May was born in Hampton, in Richmond, and attended Hampton Grammar School (now Hampton School).
May is known for being rather quiet and reserved at parties. He has stated in interviews that he suffered from depression in the late 1980s, even to the point of contemplating suicide, and that drug use would have worsened any problems he faced. At the time, during the recording sessions of the Queen album The Miracle, he was splitting up with his wife Chrissy, his father died, and as a result of Freddie Mercury's illness, Queen retired from touring.
May's father Harold had been a long-time cigarette-smoker, and this likely contributed to his early death. As a result, May dislikes smoking, even to the point where he specifically prohibits smoking indoors at his more recent concerts.
His avoidance of alcohol can be traced to an early concert where Queen played with the band Aerosmith, and May had a conversation with fellow guitarist Joe Perry backstage. Perry brought out a bottle of whisky, which the two drank between themselves. May felt so unpleasant during the concert that he promised himself that he would never have more than one drink before playing.
May married actress Anita Dobson, who played Angie Watts in EastEnders, on November 18, 2000. He has three children: James (Jimmy) (1978), Louisa (1981), and Emily Ruth (1987) from his first marriage to Chrissy Mullens. May lives in West End, Surrey (as of 12 October 2006 - Woking News and Mail).
May has played a range of guitars, most often the "Red Special," which he designed with his father, Harold May, and built with wood from a 19th century fireplace.In addition to using his home-made guitar he prefers to use coins (especially a sixpence), instead of a more traditional plastic plectrum, on the basis that their rigidity gives him more control in playing. He is known to carry coins in his pockets specifically for this purpose.
May's early heroes were Cliff Richard and The Shadows, who he says were "the most metallic thing out at the time." Many years later he gained his opportunity to play on separate occasions with both Cliff Richard and Shadows lead guitarist Hank Marvin. He has collaborated with Cliff Richard on a re-recording of the Cliff Richard and The Shadows (then known as The Drifters) 1958 hit "Move It" on the Cliff Richard duets album Two's Company which was released on 6 November 2006.
May was proud upon hearing that Cliff Richard had mentioned in an interview that he would have Brian May in his personal fantasy band. As well as recording with Hank Marvin, May also contributed to the 1996 album Twang!: A Tribute to Hank Marvin & the Shadows, playing FBI. The album featured many other renowned guitarists.
In Queen's three-part vocal harmonies, his was generally the lower-range backing vocal. On some of his songs he sings the lead vocal, most notably the first verse of Who Wants to Live Forever, and also "Some Day One Day," "All Dead, All Dead," "Long Away," "Leaving Home Ain't Easy," "Good Company," "Sleeping on the Sidewalk" and "'39."
On October 22, 2000, Brian May made a guest appearance at the Motörhead 25th Anniversary show at Brixton Academy along with Eddie Clark (former Motörhead guitarist) for the encore song Bomber.
Throughout recent years, he has overseen 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 has played throughout 2005 and 2006 in South Africa, Europe, Aruba, Japan, and North America.
In the Queen's birthday honours list of 2005, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire "for services to the music industry".
During the time in which Brian May and his father were building the Red Special, May also produced plans to build a second guitar. However, so successful was the Red Special, that May simply had no need to build another guitar. These plans were eventually given to guitar luthier Andrew Guyton in around 2004/05, some slight modifications were made and the guitar was built. It was named "The Spade", as the shape of the body resembled the form shown on playing cards. However the guitar also came to be known as "The Guitar That Time Forgot". As yet, this guitar has not been used in any recordings and remains in May's possession.
Brian May began composing in 1968/1969, and has covered a wide variety of styles during his career. Through the years he has collaborated with other songwriters, including Frank Musker, with whom he wrote "Too Much Love Will Kill You", and with Elizabeth Lamers, whose music won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically & Lyrically in 1996. A meticulous arranger, he focuses on multi-part harmonies, often more contrapuntal than parallel — a rarity for rock guitar. Examples are found in Queen's albums A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, where he arranged a jazz band for guitar mini-orchestra ("Good Company"), a vocal canon ("The Prophet's Song") and guitar and vocal counterpoints ("Teo Torriatte").
May explored a wide variety of styles in guitar, including sweep picking ("Was It All Worth It"), tapping ("Bijou","It's Late","Resurrection", "Cyborg"), Hendrix sounding licks ("Liar", "Brighton Rock") and melodic parts ("Bohemian Rhapsody", "Killer Queen", "These Are the Days of Our Lives"). Some of his solos and orchestral parts were composed by Freddie Mercury, who then asked May to bring them to life ("Bicycle Race", "Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon").[citation needed] May also performed notable acoustic works, including "Love of My Life" from 1975's A Night at the Opera, the fingerpicked solo of "White Queen", and the skiffle-influenced "'39".
