On the Spot…Tyler Warren

In the first of a two-part interview that originally appeared in the winter 2023 issue of the Official International Queen Fan Club magazine, multi-talented drummer Tyler Warren exclusively detailed to Dave Fordham the events that led to meeting his heroes and securing roles in the Queen Extravaganza, Queen + Adam Lambert and Outsider touring band line-ups. This article is reproduced with permission and the full version is available in the fan club’s members-only archive (join now at www.queenworld.com).

Firstly, please could you give us some background on your musical career before you auditioned for the Queen Extravaganza (QuEx) in 2011? 

Music was always around because my mom and dad were always playing in bands when I was small. So I started playing drums when I was three and took percussion lessons when I was about nine. But growing up in a small town, I didn’t really know other kids that played, and I didn’t start my own rock band until I was at high school. 

Then in college I did all the ensembles like wind, orchestra, percussion, jazz and stuff like that and was in a few different bands. In 2007 I finally decided to put my own solo thing together and played on and off for about 8-9 years, putting my albums online (I later kept doing solo stuff when the QuEx wasn’t touring), and every now and then I would play with my mom and dad too. 

So I was playing a lot and more or less earning a living, but when times were slow I would do construction work with my dad. And then 2011 happened and everything changed…

How did you master becoming such a versatile multi-instrumentalist and vocalist?

Honestly, it came out of necessity… but now it's a nice secret weapon whenever needed at certain gigs! Growing up, I often didn’t have anyone to play with, so I was watching bootleg concerts of Queen and Kiss and wanted to be able to do that. So that’s how guitar and a bit of piano came along. The very last thing was singing, because I was always bashful when it came to that, but it was a necessity when I was in high school and forming my own bands and I figured out I could kinda do some of that stuff. And when I started writing my own songs, I very slowly began to get the hang of vocals… but I’m still trying to figure it out!

Growing up a Queen fan, I always wanted to be the singing drummer, so by the time the QuEx came along I felt pretty good as a vocalist. In fact, I made sure I was singing in my QuEx drumming audition to try and stand out a little bit… and I’m pretty sure it helped!

As Queen were an influence on you from childhood, what were your favourite albums and tracks?

When my mom was pregnant with me, my dad would put headphones on her stomach and play Mozart and Queen… so they’ve been with me since the very beginning! 

It’s so tough to try and pick a favourite album but when it’s been a while since I’ve been on a Queen binge, I guess the records I always go back to are Sheer Heart Attack, News of the World and The Game. And Live Killers is still my favourite live record to this day. 

I know my favourite Brian song is "It’s Late”. For Roger’s songs it’s tough, but I’ve always had a thing for “Tenement Funster” and “Prime Jive”. 

Jumping forward to 2011, what do you remember about the QuEx audition process?

I saw the announcement that Roger was putting together a tribute band, and my parents and friends encouraged me to send in some videos. With the deadline rapidly approaching, I eventually agreed and did “Somebody to Love” with drums, guitar and vocal videos (just in case they thought I sucked at something but was okay at something else! I wanted to get in somehow…). 

I got through the online vote but it only hit me that there might be something in this when I got my airline tickets for the final auditions at Studio 606, the Foos Fighters’ studio in LA. I didn’t really believe it until I got there and Roger, Spike and Jim Beach rolled up. That’s when I knew this was real and happening - seeing it was believing it. By that point they were down to four or five people auditioning for each instrument and they threw us into three different bands to play in front of them. They mix-matched us throughout the day with each other to see how we reacted and how we put the songs together. The last band together was the people who made it through and who they must have thought could work. 

I’ll never forget it a week later when they made the official announcement because I was on top of a church with my dad putting on a new roof. I got the call and we cried together… and then my dad said “back to work”, haha!

What were your initial impressions upon meeting Roger, Brian and Spike?

On the audition day I had a job to do so couldn’t be super psyched out, although I’m sure it was more than painfully obvious that I was like ‘Oh my God!’… but at the same time it was game face. It was pretty cool and at the back of my mind I was really hoping this wouldn’t be the last time I got to meet these guys! 

When I was a kid and knowing Freddie was already gone, I never dreamed I would see them play live, let alone meet them - so everything that was happening had never been on my radar. At the end of the audition they gave us all the new remastered box sets… and that was so cool because I’m a fan and I just got given this from Roger Taylor!

