Age, Biography, and Wiki
Brian May, born in 1947, is currently 78 years old. He co-founded Queen with Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor, achieving global fame as the band's lead guitarist and backing vocalist. May is also recognized for his contributions to astrophysics and his work as an animal welfare activist.
| Occupation | Astrophysicist |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 19 July 1947 |
| Age | 78 Years |
| Birth Place | Hampton Hill, Middlesex, England |
| Horoscope | Cancer |
| Country | England |
Height, Weight & Measurements
While specific details about Brian May's height and weight are not prominently featured in public sources, he is known for his distinctive appearance, often seen with his iconic hairstyle and homemade guitar, the "Red Special."
"I like a big neck – thick, flat and wide. I lacquered the fingerboard with Rustin's Plastic Coating. The tremolo is interesting in that the arm's made from an old bicycle saddle bag carrier, the knob from the ends of a knitting needle, and the springs are valve springs from an old motorbike."
* In 2012, he received a double-neck replica of the Red Special, with the second neck having 12-strings. He used this guitar at a few gigs with Adam Lambert now being able to play the 12-string part from the studio version of "Under Pressure" live.
May experienced a small heart attack in May 2020. It required the insertion of three stents into three blocked arteries. May said he had been "very near death". In September 2024, he revealed that he had suffered a minor stroke which rendered him temporarily without use of his left arm, though May noted he was still able to play guitar.
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Dating & Relationship Status
Brian May has been married twice, first to Christine Mullen from 1974 to 1988, and then to Anita Dobson in 2000. He is known for his long-term marriage to Anita Dobson, with whom he continues to be involved.
He is the only child of Ruth Irving (née Fletcher) and Harold May, who worked as a draughtsman at the Ministry of Aviation. His mother, who was Scottish, married his father, who was English, at Moulin in Perthshire, Scotland in 1946. May attended the local Hanworth Road state primary school, and at the age of 11 won a scholarship to Hampton Grammar School, then a voluntary aided school. During this time, he formed his first band, named 1984 after George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, with vocalist and bassist Tim Staffell.
In Queen's three-part vocal harmonies, May was generally the lower-range backing vocalist. On some of his songs, he sings the lead vocals, most notably the first verse of "Who Wants to Live Forever", the final verse of "Mother Love", the middle eight on "I Want It All" and "Flash's Theme", and full lead vocals on "Some Day One Day", "She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilettoes)", "'39", "Good Company", "Long Away", "All Dead, All Dead", "Sleeping on the Sidewalk", "Leaving Home Ain't Easy" and "Sail Away Sweet Sister".
May frequently wrote songs for the band and has composed many hits such as "We Will Rock You", "Tie Your Mother Down", "I Want It All", "Fat Bottomed Girls", "Who Wants to Live Forever" and "The Show Must Go On" as well as "Hammer to Fall", "Flash", "Now I'm Here", "Brighton Rock", "The Prophet's Song", "Las Palabras de Amor", "No-One but You (Only the Good Die Young)" and "Save Me".
May performed "We Will Rock You" and "Welcome to the Black Parade" with the rock band My Chemical Romance at the Reading Festival on 26 August 2011. On 10 October, May made an appearance to celebrate the reunion of rock band The Darkness at an "intimate" 100 Club show with support from Dark Stares. A long-time fan of the group, May performed three songs onstage with The Darkness, including Queen's "Tie Your Mother Down", at the Hammersmith Apollo on their subsequent "comeback" tour.
Most of May's electric guitar work live and in the studio is done on the Red Special, which he built with his father, an electronics engineer, when he was sixteen years old. It was built with wood from an 18th-century fireplace, and was composed of household items such as mother-of-pearl buttons, shelf edging, and motorbike valve springs. While May and his father were building the Red Special, May also produced plans to build a second guitar. However, the Red Special was so successful that May did not need to build another guitar. These plans were eventually given to guitar luthier Andrew Guyton in around 2004–05. Guyton made some slight modifications and the guitar was built. It was named "The Spade" as the body's shape resembled the form shown on playing cards. The guitar also came to be known as "The Guitar That Time Forgot".
He has said in interviews that he had depression in the late 1980s and early 1990s, to the point of contemplating suicide, for reasons having to do with his troubled first marriage, his perceived failure as a husband and father, and the deaths of Mercury and his father Harold.
According to The Sunday Times Rich List of 2019, May is worth £160 million. He has homes in London and Windlesham, Surrey. May's father Harold was a long-time heavy cigarette smoker. As a result, May dislikes smoking, to the point where he was already prohibiting smoking indoors at his concerts before many countries imposed smoking bans.
