"Sorry, my head takes a little while to get into gear,” says Brian May with a little laugh as he begins to mull over the history of Queen. The 63-year-old guitarist speaks gently, endeavoring to answer questions as fully as he can. May’s academic air is understandable. As a younger man he attended London’s illustrious Imperial College until he abandoned his studies and a promising future in astrophysics to fully dedicate himself to Queen. The band’s estimated worldwide album sales vary anywhere from 150 to 300 million. Whatever the exact figure, it was certainly a smart career move for the budding cosmologist.

To urge the British government towards a more comprehensive set of measures to quell the problem of Piracy in the U.K., several notable musicians have signed a letter urging British Prime Minister David Cameron to encourage him to put more pressure on websites, search engines and advertisers to help put pirates out of business for good.