Roger Taylor says his decades-long tinnitus has finally been eased after a trip to Harley Street. The Queen drummer, 76, tied the problem to more than 40 years of mega-volume stadium concerts. He described the result as a practical fix, not a miracle cure.
Harley Street and the Haruko
“Well, it is. It's all those speakers and those drums banging - that’s quite hard every day, day in, day out. And then you get tinnitus for decades... and then a man in Harley Street taught me how to deal with it,” Taylor said on the podcast I'm ADHD! No You're Not, hosted by Paul Whitehouse and Dr Mine Conkbayir.
He said the approach that helps him most is sound-based. “So it is the humble Haruko. It's a good device, I think, on a daily basis.” Taylor added that talking therapy does not help him at all, making the treatment choice unusually specific for someone who has spent more than four decades around loud stages.
Decades of clicks and clacks
“It's very annoying, and it comes on worst normally when you're tired or stressed. And then it's a million crickets going on, with clicks and clacks. And you have to welcome it as a friend,” Taylor said of the condition. That description gives the clearest window into how the problem shows up in daily life: it is worse when fatigue or stress rises, not just after performances.
The timing also matters. Taylor said the condition has followed him for decades, long after the era when Queen’s live shows were built around huge sound levels. For anyone who performs, tours, or works around heavy amplification, his account is a reminder that hearing damage can become a long-running work issue rather than a one-time injury.
Freddie Mercury and Queen
Taylor also used the appearance to talk about Freddie Mercury, who died in 1991 from AIDS-related complications. “Well, he was kind of my best friend, you know. Just the humour of the friendship. And we were in a gang together, you know, against the world,” he said.
He said Mercury understood Queen’s structure better than a single-leader model. “Look, let's just get, put all this to bed and let everything's written by all of us, and so it's equal shares,” Taylor recalled him saying. “Don't call me the leader. I'm the singer.”
For listeners, the takeaway is straightforward: Taylor is not describing tinnitus as a solved medical headline in the abstract, but as a condition he has found a daily management method for after years of noise exposure. The most useful next step for anyone with a similar problem is the one he points to directly — a treatment that works for the individual, not a generic fix.
