The restoration of the monarchy

HE may be speaking from a plush hotel in Budapest as he prepares for the latest stop on a sell-out worldwide tour, but Paul Rodgers has never lost track of his North-East roots. The man who has sold more than 125 million records and is now charged with filling Freddie Mercury's famous white jump-suit will always be a Boro boy.

It is almost 40 years since he left Teesside to embark on the musical career that has encompassed 28 albums, several top ten hits and a Grammy nomination, and now sees him fronting one of the biggest rock bands of all time. Years of travelling have given his accent an undeniable American edge, but he maintains a Teesside twang and his affinity for the area is as strong as ever.

So when he takes to the stage at Newcastle's Metro Arena next week, with friends and family among the thousands in the audience, it could be one of the highlights of his illustrious career. Everything really will be All Right Now for a man who started out singing the blues.

Rodgers was born in December, 1949, in Grove Hill, Middlesbrough, and spent his early years living on the estate. "I remember as a kid memorising that - 25 Grove Hill, Middlesbrough - in case I ever got lost," he says. "We used to wander the streets, go to the park; we had to memorise it by road in case we ended up lost."

Paul is still in touch with his best friend from those days, Peter Smith, and the former St Joseph's and St Thomas's school pupil still returns to Teesside whenever he can. He is likely to do so even more now that his daughter Natalie is expecting her first child later this year.

Rodgers isn't the only well-known person to haved lived in Grove Hill. Football legend Brian Clough came from the same street. "I lived a couple of doors down from him," says Paul. "I was just a little kid and he was a big football star." But soon Paul would rival Clough for fame as he began to climb the musical ladder.

'I left Middlesbrough when I was 17," says Rodgers, who by this time had been gripped by the blues bug and had performed his first gig at Sussex Street youth club. "We had a band - we played locally - called The Roadrunners. Then we changed our name to The Wildflowers and went down to take London by storm."

Or so they thought. In reality they took Doncaster by storm instead. One gig with another up-and-coming band, by the name of Pink Floyd, brought Rodgers and his band down to earth. "We thought we were in London, but Doncaster's not quite London is it?," he says. "That's how geographically aware we were."

Eventually, Rodgers did make it to the capital and it was here that Free were born in 1968. "I actually had a blues band at that time called Brown Sugar and I was playing in the back of this pub," he recalls. "Paul Kossoff came up in between the two sets and he said he'd love to get up and have a jam and that was it. I said, 'Right, we have to form a band'. That was born from there."

Rodgers and guitarist Kossoff were joined by drummer Simon Kirke and bassist Andy Fraser, and the band became one of the most influential of its time. Their biggest hit, All Right Now, charted at number two and was only kept off the top spot by Mungo Jerry's In The Summertime. Rodgers says: "It was a monster hit for a blues band like ourselves, it took us by complete surprise."

However the band members went their separate ways in 1973. "We were young, and we were very intense about our musical beliefs," Rodgers says wistfully. "We spent a lot of time together, and I think we just reached a point where we needed to go off and find our individual selves. It's a shame in many ways and I still have a great deal of affection for those years." Paul Kossoff died of a drugs overdose in March 1976, something which Rodgers admits broke his heart.

Rodgers turned down the chance to join Deep Purple, and instead formed Bad Company in 1973. They were managed by Peter Grant, of Led Zeppelin, and released six multi-platinum albums.

On one Bad Company song, Seagull, Paul played all of the instruments himself, so perhaps it was no surprise when, like the bird in the song, he spread his wings and went it alone in 1984, although he also performed with The Firm. "I made a solo CD called Cut Loose on which I did play all of the instruments and that was done by layering," he explains. "I had my own studio at that time in Kingston in London and I layered all the tracks and built up the sound picture myself for the whole album. It was a huge learning curve for me, I suppose."

Rodgers - of whom Tony Blair once remarked: "If I could sing like Paul Rodgers, I would have been a rocker, not a politician" - has released six solo records so far, including the Grammy nominated Muddy Water Blues in 1994, and it was that album which led him to join Queen. The album featured Buddy Guy, Jeff Beck and Dave Gilmour, from Pink Floyd, and also Queen guitarist Brian May.

"Brian was kind enough to play on one of the tracks, and we sort of met up at that point, and we've done different things from then on," says Rodgers. "We played at the Olympics in Spain, and we've done various charities together over the years and quite recently we were asked to play at Wembley, so we did a couple of things together there.

"I got back to America and I got another call saying 'Can you come back and play at the Hall of Fame in London because Queen are going to be nominated and we'd like you to close the show?'. So I said, 'okay, and do you think Brian would like to play too?'. So that really was the turning point right there. We had no idea that I was going to be joining forces with those guys."

It was when he first rehearsed with the band, now also without bassist John Deacon, that the decision was made to take things further, and Rodgers still can't believe his good fortune that he is fronting one of the biggest rock groups of all time. "It's really amazing actually, really amazing," he confesses. "It's more and more amazing every day. It's taken us all quite a bit by surprise."

So much so that three extra dates - a massive open-air gig at Hyde Park on July 8 and shows at the Belfast Odyssey Arena on May 13 and Dublin's The Point Depot on May 14 - have been added to the tour. "It's been sold out everywhere we've gone and the reaction has been incredibly positive," says Paul. "We've been playing to something like 18,000 people a night."

Not bad for somebody who was planning to wind down his career this year. "I was more or less going to semi-retire," admits Rodgers. And now there is even the chance of some new Queen material. "There's always a creativity about what we're doing that gives an interesting, unique spin on it, and there's always the chance of song-writing," hints Rodgers. "But really we're focusing on the live show right now."

But does he ever foresee a day when people associate Queen with Paul Rodgers rather then the late Freddie Mercury? "I think Freddie will never, ever be forgotten," says Rodgers. "I have a tremendous amount of respect for him as a singer, as a frontman, as a songwriter.

"We do honour him in the show. We show some footage and you get to hear him too a little bit - I don't want to give too much away about the show. He's never, ever going to be forgotten. He's totally paved the way and if anything I'm just following in his footsteps. But I'm trying to express myself honestly and just be myself; that's the only way I can be."

But the message for music fans is clear: the king may be dead, but long live the Queen.

* Queen perform at the Metro Arena in Newcastle on Tuesday but tickets are sold out. Tickets for the Hyde Park, Belfast and Dublin gigs are available from the official ticket line on 0871 230 8 230.