John Deacon

John Richard Deacon was the bassist for the rock band Queen. He was the youngest member of the band. Of the four members of Queen, he wrote the fewest songs; however, several of his compositions were big hits, such as "You're My Best Friend", "Another One Bites the Dust", and "I Want to Break Free". He played rhythm and acoustic guitars on several albums as well as occasional keyboards.

Biography

He first attended Langmoor Junior School before moving to Gartree High School and Beauchamp Grammar School. It was here that he formed his first band, The Opposition in 1965 at the age of fourteen. He played a rhythm guitar bought with money loaned by one of the other band members. He became the bassist after the original bassist was fired for not being of the same quality of the rest of the band. As well as a dedicated musician Deacon also was the band's archivist, taking clippings from newspapers of even the advertisements featuring The Opposition. After being in the band for four years, Deacon played his final concert with the band (now called The Art) in August 1969. He left as he had been accepted to study electronics at Chelsea College.

Although he left his bass and amplifier at home in Oadby, Leicester after less than a year in London, he decided he wanted to join a band. By this time Queen had already been formed by Brian May, Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor, and Deacon even saw them in October of 1970. In early 1971 he was introduced to Taylor and May by a friend at a disco who told him that they were in a band that had just lost its bassist. A couple of days later he auditioned in a lecture room at Imperial College London and became the last member of Queen to join the band. Since the band's last bassist drew attention away from Mercury, Deacon was selected for his musical talent, his quiet demeanour and his electrical skills. A persistent legend claims Deacon was the seventh bassist auditioned.

On Queen's first album he was credited as "Deacon John". Not long after its release he requested that he be referred to by his proper name.

His first writing credit did not come until Queen's third album, Sheer Heart Attack. The song Stone Cold Crazy is credited to the band Queen as a whole. The first song Deacon wrote on his own was the song Misfire from the same album, a pleasant, Caribbean-themed song that garnered little attention. He would achieve much greater success with his second song, You're My Best Friend, which went on to be an international hit.

He was the 'quiet' member of the band, and the others said that he was in charge of most of the finances. His last public appearance with the band was at an AIDS Charity event in 1997, and his last direct involvement with Queen, was with the recording of No-One But You.

He has made it clear that he endorses the 'Queen' projects put forward by Brian May and Roger Taylor, and was partially involved in the early stages of the preparation for the We Will Rock You musical. But currently, Deacon has retired from the music scene, and even declined to participate in a 2005 Queen reunion tour. According to The Sun, he was not impressed with Robbie Williams's version of We Are the Champions, recorded for A Knight's Tale and he was also less than pleased with the re-make of We Will Rock You done by Britney Spears, Pink and Beyoncé with Brian May and Roger Taylor for a UK Pepsi television commercial in 2004.

He lives in Putney in south west London with his wife Veronica. The two have six children. Robert, born on July 18th, 1975, Michael, born on February 3rd, 1978, Laura, born on June 25th, 1979, Joshua, born on December 13th,1983, Luke, born on December 5th, 1992, and Cameron, born on November 7th, 1993.

John Deacon occasionally visits the Queen fan club to keep up to date with the world of Queen but remains an elusive character. He enjoys drinking tea, playing golf, and music wise "likes a bit of everything". According to The Sunday Times Rich List he was worth £50 million in 2004.

As a trained electrical engineer, he often used to jimmy up equipment for the band. His most famous creation is the "Deacy Amp", used by Brian May.

Singing

Deacon is the only member of Queen never to sing any lead vocals on any of their tracks, even admitting in interviews that he was incapable of competing with the three strong vocalists in the group. John Deacon was never credited with doing backing vocals on albums yet in interviews (for instance, an interview with former Queen's producer, Roy Thomas Baker) it was said that he sung backing vocals for the less operatic harmonies (e.g. Tie Your Mother Down, Liar, In The Lap Of The Gods....Revisited and some parts of Somebody To Love). John Deacon though definitely did sing backing vocals live as four voices were needed to get the effect of the numerous voices on the album recordings. It is quite obvious though that his microphone was lower than the others as his voice is quite hard to distinguish at times, though there have been occasions (Earls Court 77) when his microphone was turned up louder than Brian May's and Roger Taylor's by accident. John also sang into Freddie Mercury's microphone during the middle bridge of Liar when it was performed live as a testament to the film clip in which he does the same thing. Another instance where he did sing backing vocals was Houston Summit 1977 on the slow version of We Will Rock You as his voice was singing in the same key as Freddie Mercury's whilst Brian May sang a tone higher than Mercury and Deacon and Roger Taylor sang the highest pitch.

