Photos by Hunter Desportes – The Young Americans tour at the Washington DC Capital Centre on 11 November 1974. via Flickr. CC./ Monosnaps – Freddie Mercury 1979 Dublin via Flickr. CC.
Queen’s former roadie claimed that David Bowie and the band recorded more songs in the “Under Pressure” studio sessions, but the songs remain hidden away.
Peter Hince, the head of Queen’s road crew, said that he was in the studio when Bowie and the band recorded the hit “Under Pressure” and the additional unreleased tracks. Hince’s account of the events will be published in an upcoming book by Neil Crosser, called David Bowie: I was there. In an excerpt from the book Hince recalled the collaboration:
They…performed some original songs they did together and also covers. They were just jamming in the studio and it all got recorded – “All the Young Dudes,” “All the Way from Memphis” and various rock classics.
Hince then spoke with the Guardian, confirming that the rumors of the songs were true.
There’s stuff with Freddie and David singing together – proper full-length rock’n’roll tracks…Raw, but good…They just started knocking things around. They did cover versions [and] a few of their own things…They came back the next day and then recorded what eventually became Under Pressure. But there were other things recorded during that period, which were never finished or mixed. David did vocals on some of the other tracks which ended up not being used. So somewhere there is an archive.
Although Hince said there are no fully mixed tracks, there do lie completed recordings of some tracks and he also speculated on why they never surfaced.
I can categorically say I know that there were complete tracks, not mixed tracks, but fully formed songs that were done. Does it belong to the David Bowie estate or to Queen? That’s probably part of the reason these things have never come to light.