John Deacon
John Richard Deacon (born August 19, 1951 in Oadby , Leicestershire ) is a former British musician. He became known as the bassist for the British rock band Queen , for whom he also wrote songs like Another One Bites the Dust , I Want to Break Free and Spread Your Wings . He has not appeared in public since 1997.
Life
Youth and Studies
John Deacon grew up in Oadby, a suburb of Leicester in the British county of Leicestershire. His father Arthur Henry Deacon worked for the Norwich Union insurance company . He often took him fishing and train spotting . When he was seven, John was given a red Tommy Steel Special plastic guitar. The Beatles in particular inspired him. When Deacon was eleven years old, his father died unexpectedly, leaving the mother, Lilian Molly Deacon, alone to provide for a living.
At fifteen, John formed his first band The Opposition, where he played rhythm guitar . When the bassist was fired due to lack of skills, Deacon switched to the electric bass . At the same time he archived all newspaper articles about the band. After four years, Deacon played his last concert in August 1969 with the band, which had since been renamed The Art. He left the group because he was admitted to the Chelsea College of Science and Technology, a now defunct part of the University of London , where he was studying electrical engineering .
During his exams he founded the band Deacon, which consisted of Peter Stoddart on guitar, Don Cartner on drums and Albert, also guitar, as a bassist. The band existed from October 1970 to early 1971. In October 1970 Deacon saw a performance by Queen.
Queen
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After completing his studies, he had accepted a position as a part-time teacher at an elementary school, which he kept during the first time with Queen. At the beginning of 1971 he was visiting a disco at the Maria Assumpta Teacher Training College with Peter Stoddart and his girlfriend Christine Farnell, when Farnell introduced him to three men: Roger Taylor , Brian May and John Harris, the then Queen Roadie .
At that time the band was looking for a bass player. After auditioning in a lecture hall at Imperial College in February 1971 , he received the position, becoming the fourth Queen member. This completed the line-up for Queen, which remained unchanged until Freddie Mercury's death in 1991. At 19, Deacon was the youngest of the four band members.
In the documentary broadcast by VOX on the 40th anniversary of Queen, he is described as reserved and calm and, among other things. a. is also mentioned that while at Queen he suffered from depression and was taking antidepressants . In the booklet to Queen's debut album Queen he was listed as Deacon John to "make him sound more interesting". On the following album Queen II he was then performed as John Deacon.
It was only on the third album Sheer Heart Attack that a John Deacon composition entitled Misfire was released. Among the few songs he wrote for the group, there are two of the biggest hits of the band, Another One Bites the Dust of 1980, which made it to the top of the US charts, and I Want to Break Free from in 1984. After Mercury's death, Deacon only appeared on three other gigs with other remaining band members:
- On April 20, 1992, during the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert held in honor of Mercury and for the fight against AIDS ,
- on September 18, 1993 with Roger Taylor at a festival in Cowdray Park , which also included Genesis , Eric Clapton , Paul Young and Pink Floyd ,
- on January 17, 1997 with Taylor, May and Elton John as lead singer with the song The Show Must Go On on the occasion of the opening gala for the ballet Le Presbytère n'a rien perdu de son charme, ni le jardin de son éclat by Maurice Béjart . The theme of this piece relates to AIDS and the early death of Mercury and Jorge Donn , the company's first dancer. A recording of the performance was released on Queen's Greatest Hits III album.
After Queen
He then withdrew completely from the music business, but was still involved in the early preparatory phase of the musical We Will Rock You . In 2001 the British tabloid The Sun reported that he was not impressed by Robbie Williams ' interpretation of the Queen's hit We Are the Champions ; Williams had re-recorded the piece together with Brian May and Roger Taylor for the film Knight Out of Passion . Although Deacon does not participate in the tours running under the name Queen + Paul Rodgers, among others, from 2005 , he tolerates Taylor and May being active under the name "Queen".
He lives in southwest London with his wife Veronica Agnes Mary Tetzlaff, whom he married in Kensington in 1975 and with whom he has five sons and a daughter. Deacon's net worth was estimated at £ 65 million in 2011 .
Meaning for Queen
Instruments
John Deacon is an important bassist who, together with drummer Roger Taylor, gave the band's complex songs a reliable, rhythmic backbone. Some of his particularly noteworthy pieces as a bassist include:
- The March of the Black Queen
- Brighton Rock
- Liar
- You're my best friend
- The Millionaire Waltz
- Crazy Little Thing Called Love
- Sail Away Sweet Sister
- Another one bites the dust
- Under pressure
- Radio Ga Ga
- I'm going slightly mad
- Back chat
- Dragon Attack
- Don't stop me now
He played mostly a Fender Precision Bass or the occasional Music Man StingRay bass , both in the studio and at live performances . At times he also played other instruments, such as an acoustic guitar in the songs Who Needs You and Spread Your Wings , although he also played the piano in the music video for Spread Your Wings . His band mates have also called Deacon an excellent rhythm guitarist . In this role he can be heard in Staying Power (live) or Back Chat .
In '39 he played the double bass (as in Bring Back That Leroy Brown ) . Brian May had actually asked him to learn the instrument just for fun. But a few days later he met Deacon with it in the studio, who was already playing it at this point. Most of his keyboard contributions are limited to background chords. In You're My Best Friend , he used an electric piano . It was the first song he had written on a keyboard.
Deacon is the only member of the band who has never sung on a Queen album. He himself said in interviews that he was unable to keep up with the remaining three strong singers in the group. On some music videos , he sometimes moved his lips to match the singing. At live concerts, however, he contributed backing vocals to some of the songs , and his microphone was usually set a little quieter than that of the other band members. From 1980 he also played synthesizers on numerous pieces . In the video for One Vison from 1985, you can see him sitting on the drums.