Getting to know them better during the 3-4 week QuEx rehearsals was the coolest part for me, figuring out they were such cool guys and not like the rock star cliché types at all. You could actually hang out with them and have a conversation; they were just normal people that happened to be Roger Taylor and Spike Edney. If they were divas it would have changed everything and the mood would’ve been different, but they are as normal as they can be. Even now, the coolest part is being able to hang out with them and say they are pals. 

I first met Brian later at the rehearsals for the QuEx performance on American Idol, which was intense because not only would I be playing with them on TV but also because there was a cycle of people like Taylor Hawkins popping in because they knew Brian and Roger were in town! It was overwhelming because I’d never been in a situation like that before…

As the official Queen tribute band, was Roger keen for your QuEx drum sound to emulate his historical live performances?

Roger always made a point of saying he wanted us to be ourselves when we played, but obviously there are certain things that you’ve got to do in a Queen song. It was made clear that we could inject what we wanted to, and if they didn’t like it then we’d try something else. In my case the songs were so ingrained in me that a lot of the stuff Roger does I was going to do anyway; the way I play is quite different from Roger, but at the same time that DNA is inside me. We had room to stretch out but still be true to the songs themselves and we tried to find the best of both worlds between studio and live versions. It was pretty collaborative between Roger, Spike and us and we got good at it. 

As far as I know, Adam was not in the picture yet when QuEx was being conceived, so I think the whole thing with the QuEx in the beginning was a combination of keeping the music alive and having a tribute band that actually focused on the music instead of trying to play dress up without doing the music justice. 

How did it feel to get out on the road on those early QuEx tours?

At least for that first American tour, it was a whirlwind! It was the first time touring for me and it was everything I wanted to do. I was a little nervous, but more excited that I was able to cross that line and be in a touring band. It was so much fun and just nothing but good times. And then getting to the UK was hallowed ground to me because so many of my favourite bands came from there…

Including lead vocals on “I’m In Love With My Car,” did you enjoy performing the deep cuts during the A Night of the Opera anniversary tour in 2015? 

I was so excited to accept that challenge! We prided ourselves on being able to reproduce the studio recordings and we all know how involved A Night at the Opera is! It was a lot of fun and it was my first time in taking over the Musical Director role too. Everybody stepped up to the plate and we had a big sense of pride because we were able to do it so well - without cheating! Using tapes and clicks is a point of contention for Roger, so it was a point of pride for me whenever we reproduced something like that so well – that was the big takeaway for me from that tour: we DID it! 

Another favourite memory is doing the Sheer Heart Attack trio of “Tenement Funster”, “Flick of the Wrist” and “Lily of the Valley” because we did them straight through, just like the record. I loved doing that.  

And one of my biggest highlights was playing Hammersmith because like everybody else I think of all the shows that have been there – it’s legendary. At soundcheck I was just thinking about Christmas ’75 and Christmas ’79 (one of my all-time favourite Queen shows)… and here we are! It was a real moment and such a big deal for me.

How did the role of QuEx Musical Director (MD) come about?  

It was something I never anticipated happening but I always tried to be involved with all that stuff from the beginning anyways. I didn’t want to be the guy that only played drums. I’d grown up with that music and wanted to make sure it was as good and tight as possible, no matter what we did. So even though Brandon Ethridge [then QuEx keyboardist] was the MD for the first couple of years, it was all pretty collaborative; we all pitched in to make sure everything was right and we were all really open to discussion after the shows. Even though there is a MD, it will always be a group effort.

Being around Brandon gave me a good idea of what the MD job entails. I don’t know if I was intentionally doing it at the time, internalising all that to have in my back pocket in case it was needed, but when Brandon left it was noticed by Spike and Roger just how involved I was and how much I wanted the music to be as good as it could be. They knew I would make sure it got to where it had to be. 

Did you ever dream things could develop from QuEx into a role with Queen + Adam Lambert (Q+AL)? 

In hindsight, it totally makes sense because I’m sure the amount of hard work hadn’t gone unnoticed and it does seem like it was a trajectory. But there’s no way I could foresee it at that time, just like I could not have foreseen the QuEx or getting to know the guys, let alone sharing a stage with them. But here we are!

It was after the second QuEx Hammersmith show in 2016 that Roger’s camp planted the seed in his head that I should be the one that fills in for Rufus with Q+AL. I got an email a couple of weeks later that Rufus couldn’t do it anymore as he was focusing full-time on The Darkness and asking if I would be interested at that point for the North American tour. It was wild, man! Like the QuEx, it’s one of those things that I could never have predicted. 

Had you seen Q+AL perform live before joining? 

