When Freddie Mercury Tossed Sid Viscious Out

To this day, people look back on Freddie Mercury’s career and remember him as a unique artist who declined to be anyone but himself, on and off the stage. However, at the time when his band, Queen, established their fame and stability in the rock industry, one genre competitively rose to the occasion and threatened not just music, but the world itself. And that is punk rock.

There is no doubt that punk’s sound was crazily erratic, but it worked because it was the only way to express that energy. Among the many faces of punk-rock was Sid Vicious of Sex Pistols. It took no time for Freddie to meet up and close with Sid, through an encounter that surely no one could ever forget.

As fate would have it, around 1977, Sex Pistols were recording around the same studio with Queen, right in the next room. Sid Vicious, who found an opportunity to be spiteful, entered the latter’s room, uninvited and unannounced. Former Queen roadie Peter Hince detailed the encounter in his book, “Queen Unseen: My Life With the Greatest Rock Band of the 20th Century.” “Sid Vicious stumbled in, the worse for wear, and addressed Fred: ‘Have you succeeded in bringing ballet to the masses yet?’” Hince wrote. “Fred casually got up, walked over to him, and jibed: ‘Aren’t you Stanley Ferocious or something?’” Mercury chose his words carefully, but that didn’t mean he’d have to stop himself from being cruel. Moreover, Hince shared that the encounter went a little bit more physical than what was expected. It would appear that Mercury had grabbed Vicious by his shirt collar, dragged that man across the door, and personally threw him out.

However, the physical part of the meeting wasn’t mentioned by Mercury at all, when he was asked how he handled the Sex Pistols’ bassist.  “I called him Simon Ferocious or something, and he didn’t like it at all,” he once shared in an interview. He hated the fact that I could even speak like that. I think we survived that test.”