Songwriting
Other songs besides Another One Bites the Dust (1980, album The Game ) and I Want to Break Free (1984, album The Works ) , which Deacon wrote alone or with band members, are the following:
- 1974: Sheer Heart Attack : Misfire ; Stone Cold Crazy
- 1975: A Night at the Opera : You're My Best Friend
- 1976: A Day at the Races : You and I
- 1977: News of the World : Spread Your Wings ; Who Needs You
- 1978: Jazz : If You Can't Beat Them ; In Only Seven Days
- 1980: The Game : Need Your Loving Tonight
- 1980: Flash Gordon - Original Soundtrack Music : Execution of Flash ; Arboria (Planet of the Tree Men)
- 1982: Hot Space : Back Chat ; Cool Cat (co-author Mercury)
- 1984: The Works - I want to break free
- 1986: A Kind of Magic : One Year of Love ; Pain Is So Close to Pleasure (co-authored by Mercury); Friends Will Be Friends (co-author Mercury)
- 1989: The Miracle : Rain Must Fall ; My Baby Does Me (co-author Mercury)
My Life Has Been Saved was released in 1989 as the b-side of the single Scandal ; a revised version is included on the 1995 album Made in Heaven . As with all songs from 1989, the composer's name is “Queen”; De facto, according to the producer, the piece was written by John Deacon.
further activities
Due to mismanagement, the band had hardly any earnings at first. After Elton John's manager had rehabilitated Queen's financial situation for a year, the band started working independently. Deacon took care of business matters.
Through his electrical engineering studies, he was able to tinker with the band's technical equipment more often and thus positively influence their performance. The best-known result of this is a special amplifier , the so-called Deacy Amp , which Deacon (for the guitar recordings for Misfire ) and occasionally Brian May used for his Red Special .
Other Projects
One of the few larger solo projects by John Deacon was the single No Turning Back , released in May 1986 under the band name The Immortals , which comes from the soundtrack of the film The Biggles Effect (original title: Biggles ). The song was written and produced by Deacon together with Robert Ahwai . The group The Immortals with Ahwai, Deacon and Lenny Zakatek was founded especially for this project in March 1986. In June of the same year the album was released with the soundtrack. The film by John Hough with Neil Dickson , Alex Hyde-White and Peter Cushing premiered in Germany on June 19, 1986.
John Deacon was involved in the following projects of other musicians:
| year | Interpreter | song | Sound carrier | Deacon's contribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Man Friday & Jive Junior | Picking Up Sounds | Picking Up Sounds (Single) | Co-author, bass |
| 1984 | Roger Taylor | It's an illusion | Strange Frontier (album) | bass |
| 1984 | Roger Taylor | I Cry for You (Remix), I Cry for You (Extended Mix) | Strange Frontier (7 "or 12" single) | Remix (together with Mack ) |
| 1985 | Elton John | Too Young | Ice on Fire (album) | Bass (drums: Roger Taylor) |
| 1986 | Elton John | Angeline | Leather Jackets (Album) | Bass (drums: Roger Taylor) |
| 1986 | The Immortals | No Turning Back (various mixes) | No Turning Back (Single), Biggles (Soundtrack Album) | Bass, co-writer, producer |
| 1986 | Minako Honda | Roulette (a new version of No Turning Back without Deacon's involvement) | Cancel (album) | Song writer |
| 1987 | Anita Dobson | I Dream of Christmas | I Dream of Christmas (Single), Talking of Love (Album) | Bass (Author, Production: Brian May) |
| 1987 | Bad news | Bohemian Rhapsody | Bohemian Rhapsody (Single), Bad News (Album) | Backing Vocals (with producer Brian May) |
| 1988 | Morris Minor and the Majors | Stutter Rap (No Sleep Til Bedtime) | Stutter Rap (No Sleep Til Bedtime) (video clip) | Appearance in the video |
| 1988 | Morris Minor and the Majors | This is the chorus | This Is the Chorus (video clip) | Appearance in the video |
| 1988 | Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé | How Can I Go On | Barcelona (album), How Can I Go On (single) | bass |
| 1988 | The Prince's Trust Rock Concert | The Letter (live) | The Prince's Trust Rock Concert | Bass (guitar: Brian May; vocals: Joe Cocker ) |
| 1989 | Ian & Belinda | Who Wants to Live Forever (multiple versions) | Who Wants to Live Forever (7 "or 12" benefit single for the British Bone Marrow Donor Appeal) | Bass (production, guitar: Brian May; drums: Roger Taylor) |
| 1992 | Brian May | Notin 'But Blue | Back to the Light (Album) | bass |
| 1992 | Cozy Powell | Somewhere in Time (the instrumental version of Mays Nothin 'But Blue ) | The Drums Are Back (Album) | bass |
| 1994 | Steve Gregory | Bushfire | Bushfire (album) | bass |
| 1997 | SAS tape | That's the Way God Planned It | SAS Band (Album) | Bass (drums: a.o. Roger Taylor; vocals: R. Taylor, Tony Hadley , Chris Thompson and others) |
literature
- Jacky Gunn, Jim Jenkins: Queen. As It Began. Sidgwick & Jackson, London 1992, ISBN 0-283-06052-2 (German edition: Queen. Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, Munich 1992. ISBN 3-442-42083-0 )
Web links
- Queen Archives: John Deacon Interviews ( Memento of July 11, 2007 in the web archive archive.today ) - Interviews ( English )
- The Legendary Deacy Amp - Details for "Deacy Amp" ( english )
- John Deacon in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ thisismoney.co.uk: The top 50 richest people in music: Sunday Times Rich List
- ↑ Single No Turning Back . Allmusic
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Deacon, John |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Deacon, John Richard (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English bass player and composer for the rock band Queen |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 19, 1951 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Leicester |