Yes, in Dallas in 2014 and then with QuEx when we were out on tour at the same time. It was so cool to see them do their thing for the first time; I’d missed the Paul Rodgers tour and had never seen Brian and Roger play live in any aspect. I was fan-boying the whole time!

Do you remember how you felt rehearsing and then playing with Q+AL for the first time in 2017? 

Normally before the start of a big tour we’ll rehearse in a studio for about a week on just the music before we start on the production. So we went into the studio to start putting things together and being in the room and hearing Brian’s amps that close is everything you’d expect – gametime! I remember looking around at the others and thinking ‘I’m here because they want me to be here, so let’s go!’. Once I got over the ‘is this really happening?’ and we started playing the first song, it was ‘let’s do it’! And it was so good. 

I don’t remember being nervous about that first tour, just excited and amazed that this was happening. My familiarity with the music helped and the songs were already ingrained.

And I was so psyched about doing deep cuts like “It’s Late” and “Spread Your Wings” at the start of that tour – that was so cool!

How would you summarise your duties as Q+AL percussionist?

It varies from song to song. I’m pretty much adding some extra percussive colour to what Roger is doing and for the most part just adding groove and keeping things together. For the harder rocking songs, I’m doing a lot of snare and hi-hat, more or less doubling Roger just to give it a little extra ‘oomph’ and make it drive a little harder.  

There’s a lot we do now that has changed drastically from the way they used to do it in the old days… there’s always a good reason for that, and it’s about what works best with the arrangement and the set. Brian and Roger will tell you that too.

For the percussion, there’s lots of tambourine, shakers, timpani, and I’ve got this electronic pad to do little things that they may have done back in the day but weren’t able to do live, like electronic drums, samples (like gongs, bicycle bells, car noises) here and there. And then obviously singing all the backing vocals too. 

[In the second part of Tyler’s interview, he discusses Q+AL’s dynamics and chemistry, what the band do in their downtime, setlists, his favourite Q+AL gigs and lots more. In the meantime, Tyler and Dave jumped forward here to talk about Roger’s 2021 solo tour].

How was it to tour with Roger as lead drummer for the Outsider tour in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic?

It was awesome. I just wished that we could’ve mingled more because we were still in our Covid bubble. I think the reason we had so much fun was because we really did wonder if we’d ever be able to tour like that again. It was the first thing that most of us had done since Covid and there was the realisation that it was the first thing that most of the crowd had seen since Covid.

Up until the point I was actually on that plane, I was worried I wouldn’t get there because I was the only one that wasn’t already in the UK. I sheltered in my house for two weeks before and didn’t risk anything because I didn’t want to be the one that screwed everything up! It felt like a minor miracle that I got there and we were able to put the show together. 

Right before the last show, somebody in the crew tested positive so we had that on our minds… but somehow it didn’t spread and there was an amazement that we’d been able to get from point A to point B at the end of the tour having done every single show relatively unscathed. There was this big moment of relief that we did it. It was very emotional and special on so many different levels and we all felt it. 

So the unprecedented conditions created strong camaraderie in the camp? 

It was tough at the beginning for me because I had some stuff going on back home… but I really needed that tour to happen, even if I didn’t realise it at the time. The support system was really there too and we had some serious bonding moments on that tour. There was so much going on and we really felt like a family; everybody had each other’s backs.

The shows mattered so much and everything we had going on in our lives probably helped make those performances even better. We were presented with so many things that could’ve derailed us but we all stood our ground and made it happen. And on top of that, Roger had absolutely the best time and loved every second of it.

It culminated at Shepherd’s Bush with Brian coming out after everything he'd been through that year with his health problems. That was a very big moment for everybody and a very special night with an unbelievable amount of emotion.

Throughout the tour, were you surprised at the positive response to Roger’s solo tracks?

I had wondered how people would respond to Roger’s solo shows and didn’t know what to expect because when I was growing up it was impossible to find his solo records in the States. But there was so much love for what was going on from the crowd that it was very special.

And it was so much fun putting that show together. There were lots of songs that we tried and stuff never in my wildest dreams that I thought I’d ever play live. 

When I heard that a CD was coming out I thought it was so amazing. I wish there’d been a video too but there’s so many fan videos that make up for it. 

How did it come about for you to perform “Rock It (Prime Jive)” on lead vocals and drums?