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| Husband | Christine Mullen (m. 1976-1988) Anita Dobson (m. 18 November 2000) |
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Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, Brian May's net worth is estimated to be around $260 million. His earnings come from various sources, including royalties from Queen's music, touring with Queen + Adam Lambert, book sales, real estate holdings, and brand partnerships. Annual income is estimated between $15 million and $20 million, although some sources suggest he earns about $10.6 million annually.
The 1998 tour saw the brief introduction of a 'support act' known as T. E. Conway. Conway (Brian May in a wig and colourful suit playing the part of a teddy boy crooner) would play several 1950s rock and roll standards before May's 'arrival'. A bonus T. E. Conway EP titled Retro Rock Special was attached to some pressings of the Another World album. The Conway character was retired at the end of the tour. In May 1999, May recorded lead guitars for the Guns N' Roses song "Catcher in the Rye" on Chinese Democracy, but his performance was removed from the album by the time it was released in 2008.
Career, Business, and Investments
Brian May's career with Queen has been incredibly successful, with hits like "Bohemian Rhapsody," "We Will Rock You," and "The Show Must Go On." Beyond music, he has written books on astronomy and Queen, and holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics. May has also been involved in various business ventures, including real estate and collaborations with music brands.
May was appointed a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2005 for services to the music industry and for charity work. May earned a PhD degree in astrophysics from Imperial College London in 2007, and was Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University from 2008 to 2013. He was a "science team collaborator" with NASA's New Horizons Pluto mission. He is also a co-founder of the awareness campaign Asteroid Day. Asteroid 52665 Brianmay was named after him. In 2023, May contributed to NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, the agency's first successful collection and earth delivery of samples directly from an asteroid (the asteroid Bennu). May is also an animal welfare activist, campaigning against fox hunting and the culling of badgers in the UK. May was knighted by King Charles III in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to music and charity.
Two songs May had composed for his first solo album, "Headlong" and "I Can't Live With You", eventually ended up on the Queen project. His other composition was "The Show Must Go On", which he coordinated and was the primary composer. In recent years, he has supervised the remastering of Queen albums and various DVD and greatest hits releases. In 2004, he announced that he and drummer Roger Taylor were going on tour for the first time in 18 years as "Queen", along with Free/Bad Company vocalist Paul Rodgers. Billed as "Queen + Paul Rodgers", the band played throughout 2005 and 2006 in South Africa, Europe, Aruba, Japan, and North America and released a new album with Rodgers in 2008, titled The Cosmos Rocks. This album was supported by a major tour.
On the Queen's birthday honours list of 2005, he was made a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire "for services to the music industry and for charity work". In the same year he played the guitar on the song Il mare... for Italian singer Zucchero Fornaciari, on his album Zu & Co., and he took part in the concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London held in May 2004, with the other guests of the Italian bluesman. May was a celebrity guest at the Genesis reunion concert at Twickenham Stadium in 2007. May and Genesis frontman Phil Collins worked together on two previous occasions, at The Prince's Trust Rock Gala in 1988 and the Party at the Palace in 2002, when Collins had played drums with Queen. In 2011 he contributed to a feature about Collins for FHM, praising him as "a great guy and an amazing drummer".
At the end of 2004, May and Taylor announced that they would reunite and return to touring in 2005, with Paul Rodgers, the founder and former lead singer of Free and Bad Company. Brian May's website also stated that Rodgers would be "featured with" Queen as Queen + Paul Rodgers, not replacing the late Freddie Mercury. The retired John Deacon would not be participating.
A meticulous arranger, he focuses on multi-part harmonies, often more contrapuntal than parallel—a relative rarity for rock guitar. Examples are found in Queen's albums A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, where he arranged a jazz band for guitar mini-orchestra ("Good Company"), a vocal canon ("The Prophet's Song") and guitar and vocal counterpoints ("Teo Torriatte").
Aided by the uniqueness of the Red Special, May was often able to create strange and unusual sound effects. For example, he was able to imitate an orchestra in the song "Procession"; in "Get Down, Make Love" he was able to create various sound effects with his guitar; in "Good Company" he used his guitar to mimic a trombone, a piccolo and several other instruments for the song's Dixieland jazz band feel. Queen used a "No synthesizers were used on this album" sleeve note on their early albums to make this clear to the listeners. May also used his guitar to create the chime effect in "Bohemian Rhapsody".