Aided by the uniqueness of his guitar—the Red Special—May was often able to create strange and unusual sound effects. For example, he was able to imitate an orchestra in the song "Procession", in "Get Down, Make Love", he was able to create sound effects with his guitar that were so unusual that many thought a synthesizer was being used. In "Good Company" he used his guitar to mimic a trombone, a piccolo and several other instruments for the song's Dixieland jazz band feel.
May's abilities are not restricted to one instrument. During his Queen days he performed ukulele ("Good Company" and "Bring Back That Leroy Brown") and sometimes piano, detaching on a soft and gentle style ("All Dead, All Dead", "Save Me", "Dear Friends"). He also played part of the synthesizer intro to "One Vision". He recorded some other instruments (maracas, banjo, etc), including the harp on "Love of My Life", which was recorded in overdubs and mixed to sound as one performance.
May is also an accomplished singer. His wide vocal range went from notes around low A (110 Hz) to very high tenor Ds and Es (mostly in his solo career). Occasionally he contributed falsetto parts as well ("Ogre Battle", "Why Don't We Try Again"). From Queen's Queen II to Hot Space, May contributed lead vocals to at least one song per album.The Brian May Band was officially formed in late October 1992, following the release of his album Back to the Light.
A proto version of the band was loosely formed 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 (Lead Vocals & Lead Guitar), Cozy Powell (Drums & Percussion), Mike Moran (Keyboards), Rick Wakeman (Keyboards), Maggie Ryder (Backing Vocals), Miriam Stockley (Backing Vocals) and Chris Thompson (Backing Vocals).
Following the death of Freddie Mercury in November 1991, May chose to deal with his grief by committing himself as fully as possible to work, first by finishing his solo album 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.
The original line-up was Brian May (Lead Vocals and Lead Guitar), Cozy Powell (Drums and Percussion), Mike Caswell (Guitar), Neil Murray (Bass), Maggie Ryder (Backing Vocals), Miriam Stockley (Backing Vocals) and Chris Thompson (Backing Vocals). This version of the band lasted only during the South American support tour (supporting The B-52's and Joe Cocker) on only five dates. Afterwards, May made significant changes, feeling the group never quite gelled.
Most significantly, May brought guitarist Jamie Moses on board to replace Mike Caswell. May considered Moses a perfect fit to the band. The other change made was in the backing vocal department. Ryder, Stockley and Thompson are replaced with 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, both supporting Guns N' Roses and headlining a few dates. The tour would take them through North America, Europe and Japan.
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 album.
In 1995, May began working towards a new solo album of covers tentatively named Heroes, in addition to working on various film and television projects and other collaborations. May subsequently changed the approach of his second album from covers to focus on those collaborations and on new material. The songs recorded for that album, Another World would feature mainly Edney, Powell, Murray and Moses, who had become his core support/collaborative team.
On 5 April 1998, Cozy Powell was killed in a car accident on the M4 motorway near Bristol, England. This caused a huge, unexpected dent in the upcoming tour for The Brian May Band, with the need for a new drummer on short notice. Steve Ferrone was brought on to help May finish recording drums for the title track "Another World" and to join the band for the early stage promotional tour of five dates in Europe before the world tour.
The line up was then Brian May (Lead Vocals & Lead Guitar), Spike Edney (Keyboards), Neil Murray (Bass), Jamie Moses (Guitar), Steve Ferrone (Drums & Percussion), Susie Webb (Backing Vocals) and Zoe Nicholas (Backing Vocals). Following the early promo tour, Eric Singer replaced Steve Ferrone for the full 1998 world tour. The band then consisted of Brian May (Lead Vocals & Lead Guitar), Spike Edney (Keyboards), Neil Murray (Bass), Jamie Moses (Guitar), Eric Singer (Drums & Percussion), Susie Webb (Backing Vocals) and Zoe Nicholas (Backing Vocals).
In 2005, Edney and Moses were recruited along with Danny Miranda (Bass) to join the Queen + Paul Rodgers tour, to fill the roles of keyboard player and second guitarist respectively.
May studied astrophysics at Imperial College London, graduating with a B.Sc. (Hons) degree, and then proceeded to study for a Ph.D.. He studied at the Imperial College London departments of Physics and Mathematics, and was part way through a Ph.D programme, studying reflected light from interstellar dust and the velocity of dust in the plane of the Solar System, when Queen became successful. He abandoned his physics doctorate - temporarily, as it later turned out - but did co-author two scientific research papers: MgI Emission in the Night-Sky Spectrum (1972) and An Investigation of the Motion of Zodiacal Dust Particles (Part I) (1973), which were based on May's observations in Tenerife. More than 30 years after he started his research, in October 2007 he completed his Ph.D. thesis, entitled A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud, passed his viva voce, performed corrections and obtained the formal conferment of the degree.
Most recently, he was the co-author of “Bang! – The Complete History of the Universe” with Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott, which was published in October, 2006.
On July 19th 2007, Brian May was appointed as Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University.
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