Queen guitarist Brian May has revealed that Elvis Presley’s Jailhouse Rock and its two-chord riff was one of the first guitar influences in his music career.

The musician and academic has compiled an album of the best air guitar anthems and spoke about Elvis’s famous song, saying: “I found that I could do that and that’s the great thing – you don’t have to be a great guitar player to play a lot of these riffs. You can pick it up and in a few hours, you can get to something that makes you feel good.”

The first song featured on Brian’s new compilation is the band’s famous hit Bohemian Rhapsody. Talking about the “rock out” section in the song, Brian said it “is actually Freddie’s riff which he played on the piano first.”

Air Guitar Anthems is Released on 18 November on Universal Music On Demand.