Queen + Paul Rodgers = Over

Former Free frontman Rodgers is gearing up for a summer reunion tour with Bad Company, and says the time has come to take a break from his commitments with Queen (Brian May and Roger Taylor).

"At this point we're gonna sit back from this," Rodgers says, rather editorially. "My arrangement with [Queen] was similar to my arrangement with Jimmy [Page] in The Firm in that it was never meant to be a permanent arrangement.

"I think we made a huge success of it, actually," he continued. "We did two world tours and a couple of live recordings, and...made a studio album (2008's 'The Cosmos Rocks') which was pretty historical for [May and Taylor] because they hadn't really gone in the studio with anybody and recorded something like that for a very long time. So it was quite an achievement, I think."

He insisted the split was not acrimonious and that there was a possibilty of future reunions: "It's kind of an open book, really. If they approach me to do something for charity, for instance, or something like that...I'd be very much into doing that, for sure."

Queen + Paul Rodgers formed in late 2004, Rodgers of course assuming vocal duties from Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, who died in 1991.