That was how I had developed my singing style in the first place - imitating other singers like George Michael and Richard Marx.
Marc Martel
Being compared to Freddie Mercury is something I've come to terms with. I don't know that I'll ever successfully avoid the comparisons, as much as I might want to. Why bother, though? People hear what they want to hear because it makes them feel good and gives them a momentary pause from a loss rock and roll has felt for years.
Of course I always knew 'We Will Rock You' and 'We Are The Champions' and all those. But my real introduction to Queen the band and knowing who they were was the movie 'Wayne's World' like a lot of people in my generation.
I'm a huge mimic. That's how I learned to sing. I listened to a lot of Freddy Mercury, obviously.
My mom is the piano player in my dad's church - she's also the choir director - and she's just a musician through and through.
My biggest influences when I was a kid - I listened to a lot of top 40 radio, so whatever the big artists were, so, like, the mid-'80s.
Everyone has needs, but Food for the Hungry is something that people can grasp onto as a practical way to step outside of themselves, take a risk, and give.
If the Christian community responds to our music better because maybe we gained a little more credibility in the mainstream, then it's not ideal, it's not fun, it's not sexy, but I'll take it.
I immediately recognised that Freddy's vocal chords bore an uncanny resemblance to mine - or vice-versa, I guess - and yeah, the rest is history.
'Bohemian Rhapsody' is my all-time favorite.
The name Downhere comes from a song I wrote after a friend of mine died in college, and it was kind of the first time I was dealing with loss and, you know, real mortality, and it was a song of how down here on Earth, we don't have the big picture.
I think people tend to cling to music when times are hard.
I'm the worst critic about music myself. I hardly ever, ever like something the first time I listen to it.
I know how limited and how fleeting fame is, so I just try not to get excited about it, honestly.
People have been telling me for years that I sound like Freddie Mercury.
It's not like I'm pretending to be Freddie Mercury.
I always loved music - it was always in the house - and my younger brother is musical, too.
I grew up on a lot of gospel music.
I was born in '76, but I didn't get into rock until the early '90s when the grunge stuff started coming out.
I ended up taking piano lessons at a really young age, I took, like, years of piano lessons, and I always loved to sing.
Being a professional musician with Downhere for 11 years now, I feel completely at home on stage.
Honestly, 198,9 I was 12 or 13 years old and primed for the new boy band thing. This guy Jordan Knight sounded like a chick, and I wanted to figure out how to do it, and I did.
Rock and roll reaches people because it's honest and doesn't shy away from the issues.
Freddie Mercury wrote songs that were real and true.
Everyone has their own tastes. Some people want to feel like it's Queen onstage, including the dress-up thing, but that's not my style. I do know some people love that and wish I would do it, but I have no interest in that.
It sure is cool that I was mentioned in 'Rolling Stone.'
People would come up to me, saying, 'You sound a lot like the lead singer from Queen.' I started wondering, 'Who is this guy making me sound so unoriginal?'
I liken the Queen thing to being in a worship service. Everyone comes having grown up with this music. It's in their blood, in their souls. Every night, it's always a huge standing ovation.
The stuff that's good is the stuff that lives on.
Most of the music I grew up listening to was not Christian music, although I definitely had a lot of that at home, too.
Rock n' roll is the music where you can get away with pretty much saying everything, and it's OK. You can say truths in really interesting and good ways and really express yourself through it.
The Ultimate Queen Celebration is a little bit different. I take liberties with the amount of songs in the set that aren't necessarily Queen songs. I take some freedoms with The Ultimate Queen Celebration that I can't really do with The Queen Extravaganza.
My favorite thing about the Ultimate Queen Celebration is that we're not afraid to explore a non-traditional Queen set list.
No band has two hours' worth of greatest hits, but Queen comes close.
My favorite song to perform is 'Love of my Life.'
Queen had incredible songwriters.
Stylistically speaking, 'Paradise' is a Jekyll & Hyde song.
I know at the back of my mind that there's no way I can please everybody, so I still just have to be myself anyway.
When I was in my former band Downhere, I did everything I could not to remind people of Freddie Mercury, but it became almost hilarious how many people compared me to him to the point where it felt like it was working against the band when we tested singles at radio.