May's early influences included Cliff Richard and the Shadows, who he says were "the most metallic thing(s) out at the time". Many years later he gained his opportunity to play on separate occasions with the Shadows' lead guitarist Hank Marvin. He has collaborated with Richard on a re-recording of 1958 hit "Move It" on Richard's duets album Two's Company, which was released on 6 November 2006.
From 1975 onwards, May had some replicas made of the Red Special, some of which were also used for live and recording purposes, others being mainly spares. The most famous replicas were made by John Birch in 1975 (May smashed it during a concert in the US in 1982), Greco BM90 (featured in the promo video of "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy" in 1977), Guild (back-up from 1984 to 1993), Fryers (1997–1998, used both live and in the studio) and Guyton (back-up from 2003 to present). On stage, May used to carry at least one backup guitar (in case he broke a string). He occasionally would use others for specific songs or parts, such as alternative tunings. Currently, May owns a company that makes guitars whose design is modelled after the original Red Special guitar.
May is a former vice-president of the RSPCA. In September 2024, he resigned his position as vice-president after "damning evidence" emerged of animal welfare failings at RSPCA Assured farms.
In 2021, May was awarded an honorary fellowship and Denis Pellerin was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Literature from the Royal Holloway College, University of London. The conferred degrees recognised their work to preserve Victorian stereoscopy through the London Stereoscopic Company. It recognises their contribution to photography and preservation.
Social Network
Brian May is active on social media platforms, often engaging with fans and promoting his work in music and astrophysics. His online presence helps maintain a strong connection with his audience worldwide.
May has been referred to as a virtuoso guitarist by many publications and musicians. He has featured in various music polls of the greatest rock guitarists, and in 2011 was ranked number 26 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". In January 2007, the readers of Guitar World voted May's guitar solos on "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Brighton Rock" into the "top 50 Greatest Guitar Solos of all time" (No.20 and No.41 respectively). Former Van Halen vocalist Sammy Hagar stated, "I thought Queen were really innovative and made some great sounding records... I like the rockin' stuff. I think Brian May has one of the great guitar tones on the planet, and I really, really love his guitar work." Justin Hawkins, lead guitarist of the Darkness, cites May as his earliest influence, saying "I really loved his tone and vibrato and everything. I thought his playing sounded like a singing voice. I wanted to be able to do that. Whenever I went to guitar lessons, I was always asking to learn Queen stuff."
American guitar virtuoso Steve Vai has spoken highly of May's work, saying:"In that whole genre, in that whole period—he's one of the most unique contributors. He doesn't get credit. Because what he does is so rich and so specific, and so deep, it fits so well in Queen music, you just feel it as part of that music. But when you break it down and when you look at it from a guitar player's point of view, it's unique, and nobody to this date could do what he does and make it sound like that. He is an iconic player. His tone, his choice of melody notes, he doesn't just do solos. His solos are melodies, and they're perfectly in place."
The first instrument May learned to play was the banjolele. He used a "genuine George Formby Ukulele-Banjo" in "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" and "Good Company". Occasionally, May would also record on other string instruments such as harp (one chord per take, then copied and pasted by the engineer to make it sound like a continuous performance) and bass (on some demos and many songs in his solo career, and the Queen + Paul Rodgers album). May was keen on using some toys as instruments as well. He used a Yamaha plastic piano in "Teo Torriatte" and a toy mini koto in "The Prophet's Song".
In October 2007, May was appointed a visiting researcher in Imperial College and he continues his interest in astronomy and involvement with the Imperial Astrophysics Group. He is co-author, with Sir Patrick Moore and Chris Lintott, of ''Bang! – The Complete History of the Universe and The Cosmic Tourist''. May appeared on the 700th episode of The Sky at Night hosted by Sir Patrick Moore, along with Chris Lintott, Jon Culshaw, Professor Brian Cox, and the Astronomer Royal Martin Rees who, on departing the panel, told Brian May, who was joining it, "I don't know a scientist who looks as much like Isaac Newton as you do." May was also a guest on the first episode of the third series of the BBC's Stargazing Live, on 8 January 2013.
On 17 November 2007, May was appointed chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University, and he was installed in 2008 having also been awarded an honorary fellowship from the university for his contribution to astronomy and services to the public understanding of science. He held the post until 2013. Asteroid 52665 Brianmay was named after him on 18 June 2008 on the suggestion of Patrick Moore (probably influenced by the asteroid's provisional designation of ).
