Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Holly Johnson believes the late Freddie Mercury would have been miffed about Relax beating Queen’s Radio Ga Ga to No.1.
Relax only entered the UK Top 75 singles chart in November 1983 and made its way into the Top 40 in January 1984. Three weeks later it topped the chart, replacing Paul McCartney’s Pipes of Peace.
Holly admits the chart defeat probably felt “like a knife through the heart for poor” Queen frontman Freddie.
Taking part in NME’s Does Rock ‘N’ Roll Kill Braincells?! quiz, he recalled of ’80s: “It was highly competitive, and no one liked being usurped in the charts or magazine covers, because it was all considered so important. The fact that ‘Relax’ kept Queen’s ‘Radio Ga Ga’ off Number One must have been like a knife through the heart for poor Freddie [Mercury], because no one had heard of us the week before.”
Holly confessed that he and Freddie were never that close but they crossed paths at gay bars regularly.
Asked if he ever discussed the chart battle with the Bohemian Rhapsody hitmaker, he said: “No, we exchanged looks in gay bars – but they were friendly looks! I was shy and would go to gay bars on my own, so I wouldn’t approach Freddie with his entourage. We weren’t best mates, put it that way. We smiled at each other, though.”
Elsewhere, Holly admitted it’s unlikely that a full brand reunion will take place after Frankie Goes To Hollywood reunited to perform their 1984 song Welcome to the Pleasuredome at the opening ceremony of the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest in their home city of Liverpool.
The singer said of the one-off reunion: “The lead-up was exhausting. The preamble between Universal Records, who bought the Frankie and ZTT label, and the amount of emails that went on was ridiculous. When I actually got into the rehearsal room with the band, everything was fine. It was like it had been all those years ago, and Mark [O’Toole] and Paul [Rutherford] did their ‘Ooh-ahhs’ [backing vocals], and I did the vocal of the video version that I’d been performing for 10 years, so it was absolutely fine. It was not ‘closure’; it was just good to see everyone and no one was hostile. The Eurovision Song Contest being held in Liverpool seemed a big enough moment for Frankie Goes to Hollywood to turn up.”
Asked if they could reform, he replied: “I can’t see it happening. It could have done after that event. Promoters were offering things, but not all the members were on board and that’s OK. It’s always ‘never say never’, but we’re all getting a bit long in the tooth so it’s unlikely.”