Adam Lambert (Photo courtesy 42 West)

Adam Lambert has served as Queen’s frontman since 2014 and while the “American Idol” alum isn’t a replacement for Freddie Mercury the band believes Mercury “would have loved” Lambert.

Lambert, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor spoke with Entertainment Tonight about how Queen was reborn.

“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.”

Queen would eventually join Lambert on stage on the season eight finale of “American Idol” in 2009 to perform “We Are the Champions.” In 2014, they joined back together to go on tour. Now, they will embark on a second North American tour this June.

“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 says. “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.”

For Lambert, the love would have been mutual.

“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.”

Queen and Adam Lambert perform at the Verizon Center on July 31.