So, Alfie Boe, do you secretly yearn to be a rock god?

14 November 2014, 09:10

'I love rock music and I love singing it,' says the tenor on this week’s edition of Charlotte Green’s Culture Club, Sunday, 3pm.

Superstar tenor Alfie Boe is about to embark on an 11-date arena tour of the UK - and his legions of fans are anticipating a few surprises. They know that from time to time, he likes to sing them a rock number or two. 

"It’s great because it gives me the opportunity to play contemporary songs to a classical audience and classical songs to a contemporary audience," Boe tells Charlotte Green on Sunday’s Culture Club on Classic FM.

In the past, the tenor has given his own unique twist to Led Zeppelin’s Rock n’Roll or The Who’s Love Reign O’er Us, written for the 1973 rock opera Quadrophenia. And he cites one of his greatest influences as Queen's late, great Freddie Mercury.

So, asks Charlotte, does Alfie Boe secretly yearn to be a rock god? 

"I just want to try to close that barrier between classical and rock, and classical and contemporary," Boe says. 

"Sometimes it doesn't work – people would rather just hear what they like – and sometimes it does."

But generally the response from fans has been very positive, he says. 

"For me personally, it clarifies that there’s no difference between genres. There's no difference between classical or rock or pop or jazz or blues. It's just music when it comes down to it."

The tenor believes there's a reason the word classic is used in the phrase, 'classic rock songs'.

"These are songs that have stood the test of time," he says. "The songs that people love to hear and they're also very well musically structured songs that demand a high ability to sing and a high ability to produce the quality that they need."

Boe also coyly reveals that he's been working on a project which has "an element of rock" to it that is to be announced soon.

So is a rock album out of the question?

"If there's a body of classic rock songs that would suit me and that I would be able to do justice to, and that would be able to do my voice justice, then I would record it,” he tells Charlotte Green.