EXCLUSIVE: Queen Says Freddie Mercury 'Would Have Loved' Adam Lambert, Talks Upcoming Summer Tour

After hitting the road together in 2014, the legendary rock band Queen and singer Adam Lambert are launching another tour this summer. ET's Carly Steel caught up with the artists, who opened up about why they work so well together.

"I think it keeps happening because it's fun and people like it. Simple as that," Lambert tells ET. "We have a good time on stage. Audiences are over the moon every show we do."

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Lambert first performed with guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor during the American Idol season finale in 2009, where Lambert was a finalist. The group performed "We Are the Champions" for a stunned crowd who had been asking for this merger ever since hearing Lambert belt out "Bohemian Rhapsody" at his Idol audition.

"We didn't plan it. It just happened really," May says. "Along came Adam, out of the blue. We saw him on American Idol and we'd already had an avalanche of messages saying already, 'This is the guy you need to sing for you! You should do this!' We felt good about it, so organically, suddenly, we were a band again. We're like family. It's amazing."

Of course, Lambert is filling a spot left vacant by music icon Freddie Mercury, who died in1991. Despite having a new lead singer, Mercury's spirit is still embedded into the fiber of the band.

"Freddie is actually featured in our show, and I think Brian and I continually feel his presence because we grew up together and he's a part of our mental wallpaper," Taylor explains. "I think it's important that it comes over that we're actually enjoying playing together, but Freddie would have loved Adam. No doubt about it."

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"I wish I had been able to meet him," Lambert says. "[He was] so inspiring. Seeing footage of Freddie in live set-ups is particularly liberating as an artist stepping into the situation, because I feel like because he was so bold and fearless, he gives me so much permission to sort of take it wherever I want to take it. He didn't hold back at all."

While Lambert carries the torch for Mercury on tour, Rami Malek will play the singer-songwriter in the upcoming biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody. Eight years in the making, the film will be directed by Bryan Singer after a long search to find the right person for the job.

WATCH: Rami Malek Reveals He Will Sing as Freddie Mercury in Queen Biopic 'Bohemian Rhapsody'

"We all feel it's a big job and it has to do Freddie justice," May says. "We get one shot at this."

Queen's 24-city tour with Lambert kicks off June 23.

EXCLUSIVE: Rami Malek Reveals He Will Sing in Freddie Mercury Biopic

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