NEW INTERVIEW WITH RINGO!!!
bab...@yahoo.com
"He's remembered as much for his personality as for his percussion.
His droll humor, cheerful easygoing nature, and unflappable,
down-to-earth disposition helped ground the Beatles psychologically as
surely as his rock-steady, understated backbeat anchored them
musically. But his very willingness to accommodate sometimes obscured
Ringo Starr's own creative talents - the slow tom fills he introduced
on Sgt. Pepper were a minor, if unacknowledged, innovation in rock
drumming. All well and good, you say. But what's he done lately?
"Ringo" and "Goodnight Vienna" weren't half-bad as Beatle solo albums
go, but that was thirty odd years ago."
"Subsequent albums evidenced a steady, inexorable decline in both
quality and sales, possibly reaching a nadir with 1978's horrific "Bad
Boy" and 1981's abysmal "Stop and Smell the Roses". Ten years after
the breakup, he showed more interest (and garnered more critical and
commercial kudos) with film ventures like "Caveman:, than with rock
'n' roll. That kind of Hollywood flash lands you on the cover of
People, not Musician. But the publicity team was on the phone again,
insisting that Ringo had just finished, with a little help from some
famous friends, ANOTHER new album that was a straightforward
reaffirmation of his love for, and commitment to, rock 'n' roll.
What's more, he was willing and anxious to sit down and talk about his
music, including his time with the you-know-Whooties.Two weeks later
I'm standing in the fashionable lobby of the fashionable Beverly
Wilshire Hotel (whose design, I am convinced, was the result of some
unholy collaboration between Bernini and Zsa Zsa Gabor) trying to
reason with a stone-faced desk officer:
"I'm sorry, but there is no Mr. Starr - or Mr. Starkey registered
here." "Oh, yeah, I know, but I'm here to interview him ... he's
expecting me."
"We have no record of any such person here. I'm sorry, sir!"
"Right. Well, I'll just knock on each door till I find him. Where's
room #1?"
"Why don't you just leave your card and we'll see if..."
The first thing you notice are the eyes: they're a startlingly bright,
vibrant shade of Cote 'Azur blue - a tint no photograph can do justice
to. (Sounds like People already, doesn't it?) I'm pleased, but not
really surprised to find him alert, friendly, humorous - and quite
intelligent. (As Paul McCartney put it last year, "Ringo's got a good
head on his shoulder - he's by no means thick!") He's a man seemingly
at ease with himself and his circumstances - still sensitive to
criticism of himself, his talent, or his "three brothers" - but secure
in his role as husband, actor and musician. This confident demeanor
takes on added significance when you consider that by all accounts the
last 25 years haven't been the easiest of his life, "Bad Boy" had been
a discouraging experience that convinced him to take a break from
recording for a few years,
By his own admission, some of that time had been squandered "getting
stoned every night" with friends, but in 1980 things began to turn
around. His movie, "Caveman", scored both with the critics and at the
box office despite having no intelligible dialogue, and it was while
making that film that Ringo met the person who has probably had a
greater influence on him than anyone since the three scruffy Liverpool
rockers spirited him away from Rory Storme & the Hurricanes, his wife.
Don't let the Playboy image fool you; Barbara Bach was and is an
intelligent, perceptive woman and they seem to be in love. As Ringo
acknowledges, it was Barbara who rousted him out of bed and a drunken
stupor and inspired him to go back into the studio. If all this - the
decision to stop making indistinguishable albums, the bouts of
drinking and drugs, and the sensitive, supportive mate who helped
revitalize flagging spirits - sounds curiously close to the story of
another ex-Beatle, well...Next to John Lennon, Ringo was always the
most rock'n'roll-oriented member of the Fab Four - a fact that's
repeatedly confirmed in the following interview.
As the beat behind the Beatles on most of their recordings Ringo was
the solid, no-frills pulse that helped maintain the connection with
their rock 'n' roll roots. For Ringo, the band was everything. It was
that singular chemistry that resulted when the four of them played
together that made the magic possible, and kept the creative channels
open.
RINGO: I'd rather not turn this into "Unveiling The Beatles Part 2."
(aside to MUSICIAN) When will this be on the newsstands?
MUSICIAN: Late December and January. I'm sure you're sick of people
asking gossipy questions about the Beatles; trying to dig up dirt...
RINGO: I'm bored with it, and so is everyone else.
MUSICIAN: I agree, but that's not what we're after at all. What we're
interested in is the music - how you actually put together the medley
on Abbey Road, for instance, or did you? How you developed those
trademark tom fills around the time of Sgt. Pepper; how you guys
coordinated playing live with all that screaming going on ... from a
musician's point of view.
RINGO: That's different. I'd be glad to talk about the music for a
change. Some of these interviews we've had ... I told this one
reporter that I'd once done a few tracks on one of Paul's albums, and
he says, "Gee, that's fantastic, Ring!" Then there's a long pause and
he says, "By the way, what's a track?!"
