Brian May rules out touring with Queen again

Sir Brian May has confirmed he has no plans to tour with Queen in the future.

The 79-year-old guitar hero said he decided last year that his touring days were over because he wants more “freedom” and time with his wife Anita Dobson and their wider family.

Speaking to The Times, he explained: “I made a decision 18 months ago that I didn’t want to tour again.

“A close family friend died when we were in the States, so I said to my tour manager, ‘I’ll just nip home for a few days and come back.’ She looked me in the eyes and said, ‘You know you can’t do that.’

“I love to play, I love to travel, but the trade-off is sacrificing your freedom. I have a wife, grandchildren and a lot of astrophysics I want to do, so I’m thinking maybe 50 years is enough.”

Although May has stepped away from touring, he and bandmate Roger Taylor are exploring the idea of creating an “immersive experience” built around the group’s music. Taylor said: “We do want to do something fairly revolutionary. Not as ABBA did, but along those lines.”

May admitted he has reservations about the technology required, adding: “Last year I went to the Sphere [in Las Vegas], my juices started flowing and I sketched out a whole Queen show.

“I think an immersive experience is still on the cards and it could conquer time and space, but currently you can’t make it without AI and I have serious misgivings about that… It’s trashing our future. We all like AI. It helps us write emails. It’s even saved a few lives. But the harm it is bringing to the world is immense.”

May recently cancelled a video for his song My Angels Are Calling after discovering AI‑generated elements had been used. He said: “AI would have stolen the angels from some artist, so they had to go. We’re facing a moral dilemma: you can’t hide from this thing, but it’s turning us into a very different civilisation and personally I’m terrified. These tech billionaires do not have our interests at heart.”

Queen’s future changed dramatically after frontman Freddie Mercury died in 1991. May said: “Quite the opposite. We always said that if any of us went, that was the end.”

The band later released Made In Heaven in 1995, built from Mercury’s unreleased recordings, and eventually returned to the stage with Paul Rodgers before Adam Lambert joined in 2011. May reflected: “Then we were in a place we never thought we’d be in again: playing arenas. It always feels like conquering the world. But you’re not really conquering it: you’re just getting out there.”