Roger Taylor has ruined Queen fans' Christmas by dismissing reports suggesting he and bandmate Brian May are working on a new album featuring unfinished Freddie Mercury songs.
The drummer admits there are a handful of songs Mercury left incomplete when he died 20 years ago (91) - but there's not enough for a new album - and any thoughts of reworking the tunes for a new release have been scrapped.
Taylor tells Ultimate Classic Rock, "There won't be an album. There's just not enough (material) and the last thing I want to do is have a sort of barrel-scraping exercise."
But fans can still expect something new from Mercury and Queen in 2012: "There's a couple of great tracks that Freddie recorded with Michael Jackson that Brian and I are working on and they are good. So, at some point, they will surface I think when we feel it's a good moment. I don't really want to ride any sort of wave there.
"That's an interesting thing, but that will be probably later some point next year."
And Taylor reveals he has also abandoned plans to tour again with Paul Rodgers, who joined him and May for a major Queen tour, that prompted an album of new material and live DVDs, in 2005. The collaboration ended in 2009.
The drummer tells ThePulseofRadio.com, "That was always... it was a thing, Paul had his career... Now, Brian and I, we're never going to tour with that kind of intensity any more, I think."