with his friend tim staffell, brian may started a band called 1984 in the mid-1960s. the band broke up after a little bit and then may decided to make another band and teamed up with two other college students named tim staffell and roger taylor. they called themselves "smile" with roger taylor on drums and vocals, tim staffell on vocals and bass and brian may on guitar and vocals. they did a few hits such as "april lady". tim staffell became friends with another college student, farrokh bulsara (to be later known as freddie mercury) and farrokh became a big fan of smile and encouraged them a lot. later on, tim left smile to join humpy bongs and farrokh bulsara subsequently joined the band on vocals and piano in 1970. then farrokh came up with the name queen, so they changed it from "smile" to "queen". they then started auditions for a new bassist. they were going through several bassists during this time and none of them stuck, only lasting for about a few minutes. none of the auditioners managed to suit the place of the new bassist, but finally in 1971, they settled on john deacon. queen's first album was released in 1973 and it was called "queen" with songs such as "seven seas of rhye" and "liar". farrokh bulsara changed his name to freddie mercury after the lyrics "mother mercury, look what they've done to me" in "my fairy king". brian may has a degree in astrophysics.