BARBARA: And there are some who'll act very friendly for the first ten
minutes or so, and then just when Ritchie's comfortable they'll try
and dredge up something from the past.
MUSICIAN: I understand. Well, we'll try and keep the center of gravity
on music, and if we get into anything you're uncomfortable with, just
let me know.
RINGO: That's fine. I have no problems with getting into the music.
MUSICIAN: You've had a great deal of success working in films over the
last few years. Could you ever see your putting aside music completely
at some point?
RINGO: Never. If I had to be put on a desert island with only one
thing to do, it would be drumming. Like the song says, it's still my
madness. There's just nothing that can compare with that magic moment
when a whole band just comes together as one - the guitar, the drums,
the piano - and it all fits in and clicks. Unless you're a musician, I
don't think you'll ever understand that feeling. Besides, I don't
know how to do anything else.
MUSICIAN: What would you say is your greatest strength as a musician?
RINGO: I'm solid as a rock. Also great timing and good fills. With
some players it's like holding a race horse, because they try and
gallop off. Being a good time keeper, I try and hold it together
rather than getting excited and dashing off with the pianist or
someone, and the track ending up twice as fast as when you started.
MUSICIAN: Some drummers intentionally play a little ahead or a little
behind the beat...
RINGO: No, I try and play exactly on time. I seem to have this thing
where my body clock keeps accurate time. I just stay dead on it ...
okay, I've been known to race a few fills - or even get lost in a few
fills now and then - but I always seem to come back out of it at the
right spot. But while I'm in the middle of it all, it's a total
blackout.
MUSICIAN: Going back to the beginning, how did you get started with
drums?
RINGO: Drums have always been my instrument. My grandmum played the
banjo and mandolin, which she gave me ...I had no interest. Then my
grandfather bought me a harmonica ... had no interest. Finally, they
got me a grand piano ... and that got my interest.
MUSICIAN: Did you learn to play it?
RINGO: No, I used to walk on it - up and down the keyboard! Then at
thirteen I went to hospital, and once a week they'd have the ward
band, which I wouldn't play in unless I got the drums. And there were
yellow dots for the triangle, and green dots for the cymbals, and I
guess that's what started it all. Then I started playing on the
bedside table with bits of wood or anything. When I got out I bought a
cheap five-dollar bass drum and a skin that I'd use as a snare drum.
MUSICIAN: What about technique? Were you taking lessons?
RINGO: No, I'd just lay them down on the floor, take two pieces of
firewood, and bang the shit out of 'em. Then my stepfather bought me
this great old $30 mish-mash drum kit. I didn't have a car; I had to
go to my first gigs by bus. So I ended up only carrying the snare and
cymbals with me. I used to beg some other drummer on the bill with a
full kit to lend me his for my set. Sometimes they would, and
sometimes they wouldn't. But it didn't matter all that much when I
started, because it was skiffle, and a snare and cymbals were really
all you needed.
MUSICIAN: They were also the only parts of your kit that were audible
on those early Beatles albums.
RINGO: Yeah, they never knew how to mic the bass drum in those days.
Maybe the bass drum caused too much roll-off - made the needle jump -
when they went to press it. Most records in those days were like that;
the highs would come through, and little else. Then Motown came along
with great highs and a great bass sound, because the technology became
available to capture those deeper lows.
MUSICIAN: That was around the time of Sgt. Pepper, when you and Paul
suddenly came forward in the mix. Paul told us that the fact that the
bass and drums could now be recorded realistically inspired him to
perfect his style. Was that leap in technology also what moved you to
develop those slow tom fills? I've always felt that you effectively
changed the direction of popular drumming at that point.
RINGO: You may not know it, but that style was put down all over the
world! Like, "Oh, that's just Ringo and his funny fills." All that
came about because I was getting back into calfskins and out of
plastic ones when we were in the studio, and the toms just sounded so
deep. Plus, there were more of them now that I was back to using a
full kit instead of the mini-kit I'd used on tours.
MUSICIAN: The smaller kit was more convenient on the road?
RINGO: Nah, we used it so I'd look a bit taller ... little English
joke there, folks! But back to the funny fills: They were funny
because I can't just sweep around the kit, dubba-dubba-dub, like a lot
of drummers. I found I had to come off with my left hand, even though
I'm right-handed, and so I wound up working my way up the kit
backwards, and that's how the "funny fills" thing started.
MUSICIAN: You keep referring to them as "funny little fills", which I
think is being a bit overly modest. That was an innovation that really
influenced almost everyone...
RINGO: Yeah, but I didn't know that until I came to America and
started meeting drummers like Snakey Keltner and Jim Gordon. They
said, "Hey, we're sick and tired of being asked to play like Ringo
every time we do a session!" So I only call them "funny little fills"
because that's how the critics referred to them at the time. They were
never "funny little fills" to me; they were always VERY SERIOUS LITTLE
FILLS! Maybe they were funny, but everybody wanted to do them.
