PAST PLEASURES FUTURE SHOCKS

As he releases his expanded Star Fleet Project box set, Brian May expounds on Eddie Van Halen's role in it, the future of Queen and the dangers Al poses for music in the coming year.

- GARY GRAFF

TALKING TO A rock star usually isn't rocket science. Unless you're talking to Brian Mayer, that would be Dr. Brian May to you. The Queen guitarist - who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II - is a bona fide PhD astrophysicist. He was studying at London's Imperial College as his group was forming and launching in the early 1970s, then returned to his education in the mid '00s, receiving the advanced degree in May 2008. Since then, he's been as active in the scientific realm as he is in music. "I do stereophotography for various unmanned missions to the objects in the solar system," he tells GP via Zoom from his home England. "So hooked into various NASA and ESA [European Space Agency] missions, which is great."

He pauses and offers a slight smile. "I can't believe I'm saying this, 'cause it was a dream when I was a kid that I would work with people who are real astrophysicists and space explorers. But now I get to do it, which is wonderful. It takes up a lot of time, a lot of energy, but I wouldn't lose it. I wouldn't walk away from it for the world."

May, at 76, is actually a case study in being able to have it all including, of course, the music. Since the death of singer Freddie Mercury in 1991, he and Queen drummer Roger Taylor have kept the group's legacy alive in other permutations-with Paul Rodgers, from 2004 to 2009, and, since 2011, with American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert, who has demonstrated an astounding ability to channel Mercury's flamboyance and vocal chops onstage. As a result, Queen remain a going concern, even 15 years since their last new music, 2008's Rock the Cosmos, with Rodgers.