Discography: singles

Queen songs John Deacon wrote that were released as singles:

"You're My Best Friend" from A Night At The Opera, written for his wife, Veronica.
"Spread Your Wings" from News of the World
"Another One Bites The Dust" and "Need Your Loving Tonight" from The Game
"Back Chat" from Hot Space
"I Want to Break Free" from The Works
"Friends Will Be Friends", "Pain Is So Close to Pleasure" (both cowritten with Freddie Mercury) and "One Year of Love" from A Kind of Magic

Album tracks:

"Misfire" from Sheer Heart Attack
"If You Can't Beat Them" and "In Only Seven Days" from Jazz
"Execution Of Flash" and "Arboria" from Flash Gordon
"Cool Cat" from Hot Space (co-written with Freddie Mercury)
"One Year Of Love" from A Kind of Magic
"Rain Must Fall" (lyrics by Mercury)
"My Life Has Been Saved"

His only solo effort:

The Immortals: No Turning Back (single from Biggles soundtrack) (1986)

Highlights

Mostly, Deacon's compositions varied from pop rock to funk. Though he did not write many songs (usually only one or two an album), he has been responsible for three of Queen largest hits: 'You're My Best Friend' (from A Night at the Opera), 'Another One Bites the Dust' (from The Game) and 'I Want to Break Free' (from The Works). To this day 'You're My Best Friend' is one of the most played songs on American radio.

As a bass player his most notable works include Another One Bites the Dust (recently voted greatest bass riff ever on an online poll), Brighton Rock, The March Of The Black Queen, You're My Best Friend, The Millionaire Waltz, We Are the Champions, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Under Pressure, and Dragon Attack. As a guitar player, he did some interesting rhythm-playing in songs like Staying Power (both live and in the studio) and Back Chat, as well as lead parts in Another One Bites the Dust and Misfire and Spanish acoustic fills in Who Needs You (in which guitarist Brian May played maracas). May was credited as saying that John was the best rhythm player in the band.

His other main instrument was double bass, which he recorded for Brian May's 1975 song '39. May had asked him to play upright bass as a joke but a couple of days later he found Deacon in the studio with the instrument, and he had already learned to play it. John Deacon's contributions in keyboards were mostly just background chords; his most notable work is in his composition 'You're My Best Friend', which was the first song he wrote on the electric piano. John also played triangle in live versions of 'Killer Queen' (it hung off his microphone) and some piano.

Gear

John Deacon's first bass was an Eko; he later got a Rickenbacker, which is what he used for his audition for Queen, the very first concerts and the recording sessions at De Lane Lea in 1971. When the band begun recording at Trident he had problems with it and acquired a Fender Precision 1967 model with silver logo and sunburst finish, which became his main instrument for the last concerts in '72 and all the '73-'75 tours. As a back-up he had another one of the same model but black logo. Before the beginning of A Night At The Opera sessions he stripped off the paint of both, left them natural finish, and switched them, from then on the black logo one would be his main for most tours and recordings.

In early 1977 Deacon got two new basses: a Fender Precision Fretless, which he used for '39 on stage (emulating the double bass) and a Musicman Stingray which he used as main for A Day At The Races tour and some videos. From News Of The World tour until The Works tour in 1985 the Musicman would remain for just specific numbers (Sheer Heart Attack, Another One Bites The Dust and Back Chat), and used sometimes in the studio as well. The fretless type kept being used for '39 and My Melancholy Blues live until the end of the decade.

During late '77, at the beginnings of News Of The World tour in the States, he tried another Fender P-Bass, a 1954 model, but eventually gave it up and returned to the black logo '67 model. The old Fender kept being used occasionally as back-up, in the recordings of Coming Soon (1979) and in the video of Back Chat (1982).

In 1980 Kramer made him a custom bass, which he used as back-up for some tours and in videos (e.g. Play The Game, Las Palabras De Amor). Next year Fender gave him a special prototype model which Deacon used for recording Under Pressure and performing it during the 1981-1985 period.

A new Fender P-Bass came to his hands: a red Elite 1, which he used for mimed performances, some videos and recordings (e.g. One Vision). In 1986 John Deacon got a Warwick Buzzard, used for some videos and mimed performances, but not on recordings. Before Magic Tour he refurbished and sprayed black his beloved Precision and continued using it as main (e.g. Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, No-One But You).

His last (known) bass acquisition was a Giffin in 1987, used for some guest appearances live, videos and probably some recordings too.

For other instruments, John Deacon mostly used Telecaster and Stratocaster guitars, his main was a custom Tele which he used on stage. In the recordings of Misfire he demonstrated he too could play guitar harmonies. For acoustic he mostly used Martin D-18 and Ovation. The piano he played in Another One Bites The Dust was a Bösendorfer and in You're My Best Friend a Wurlitzer. For synths he used OBX, Jupiter 8 and DX-7.

References