I don’t know how that happened, but I’m glad it did! It wasn’t my idea but I know Roger had seen our lockdown video of “Prime Jive”. Roger and Spike also got to take a break and left the kids to do something for a song! I wasn’t really sure how it would turn out without them but it seemed like it was ok… even though it was really hard to tell from my vantage point as I was pretty busy on that song! But we had a lot of fun and it seemed like everyone in the crowd did too. 

Can you envisage ever taking part in a Roger solo tour again?

Oh hell, yeah! Roger wished it wasn’t over, so anything is possible. I think if he ever wanted to do another tour then everybody would jump on it in a heartbeat because we all got along so well. 

How much fun did you have making the YouTube lockdown videos with Neil Fairclough, including “Let Me Entertain You", “Need Your Loving Tonight”, “Sail Away Sweet Sister" and “Rock It (Prime Jive)”, as well as deep solo cuts such as “Airheads” and “Business” for Roger and Brian?

Nothing was going on and we were all in our own houses locked down so we just wanted to do something together to keep us from going insane! It was fun to work together seeing how we couldn’t actually be together and to do something other than just sit around the house contemplating our lives. So we did it for the hell of it and thought people might like them. We had the idea to make videos for their birthdays and we thought they would get a kick out of it too because they weren’t doing anything either. We just wanted to let them know that we were thinking about them and to have a little fun. And it meant a lot to them, especially Brian – he was floored with "Sail Away" and then “Business” too. He sent both of us little video messages after that as he couldn’t believe we cared enough to do something like that. 

And you put the videos together at such a high standard? 

It’s a kind of obsessive thing with me as I don’t like to do any musical things half-assed. I can’t help myself. If we were going to do them, I wanted them to sound and look as good as possible. Neil takes a lot of credit too.

And it was fun breaking down the songs and finding out things they were doing that we would have never really picked up on otherwise.  

Were you aware of how popular the videos were within the Queen fraternity during those dark lockdown periods? 

To an extent… but I would say we initially did it for ourselves and if we could make Roger, Brian and Adam feel good then it made me feel good and a bit better about what was going on in the world. Of course, I then looked at the comments and outside reaction and it sunk in just how much these meant to people. It gave me a purpose and there was a communal feeling that we weren’t just doing it for us but for everyone out there as well. 

So we did little introductory clips explaining ourselves, joking around and talking to everybody. And we started thinking about what nugget we could throw out next time, making it almost a game – a ‘challenge accepted’ type thing!

And it was symbolic that for the last one, Neil and I were together again to record the intro… although it didn’t look like it at the start with the split screen! We wanted to surprise Roger with “Airheads" and show him the video before we posted it. He loved it and was laughing the whole time.

And you’re now using Instagram for live sessions such as the acoustic set for The Mercury Phoenix Trust last July for Roger's birthday?

July was a light month for me with not much going on and I was kind of bored and wanted to play so I thought about doing live streams again because it had been about three years since I’d done one. It was fun and I think people enjoyed it – it’s really just me messing around for an hour or so! I’ll probably do some more but it just depends on how busy I get. 

What can you tell us about your current projects away from Q+AL?

The real biggie when I’m not with Queen is Flarelight, my current band with Rachel Brandsness that started almost around the same time I joined Q+AL. We started writing in spring 2017 with no fixed idea of what we were going to do… and the songs ended up being pretty good, even if I say so myself!  

The 2017 Q+AL tour and a couple of other personal things happened, so Flarelight was sidelined until the next year when we finished it up and put out our first album, Glimmer, just before the first Rhapsody tour in 2019. We were finally able to do some shows after Covid and we put out our next record, The Light We Make, in November 2022. We released a couple of singles and did some shows and it went pretty well. Then, of course, we released the single “Glimmer” last October, with a certain special guest lending his Red Special in only the way he can! 

I’m also considering re-releasing all the solo stuff I did back in the day with proper mastering – I’m not 100% sure yet, but we’ll see what happens! I’ve released the Bookend album that I put out a couple of years ago (a sort of compilation of the old solo stuff) and it’s finally back out on Spotify and Apple for people to listen to.

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This interview (continuing Tyler’s support of the Mercury Phoenix Trust: www.mercuryphoenixtrust.org) is © Dave Fordham and the Official International Queen Fan Club and is not to be reproduced without permission. Join the fan club at www.queenworld.com.

Image credits: Tyler Warren and Dave Fordham.

Check out Tyler and Neil’s videos at https://www.youtube.com/@TylerWarrenMusic and follow Tyler on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/tyler_fn_warren/. For more information on Flarelight, visit www.flarelightofficial.com