QUEEN's BRIAN MAY On Dealing With Various Challenges During Pandemic: 'I Have To Be Thankful That We're Here At All'

In a brand new interview with Britian's ITV, QUEEN guitarist Brian May reflected on the numerous challenges he and his wife have faced during the pandemic, including dealing with several health issues and watching as sewage flooded his London home and destroyed many of his treasured possessions.

"Yeah, we've been through a lot of stuff," he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). "And I have to be thankful that we're here at all. The final blow, after all the physical stuff, we got the house flooded, so that was a sort of final blow, 'cause that takes away a lot of your feelings of security [standing by helplessly as] your treasured possessions went up, or went down, I should say, into filthy water. And I think we're still recovering from that. It's funny — it does something to your psyche."

May went on to say that he has been staying busy with QUEEN-related activities, including preparing for the band's upcoming tour.

"A lot's still happening behind the scenes," he said. "QUEEN never dies, really. And I have to be very thankful for that. And it never sleeps either — we're always doing stuff, remixing stuff. I'm sitting here in the studio in which I did a lot of my solo material but also we did a lot of work on the last QUEEN album, the 'Made In Heaven' album. And things are always going on. We remix, we re-polish, we repackage because there's a constant demand — thank you — from people out there who wanna see some of the old material brought up to scratch in the modern media. So, yeah, we keep busy, and we will be out. I'm working on my fitness, which is the best thing I can do right now, very, very avidly, because next May we'll be out back on the road, hopefully, continuing the tour of the world which we paused when COVID struck."

This past July, Brian became distraught after water wrecked part of his home, ruining treasured possessions and memorabilia. He later told his 2.9 million followers on Instagram that the flood was the fault of the council, approving poorly designed basements to be built in the the affluent West London suburb of Kensington with "ineffective" drainage.

A year and a half ago, May had to be hospitalized after he tore his buttocks "to shreds" while gardening. As a result, he developed severe sciatica and suffered what he later described as a "small heart attack" from the medication. May then had a bad reaction to his heart attack medication and nearly died. More recently, Brian underwent cataract eye surgery.