs, as a child, and first encountered the work of
Thomas Richard Williams. In 2003, May announced a search to identify the actual location of the
Scenes in Our Village images. In 2004 May reported that he had identified the location as the village of
Hinton Waldrist in Oxfordshire. Along with
Elena Vidal, May released a historical book in 2009 titled
A Village Lost and Found: Scenes in Our Village. The book is an annotated collection of
stereoscopic photographs taken by the
Victorian era photographer
T. R. Williams. It included a focusing
stereoscope. May used a 3D camera to document the history of Queen. May worked extensively with stage actress and singer
Kerry Ellis after he cast her in the musical
We Will Rock You. He produced and arranged her debut studio album
Anthems (2010), a follow-up to her extended play
Wicked in Rock (2008), as well as appearing with Ellis at many public performances—playing guitar alongside her. He also contributed a guitar solo to
Meat Loaf's
Hang Cool, Teddy Bear album in exchange for the use of drummer
John Miceli. On 20 May 2009, May and Queen bandmate Roger Taylor performed "We Are the Champions" live on the season finale of
American Idol with winner
Kris Allen and runner-up Adam Lambert providing a vocal duet. In November 2009, May appeared with Taylor on
The X Factor, with Queen mentoring the contestants, then later performed "Bohemian Rhapsody". In April 2010, May founded the "Save Me" 2010 project to work against any proposed repeal of the British fox-hunting ban, and to promote animal welfare in Britain. In February 2011, it was announced that May would tour with Kerry Ellis, playing 12 dates across the UK in May 2011.
2004–2009: Queen + Paul Rodgers .|right At the end of 2004, May and Taylor announced that they would reunite and return to touring in 2005, with Paul Rodgers, the founder and former lead singer of Free and Bad Company. Brian May's website also stated that Rodgers would be "featured with" Queen as Queen + Paul Rodgers, not replacing the late Freddie Mercury. The retired John Deacon would not be participating. Between 2005 and 2006 Queen and Paul Rodgers embarked on a
world tour, the first leg being Europe and the second, Japan and the US in 2006. On 25 May 2006, Queen received the inaugural
VH1 Rock Honors at the
Mandalay Bay Events Center in
Las Vegas, Nevada, and May and Taylor were joined on stage with the
Foo Fighters to perform a selection of Queen songs. On 15 August 2006, May confirmed through his website and fan club that Queen + Paul Rodgers would begin producing their first studio album in October, to be recorded at a "secret location". The album, titled
The Cosmos Rocks, was released in Europe on 12 September 2008 and in the United States on 28 October 2008. Following the album's release, the band embarked on a tour through Europe and parts of the US, opening on
Kharkiv's freedom square in front of 350,000 Ukrainian fans. The show in Ukraine was later
released on DVD.
2011–present On 18 April 2011,
Lady Gaga confirmed that May would play guitar on her track "
You and I" from her album
Born This Way, released on 23 May 2011. May joined Gaga on stage during the performance of "You and I" at the
2011 MTV Video Music Awards held at
Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. May performed with
Tangerine Dream at the
Starmus Festival on
Tenerife in June 2011, celebrating the 50th anniversary of
Yuri Gagarin's first spaceflight. May performed "We Will Rock You" and "
Welcome to the Black Parade" with the rock band
My Chemical Romance at the
Reading Festival on 26 August 2011. On 10 October, May made an appearance to celebrate the reunion of rock band
The Darkness at an "intimate"
100 Club show with support from
Dark Stares. A long-time fan of the group, May performed three songs onstage with The Darkness, including Queen's "Tie Your Mother Down", at the
Hammersmith Apollo on their subsequent "comeback" tour. At the
2011 MTV Europe Music Awards on 6 November, Queen received the
Global Icon Award, which
Katy Perry presented to Brian May. The collaboration garnered a positive response from both fans and critics, resulting in speculation about future projects together.
