“I owe so much to him”: Brian May names the master of the mood change

Posted On April 13, 2025April 13, 2025

Brian May is often considered to have been an innovator when it came to guitar playing, and the touches that he so deftly applied to the compositions of Freddie Mercury were rightly celebrated for how intricate and creative they were. Of course, there are several other examples of guitarists who could do everything that May did and more, but the amount of feeling and emotion that was packed into every one of his performances was always going to be the major selling point.

This is ultimately what Queen were all about – passion. Regardless of how you feel about them as a group, you can hardly listen to a single one of their songs and say that there isn’t a sense of drama, emotional outpour and vigour that is thrown in, and at the centre of all of this was Brian May’s impeccable guitar work. It’s regular for a rock band with such bombast about them to employ two guitarists to play off one another, but May was able to do it all by himself.

So many of their songs play out like miniature epics, and while tracks such as ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ might immediately spring to mind as examples of songs that flit between disparate sections, there are actually countless Queen songs that do the same and more in a shorter space of time. The sophisticated ways in which the band managed to manoeuvre from one mood to another were always exquisite, and while it was largely down to Mercury’s labyrinthine compositions, May always knew how to match it in his guitar work.

A perfect example of how the band shifted from section to section seamlessly in a song was ‘Seven Seas of Rhye’, and while not quite as complex as ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ in its structure, it follows an unusual route in that it doesn’t follow the traditional verse-chorus-verse pattern that most popular music forces itself to pursue. While this is an odd move for a band to make when choosing to put out a single, there was enough excitement for listeners to sink their teeth into that was enough for it to succeed.

One of the most exceptional things about the track is how the band changes mood throughout its scant three-minute runtime. From starting with a euphoric piano line and May’s epic note bends on guitar before moving into glam rock territory, followed by an almost prog-rock or jazz fusion lead section, then a pop opera. It’s chaotic to say the least, and yet the band pull it off with aplomb with so much flair thrown into every key change and tempo shift.

These mood shifts, however, were something that May attributed to the influence of another guitarist, without whom May would probably not have had the foresight to attempt several of the moves. In a 2023 interview with Total Guitar, he admitted that there was one player who he considered a master of this technique and chose to sing his praises. 

“We wanted to take people off into the stratosphere,” May said of the compositional choices that went into making ‘Seven Seas of Rhye’. “It’s always been that way with us. We were inspired by our heroes to do that, and I put The Who way up top of that list. Pete Townshend is the master of mood change, a master of the suspended chord. I owe so much to him.”

With the Who being a perfect example of another act that were able to squeeze so many ideas into the space of a short song and not make things feel convoluted, it’s understandable why May regards his counterpart in Pete Townshend so highly. Considering the band’s flair for high-concept drama was such as big part of their most successful records, you’re able to see how the two complement each other so well, and how the guitar work of Townshend was such a big influence on ‘Seven Seas of Rhye’.

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