A quick google search (only first page of results) shows all these sources claiming Brian said he (not John) had started it off:
http://atop.proboards.com/thread/996?page=64
http://www.queenmusichall.cz/en/intervi ... ic-86.html
http://www.deaky.net/disco/indexE.html
http://genius.com/Queen-pain-is-so-clos ... ure-lyrics
http://www.oocities.org/queengui/bran.html
http://adamtopia.com/thread/2259?page=1
Perhaps, of course, they're all wrong and they all copied and pasted from each other (or from another source which had a typo or whatever), but if so, do you know if there's an audio version anywhere, or a scanned form of the article? That would certainly put it to rest.