“It was that fusion of funk and rock. It gave birth to Michael Jackson doing his incredible stuff!”: Brian May on a killer Queen song that blew away the King of Pop - and Kirk Hammett!

If there is one Queen song that Metallica’s Kirk Hammett loves above all others, it’s a deep cut from 1980.

The song is Dragon Attack, written by Queen guitarist Brian May for the band’s eighth album, The Game.

“I love that song!” Hammett said. “Brian’s guitar sounds so overly saturated on that song, more so than other songs. It’s like he walked over to his fucking tone booth and just turned it to eleven!”

In a 20244 interview with Total Guitar, Brian May revealed how he was inspired to write Dragon Attack during a “wild time” in Munich when the four members of Queen were regulars at a decadent nightspot known as the Sugar Shack.

“Dragon Attack started off very spontaneously,” May said. “It began with me and Deaky [bassist John Deacon].

“Probably it was more Deaky’s riff that mine, to be honest. But I took hold of it and built it into the song that it became.

“We were in that funk place, but this song has a real kind of rock funk feel. It came out of spontaneity and wanting to play the kind of music which was inspiring us when we would go down to the rock disco after working in Munich every night.

“We used to go to a place called the Sugar Shack, and it was definitely a sort of rock club, a rock dance club if you like.

“Generally they would play Queen music. But when Queen music came on it didn’t work so well - it didn't inspire people to get up and go nuts on the dancefloor, whereas a lot of other things did, songs that had a lot more space in them.

“So what I tried to do with Dragon Attack was make it the kind of track which was going to work in the Sugar Shack. That’s totally what it was about, which was to get girls excited and make boys want to get up and go nuts with them on the dancefloor there.

“So it's very spacious. The song doesn't have the usual kind of rhythm build-up. It's just the riff - bass, drums, guitar. Very open, very stark.”

May added: “The lyric also comes from the Sugar Shack.”

He explained: “The dragons are in the sugar shack. It's about that strange twilight world where where you stay till the lights come on in the morning, and you come out and it's dawn!

“It was a pretty wild time for us, and that's what I attempted to put in the song. It's all about us and the way things were, and the sort of sexy side of the peripherals of rock.”

Dragon Attack was the second track on The Game, following on from the disco-influenced mega-hit single Another One Bites The Dust.

“Dragon Attack was designed to be uniquely a dance track,” May said. “So you have Another One Bites The Dust and Dragon Attack which are both big departures from the way Queen had come up.

“I remember touring after we finished the record, and American radio picked up on those songs. We never expected they would. We thought they would want just the rock tracks. But they picked up on that stuff and it was all over radio!

“Every time we got into a limo or car or a restaurant or whatever, they would be playing those tracks.

“And it's interesting - it was the same time as The Rolling Stones put out Miss You, which is also very funky, very different for them. So there was a whole thing going on - rock was becoming funky for a while. And it worked!”

May reckoned that Dragon Attack and Another One Bites The Dust set the template for Queen’s following album - the controversial Hot Space, which was released in 1982.

Queen - Staying Power (Official Lyric Video) - YouTube

Watch On

As he told Total Guitar: “A lot of people said that the Hot Space album didn't work, but it actually did.

“It brought people to a new place. And it gave birth to Michael Jackson doing his incredible stuff - and later, Michael Jackson inviting Slash to play on a track with him.

“It was that fusion of funk and rock which I think lives with us to this day…”