In June 2017, May endorsed Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in the 2017 general election. May shared an article on Twitter by The Independent headlined "Jeremy Corbyn says Fox hunting is 'barbarity' and pledges to keep it banned" and captioned it: "Well, I guess that just about clinches it !! Anyone see any good reason not to prefer the evidently decent Corbyn over the weak and wobbly Mrs May? Bri".
In October 2018, May said, "I don't like all this separatist stuff and you know this sort of illusion that we can all stand on our own, to me the future lies in co-operation. I get up every day and put my head in my hands about Brexit – I think it's the stupidest thing we ever tried to do." He also said that Prime Minister Theresa May was "driven by vanity and thirst for power".
In the run-up to the 2019 United Kingdom general election May criticised what he saw as the poor conduct of the media and declined to endorse either candidate, stating that he found it "impossible" to vote for either Jeremy Corbyn or Boris Johnson. After the election in which the Conservatives won a majority, May vowed to continue fighting for animal welfare but in an Instagram and blog post he urged his followers to congratulate Johnson and "wish Boris a decent chance to rebuild Britain" before praising reforms to animal welfare laws made by Conservative Party Environment Secretary Michael Gove. In 2021 May criticised Johnson for his response to the COVID-19 pandemic, calling it inadequate.
Education
Brian May holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Imperial College London and a Ph.D. in astrophysics, which he completed in 2007. His educational background in physics has been a significant part of his identity, complementing his musical achievements.
May previously performed with Taylor in the progressive rock band Smile, which he had joined while he was at university. After Mercury joined to form Queen in 1970, bass guitarist John Deacon completed the line-up in 1971. They became one of the biggest rock bands in the world with the success of the album A Night at the Opera and its single "Bohemian Rhapsody". From the mid-1970s until 1986, Queen played at some of the biggest venues in the world, including an acclaimed performance at Live Aid in 1985. As a member of Queen, May became regarded as a virtuoso musician and was identified with a distinctive sound created through his layered guitar work, often using a home-built electric guitar called the Red Special. May wrote numerous hits for Queen, including "We Will Rock You", "I Want It All", "Fat Bottomed Girls", "Flash", "Hammer to Fall", "Save Me", "Who Wants to Live Forever" and "The Show Must Go On".
At Hampton Grammar School, May attained ten GCE Ordinary Levels and three GCE Advanced Levels in physics, mathematics, and applied mathematics. He studied mathematics and physics at Imperial College London, graduating with a BSc degree in physics in 1968 with honours. Following his graduation, May received a personal invitation from Sir Bernard Lovell to work at the Jodrell Bank Observatory while continuing to prepare his doctorate. He declined, choosing instead to remain at Imperial College to avoid breaking from Smile, the London-based band he was in at the time.
May studied physics and mathematics at Imperial College London, graduating with a BSc (Hons) degree and ARCS in physics with Upper Second-Class Honours. From 1970 to 1974, he studied for a PhD degree at Imperial College, studying reflected light from interplanetary dust and the velocity of dust in the plane of the Solar System. When Queen began to have international success in 1974, he abandoned his doctoral studies, but nonetheless co-authored two peer-reviewed research papers, which were based on his observations at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife.
In October 2006, May re-registered for his doctorate at Imperial College, and he submitted his thesis in August 2007 (one year earlier than he estimated it would take to complete). As well as writing up the previous work he had done, May had to review the work on zodiacal dust undertaken during the intervening 33 years, which included the discovery of the zodiacal dust bands by NASA's IRAS satellite. After a viva voce, the revised thesis (titled "A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud") was approved in September 2007, some 37 years after it had been commenced. He was able to submit his thesis only because of the minimal amount of research on the topic during the intervening years and has described the subject as one that became in-demand again in the 2000s. In his doctoral research, he investigated radial velocity using absorption spectroscopy and doppler spectroscopy of zodiacal light using a Fabry–Pérot interferometer based at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife. His research was initially supervised by Jim Ring, Ken Reay and in the latter stages by Michael Rowan-Robinson. He graduated at the awards ceremony of Imperial College held in the Royal Albert Hall on 14 May 2008.
In 2022, May was awarded a Doctorate of Science honoris causa by Professor Brad Gibson in the EA Milne Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Hull. Unable to attend in person, he joined the graduation ceremony via video link. At the Starmus IV festival in Yerevan, Armenia in September 2022, May was awarded the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication.
In December 2022 May was made a Knight Bachelor in the 2023 New Year Honours, the first list of King Charles III's reign. In March 2023, May was officially knighted by the King.