How Fat Bottomed Boys saved the Queen

It had to come from France – with their peculiar sense of humor – one of the most fun, different and infamous bands you can hear this year. I’m referring to the Fat Bottomed Boys, whose pun on Queen’s famous song is not a mere coincidence. Led by the duo Elash and The Sgt., the Fat Bottomed Boys emerged shortly before the pandemic, with the proposal to reimagine Queen’s themed universe in its most irreverent and pompous aspects.

And what we have is a collection of albums and singles that reference some of Queen’s hits, but without limiting the creativity of French musicians – which apparently has no end. In terms of recreating and emulating Freddie Mercury’s own tone of voice, the band is successful. However, the most painful thing is, without a doubt, having to decide which Queen’s favorite song is.

It’s very difficult to pick only one greatest Queen song because their work is very diverse. But if there must be only one (indeed), it would obviously be Bohemian Rhapsody, because it’s a universe-song.

Fat Bottomed Boys

What started pretty much as a unpretentious and unusual project was so well received by the audience that the French decided to keep on developing their own compositions. One of them is precisely the fierce ballad “La la la”, which, according to the band itself, was a track that was not scheduled for the album “Haters gonna Hate” (not to be confused with the classic by another queen, Taylor Swift): “We had already recorded 9 songs, with one more full day ahead of us. So, let’s make another one, 10 is a good number after all. The Sgt. had some lyrics he wrote a while ago, Elash had some chords. And voila!“, explains the Boys.

2 6 Things about Fat Bottomed Boys

RC – How is this thing about being obsessed with Queen to the point of dedicating your band to the famous 4 guys?

FBB – Do you think we should consult a shrink? We fell in love with Queen when we were young, when the Highlander movie was released. Many years later we all met when The Sgt. (our vocalist) and formed a Queen tribute band. After playing Queen’s music for many years, Elash (our guitarist) had an idea: what if we made our own songs but in the style of Queen, as a tribute 2.0? We started working on one song, then a second, and… Covid19 broke through. We were locked down, we had nothing else to do but write a full album!

RC- Have you, as ambassadors for Brian May’s guitars, had the chance to meet him in person? If so, does he reveal anything about where he gets his famous hair cut done?

FBB – Ah ah! No, we hadn’t had the chance to meet the maestro in person, yet. We sent him our albums, we even went to his house where we left some CDs in the mailbox. Thanks to a friend we were able to give our albums to his wife Anita Dobson. But we still don’t know if he has listened to them or not. And about his haircut, we’ve been told it’s a wig. He’s as bald as The Rock.

RC- First of all, “La la la” is a great ballad and the vocals are a bit reminiscent of Freddie Mercury’s style. Tell us a little about the history of this track.

FBB – The whole band went into the studio together to write and record the songs on our forthcoming album “Haters Gonna Hate”. One day before the end of the session, everyone left but The Sgt. and Elash. We had already recorded 9 songs, with one more full day ahead of us. So, let’s make another one, 10 is a good number after all. The Sgt. had some lyrics he wrote a while ago, Elash had some chords. And voila!

RC- You already have a lot of material released for an independent band. How is your show? Does the audience already know the songs or do you win over the audience with Queen covers?

FBB – When we released our first album (“Let’s do it!”) live shows were all canceled. So we did a second album. When live shows were back, postponed concerts had to be rescheduled, so it was very difficult for us to get gigs. Despite our impressive material, we are still a growing band. We have some hardcore fans who will drive long distances to see us play, it’s really incredible, but they are scattered throughout the world so it’s still difficult to pack a venue. It’s hard work promoting our gigs. But people attending seem to enjoy. We still haven’t had any cans thrown at our heads, to date.

RC- What are the next references from the Queen universe to be covered in your work?

FBB – Last year we produced the original soundtrack of a novel by the Australian writer Craig Mulhall called “The King of Rhye”. It’s an epic fantasy taking place in the world imagined by Freddie Mercury and his sister when they were young, appearing in a few songs in Queen’s early catalog. We even translated the book into French. Craig is now writing the sequel, and we will obviously do the OST as well. The book(s) and the songs are full of Queen references and will delight fans. We also reworked a Freddie Mercury song called “New York”. He did us the honor of appearing in the video, kind of. It gained some success in Brazil. We are not intending to do anything similar, but why not?

RC – What is Queen’s greatest song in your opinion?

FBB – It’s very difficult to pick only one greatest Queen song because their work is very diverse. But if there must be only one (indeed), it would obviously be Bohemian Rhapsody, because it’s a universe-song. Every Queen ingredient is in there, and it’s a masterpiece.