“I put this riff on it, which people are telling me is the birth of thrash metal or something”: Queen’s Stone Cold Crazy comes full circle with a live punk rendition by The Offspring and Brian May

Brian May has made another special appearance at Slovakia's STARMUS festival, following his “challenging” collaboration with Jean-Michel Jarre last week. This time, he joined punk rock legends The Offspring for a special performance of Gone Away and Queen's Stone Cold Crazy.

The audience was treated to an orchestral arrangement of the band's 1997 hit Gone Away, which accompanied Dexter Holland's solo vocals. Midway through the song, the rest of the band, along with May, joined Holland on stage. As expected, the Queen guitarist put his own spin on the song's original guitar solo, with a little help from his trusty Red Special.

In the video recorded by fans, Holland is seen saying: “Brian, so nice of you to join us. So nice [of you] to hop in on this one! What a treat." The Offspring plus May then went on to perform Queen's Stone Cold Crazy from the 1974 album Sheer Heart Attack.

“OFFSPRINGMANIA !!!! I am so happy !!! If it never gets any better than the dressing-room run-through we just did, it will STILL be one of the most joyous moments of my ol' life !!! STARMUS and Bratislava are in for a treat,” posted Brian May.

In an interview with Total Guitar, May revealed how Stone Cold Crazy, known for its punk-rock drumming and quasi-thrash metal sensibilities, came about and unexpectedly gave birth to a new subgenre.

“Freddie had written the lyrics with his old band, and the original riff was very different – it sounded like the riff in Tear It Up [from 1984 album The Works]. So that original version of Stone Cold Crazy sounded like a lot of other things which were around at the time.

“But I thought: these lyrics are kind of frenetic, so the music should be frenetic as well. So I put this riff on it, which people are telling me is the birth of thrash metal or something! I don’t know about that. But was unusual at the time to play at that pace.”

The Offspring now join the ranks of punk and metal bands that have covered Stone Cold Crazy. Metallica famously covered the song, plus a few expletives, for Elektra Records' 1990 compilation album, and later used it as Enter Sandman's B-side, subsequently winning a Grammy.

Two years later, James Hetfield performed the song at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium, with Queen and Tony Iommi.