Queen + Adam Lambert played two shows at the Hammersmith Apollo, London, on 11 and 12 July 2012. Both shows sold out within 24 hours of tickets going on open sale. A third London date was added for 14 July. On 30 June, Queen + Lambert performed in
Kyiv, Ukraine at a joint concert with
Elton John for the Elena Pinchuk ANTIAIDS Foundation. Queen also performed with Lambert on 3 July 2012 at Moscow's
Olympic Stadium, and on 7 July 2012 at the
Municipal Stadium in Wroclaw, Poland. in August 2012 In January 2012, May featured on
N-Dubz frontman
Dappy's solo single "
Rockstar", providing "rumbling guitar riffs which culminate in an electrifying solo". The pair also collaborated on a performance of "We Will Rock You" for
BBC Radio 1's
Live Lounge. Queen performed at the
closing ceremony of the
2012 Summer Olympics in London on 12 August 2012. May performed part of the "
Brighton Rock" solo before being joined by Taylor and solo artist
Jessie J for a performance of "We Will Rock You". On 16 September 2012, May appeared at the Sunflower Jam charity concert at the Royal Albert Hall, performing alongside bassist
John Paul Jones (of
Led Zeppelin), drummer
Ian Paice (of
Deep Purple), and vocalists
Bruce Dickinson (of
Iron Maiden) and
Alice Cooper. In a 2013
West End run of
Spamalot (the musical adaptation of
Monty Python's 1975 film
Monty Python and the Holy Grail), May was among the celebrities who played the part of voicing God for a week in aid of charity. In 2015, May played guitar on the end credits song "One Voice" from the film
A Dog Named Gucci. The song also features the talents of:
Norah Jones,
Aimee Mann,
Susanna Hoffs,
Lydia Loveless,
Neko Case, and
Kathryn Calder. It was produced by Dean Falcone, who wrote the film's score. "One Voice" was released on
Record Store Day, 16 April 2016, with profits from the sale of the single going to benefit animal charities. Welsh electronic musician
Jayce Lewis collaborated with May in 2018 on the song
We Are One, taken from Lewis' 2018 album release
Million. Incorporating a repurposed
Finger tapping/Hammering riff from May's solo track
Cyborg from his album;
Another World, both artists re-recorded May's guitar at a slower speed, and included it to the new song composition. On 29 March 2019, May inducted Def Leppard into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He worked with contemporary metal band
Five Finger Death Punch and blues artist
Kenny Wayne Shepherd to re-record a new version of "
Blue on Black" in support of The
Gary Sinise Foundation in April 2019. The artists came together to merge
country and
mainstream rock to re-create the classic song originally co-written by Shepherd. In 2024, May contributed guitar to a re-release of
Mark Knopfler's "
Going Home: Theme of the Local Hero" in aid of the
Teenage Cancer Trust. On 3 September 2025, May and
The Struts released a new version of The Struts' song, '
Could Have Been Me', featuring May.
Queen + Adam Lambert Not long after performing with
American Idol finalists Kris Allen and Adam Lambert during the programme's season finale in 2009, May and Taylor began contemplating the future of Queen after the group's amicable split with frontman Paul Rodgers. At the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards, Queen was presented with that year's Global Icon Award, accepted by May. As part of the broadcast, Queen performed a short set with Lambert, receiving an overwhelmingly welcoming response. performing at
the O2 Arena in December 2017 The collaboration was revived in 2013, when the three performed together at the
iHeartRadio Music Festival at the
MGM Grand Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on 20 September. Five months later, May, Taylor and Lambert announced a 19-date summer tour of North America on
Good Morning America. Because of ticket demand, five dates were soon added. In May 2014, shows in Australia and New Zealand were announced, along with festival performances in South Korea and Japan. The tour was extended to the UK and greater Europe in early 2015. The group performed together in South America in September 2015, including Queen's first performance at the
Rock in Rio Festival since 1985. 's
New World Symphony in a planet-themed segment during a June 2022 Queen + Adam Lambert concert In 2016, the group embarked across Europe and Asia on the Queen + Adam Lambert 2016 Summer Festival Tour. This included closing the
Isle of Wight Festival in England on 12 June where they performed "Who Wants to Live Forever" as a tribute to the victims of the
mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida earlier that day. On 12 September they performed at the
Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv, Israel for the first time in front of 58,000 people. In September 2018 the group had a residency in the MGM Park Theater in Las Vegas. Though the collaboration remains active, there are currently no plans to record a studio album, though the three are willing to do so in the future. On 31 March 2020, Queen + Adam Lambert confirmed that their touring dates were postponed until 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. On 4 June 2022, Queen + Adam Lambert opened the
Platinum Party at the Palace outside Buckingham Palace to mark the
Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II. Performing a three-song set, May appeared in front of the
Victoria Memorial monument as they opened with "We Will Rock You" which had been introduced in a comedy segment where the Queen and
Paddington Bear tapped their tea cups to the beat of the song.
2025 BBC Proms On 13 September 2025, May performed, alongside Roger Taylor, at the
Last Night of the Proms, joining the
BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus,
BBC Singers and
National Youth Choir for a new orchestral arrangement of "Bohemian Rhapsody", by Stuart Morley, marking the 50th anniversary of the song. ==Musicianship==