Queen drummer Roger Taylor has told how he thinks about death more with age – but insisted: “You should live each day and make sure you have a good time.”

Echoing the band’s 1979 hit Don’t Stop Me Now, the rock legend added: “Every time you don’t have a good time, you’re missing out.”

Speaking as he turned 70 on Friday, Taylor said: “It’s a journey… and it is coming up to the end. Everybody is leaving at some point.

“As you get older you think about it more. When the end does come it would be nice if it was unexpected. It often is.”

He said the milestone birthday had set him thinking about his late pals – including George Michael, David Bowie and Prince.

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Taylor said: “As we’re not getting any younger, you should start thinking about the tail end, or the September of one’s years.

“You mustn’t be afraid of talking about serious things. I don’t think anybody in their 20s thinks about that sort of thing.

“We’re all getting older and we’re going to drop off the perch. Inevitably one is forced to confront the fact. As David Bowie said, ‘I embrace age’. I’m not sure he meant it.

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“He said, ‘The only drawback is that the dying part is so s**t’.”

He praised the way Bowie, who died in January 2016 aged 69, had dealt with his approaching death from cancer – which was documented in his final album, Blackstar, released two days before his death.

He admitted: “Losing David affected me. He was always very much a godlike hero to me, an A1 star genius.

“I didn’t quite believe it at first. I didn’t accept the fact he was no longer around and how bravely he dealt with it in the end. It was extraordinary.

“What a talent – and the fact that he almost engineered his death as a spectacle in [stage musical] Lazarus, and in the very scary videos he made for the last two tracks. It was really quite something.

“I don’t think anybody had been that graphic about their own death. It was harrowing.”

Revealing he would have loved to have collaborated with Bowie, he said: “It would have been fantastic… but it was not to be.”

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Taylor called 2016 “a terrible year”, with the deaths of Bowie, Prince – who died in April aged 57 – and Status Quo singer and guitarist Rick Parfitt, 68, and George Michael, 53, who died in December, a day apart.

He said: “He [Parfitt] was an old friend from the 80s. We were close.

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“And George was a terrific shock. He was a talented, troubled guy.”

In 1997, Queen released Only The Good Die Young – a tribute to frontman Freddie Mercury, who died in 1991 aged 45.

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And despite his sombre reflections, Taylor says his life has been “an incredible journey” – adding he thought his career would have been over after Mercury’s death.

He said: “Our career and our band, it seems to continue with a life of its own. As long as people want to see us we’ll be happy.”