Earlier this year, Queen and Adam Lambert announced their much anticipated 2017 North American summer tour and first full UK tour in three years to mark 40 epic years together. 

And legendary guitarist Brian May admits that he can still feel Freddie Mercury's presence when he's working on any new music.

The Queen star tragically lost his bandmate and good friend in November 1991 and even now when he works on new songs with bandmate Roger Taylor, he revealed that he can still "feel him in the room". May said:

"His creativity would have carried on. He was unstoppable and very lateral-thinking. Always coming up with things that were surprising.

"Often Roger and I, if we’re creating something for Queen, both of us have said that we feel like he’s in the room and you know what he’d say. You can tell if he would have been scornful or enthusiastic."

And May doesn't think Freddie would have used social media if he was still alive today because he was such a private person. He added:

"I don’t think he’d have the patience for social media, because I hardly do and he was much more impatient than me. I don’t think he would be tweeting, he would probably be still writing his little memos on pieces of paper.

"He was becoming more and more reclusive towards the end of his life. That was partly because he was becoming more and more visible, but partly not wanting his illness to be public. But he was very private anyway and I think that would have continued."

May said the group used to fall out over their music because they all had hit songs and had four "different visions". He told The Sunday Times magazine:

"We overreacted with each other at times. The studio’s a hard place for a band anyway, but in our case all four of us as writers had had worldwide hits - and I think that’s unique, I don’t think there’s another band in history where that’s true."

Meanwhile, vocal powerhouse, Adam Lambert, who has been fronting Queen in the past years, confessed that he was initially very nervous because the late Freddie Mercury was such a unique person. 

"It's a balancing act. I don't want to go too far away from the original because it's so iconic and Freddie was so incredible at what he was doing, and yet I don't want to get up there and copy him either because I think that would be a rip off for fans of the band. The goal is to go out there and pay homage to Freddie and bring these amazing songs for life, and join Roger (Taylor) and Brian (May) in reliving their legacy, you know?"

Queen + Adam Lambert's upcoming global tour is drawing close now. It begins next month on June 23 in Arizona and finishes in London on December 15.

US fans can check out ticket availability for their highly-anticipated shows here and UK fans here ☜