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This guitar strap that we’ve named LEGEND BM BOHEMIAN has a story behind it… And we are happy to share it with you:
This guitar strap is a re-creation of the one worn by music legend Dr. Brian May that accompanied the also legendary Red Special guitar.
Here is the short version of the story behind this replica guitar strap:
On 9 August 2018, we received an email from our distributor in the USA with the following subject line: “Strap Idea” which stated the following:
“Hey guys – an interesting idea came about when talking with a big US dealer a few days ago. They noticed that the straps being used in the new Queen movie (Bohemian Rhapsody, 2018) do not look anything like the real Brian May strap he used. There are some photos in the email below. Do you think it is possible to re-create? “
Our answer, of course, was YES.
The truth is that looking for information about this strap we realised that there is not much history behind it, but that it became an icon after Queen’s memorable performance at the 1985 Live Aid in London, at Wembley Stadium.
This performance was recreated in the film “Bohemian Rhapsody” and surely the art or costume director of the film lacked inspiration when recreating the guitar strap worn in the film by Gwilym Lee (Brian May in the film) as the result is quite far from the original strap.
What we were asked to do was quite a challenge, as we only had a few poor-quality photos from the “pre-digital era”, from which it was quite difficult to make out what the exact shape of the buckle was or what the filigree design of the bas-relief engraving looked like.
What is being said in the forums we have checked is that it seems to be that this strap was apparently lost, missing, or stolen. There are all kinds of opinions, all of which are difficult to verify, so…. who knows …?
We couldn’t find much written information about the strap either, but we were able to assume that this guitars strap was a normal trouser belt transformed into a guitar strap, as so many guitarists have done throughout history.
Well, it’s a belt, so let’s turn it into a guitar strap…. The design team adapted our original RAS length system to the back of the strap to give it a wider range of adjustment so it’s not as tight as we sensed the original strap was, and of course we added the holes to attach the guitar
Another interesting detail of the original strap was the fix that Dr. May applied to hold his slide in place using duct tape. Again, our design team took the license to replace the duct tape with elastic bands, so that each player can choose his preferred position or even remove them to not use them or to replace them with duct tape if he prefers.
When we finished the process of recreating the strap, we sent the prototype to the USA for testing and evaluation. A few days after arriving in the USA, that first replica made by RightOn! was presented at a promotional meeting between key account purchasing executives, VOX amps managers and Dr. Brian May himself, who upon seeing the replica of his old and “lost” strap said: “Damn, I haven’t seen this strap in a long time”.
Could there be a better score for our work?… for us it was a great achievement, and we are proud to have been able to successfully reproduce this mythical guitar strap.
This year, as we celebrate our 10th anniversary, we have decided to bring this replica to the fans of Queen, Dr. Brian May and the Red Special.
The RightOn! team is confident that you will fall in love with the workmanship and that you will look as cool as Dr. Brian May did. Enjoy it!