MUSICIAN: Speaking of fills, is it true George Martin didn't want to
use you on the "Love Me Do" sessions because he felt you couldn't do a
roll?
RINGO: I still can't do a roll. Never could. I think I freaked George
out because of the way I played the demo on "Please Please Me." There
I was playing the full kit with bass drum, snare, toms, high hats, and
at the same time I had a tambourine in one hand and a maraca in the
other, using them like drumsticks. I could see George in the control
booth shaking his head in disgust and thinking, "NOOOOOOOOOO, I DON'T
THINK THAT'S VERY PROFESSIONAL," or whatever he thought. Then he
brought in a real drummer, Andy White, who plays on the album version
of "Love Me Do", and I play on the single version.
MUSICIAN: Were there any other Beatle tracks that you didn't play on?
RINGO: Only two I know of: Paul played drums on "The Ballad of John
and Yoko" and on "Back In The U.S.S.R." I did all the rest, unless he
re-recorded the drum track on some songs after I left the studio,
which he may have done. But as George Martin said later, and I quote,
although he didn't want me around in the beginning, now he'd like me
to play on any session he has. So he's changed.
MUSICIAN: You were with Rory Storme & the Hurricanes in Hamburg at the
same time as the Beatles. How important was that experience to your
musical evolution and that of the rest of the Beatles?
RINGO: Hamburg is really where we got our stuff together. If we hadn't
gone there, I don't know how - or even if - I would have continued,
playing. Up 'til then we'd been gigging just a couple of nights a week
in clubs around Liverpool. But in Hamburg our two groups played twelve
hours a day between us. You can't play "Johnny B. Goode" for six hours
a night, so we had to stretch and play anything we could think of -
experiment and try new things; throw in waltzes and all kinds of
madness. The Beatles and Rory both wanted to be the top band, and we'd
battle to win the audience. We'd do any craziness to get them going:
if it was a rock number, we'd really rock and if it was a slow tune,
we'd really slow it down. The competition and all those hours really
forced us to learn our craft. It was like a cram course.
MUSICIAN: Did the Beatles impress you as musicians at the time?
RINGO: They impressed me more as vocalists. Paul wasn't actually
playing an instrument, he was strumming a two-string guitar just so he
could hold something. They could rock as a band, but I mostly remember
Paul up there just singing his balls off with this two-string guitar.
MUSICIAN: Just before you all came to America, you were reported as
saying that "I'm not really a Beatle yet, I'm still on salary." Were
you initially a hired hand?
RINGO: No, I was never on salary; I was always an equal partner. It's
just that the tracks I sang on the albums were never singles. I was in
the back as the drummer.
MUSICIAN: Were you anxious to sing, or did the others nudge you into
it?
RINGO: No, I used to do a twenty-minute set with Rory where I'd do
all the vocals. It was a natural thing for me to have a track.
MUSICIAN: You usually seemed to wind up doing cover tunes, like "Boys"
or "Act Naturally"...
RINGO: We did those cover tunes in the early days simply because we
didn't have enough material. We were trying to build up to where it
was just our original songs, but when you do your first album, you do
exactly what you do on the road. There was very little new stuff on
that first album, which is how we managed to make it in twelve hours
from start to finish, ending with "Twist and Shout".
MUSICIAN: It must have been a little frustrating working behind two or
three of the greatest songwriters in history.
RINGO: Yeah, I had problems with that as a writer, because when I'd
present my songs they'd all fall about on the floor laughing. If the
lyrics or the melody weren't trite and silly sounding, they were
plagiarized. Not good for the ego, you know.
MUSICIAN: Were they that bad?
RINGO: Well, I'd unconsciously steal old songs and re-write them and
not realize it. So they'd fall about laughing and tell me "Oh, you've
just rewritten that again".
MUSICIAN: When we talked to Paul last year, he said that the others
always gave you directions on every single number...
RINGO: That's right. They wrote the songs and knew the direction they
wanted to go in. Basically, I was dealing with three frustrated
drummers, so they'd all have their say. I remember John and I having
these great discussions about it. He'd put on some record and say
"That's what I want - play it like that!" And I'd say, "But John,
there's two guys playing drums on that record!" - 'cause in those days
they started using two drummers at some sessions. And John would
argue, "NAAAH, there's only one!" "No," I'd say, "there are two of
them! THERE'S TWO BLOODY SNARES AND FOUR CYMBALS AND EIGHT TOMS...
LISTEN TO IT!" I remember going through that conversation more than
once! But as I say, every track they wrote, they had an idea how they
wanted it. If it was Paul, he'd come to me and say, "I want the drums
something like this," and we'd all give what we could to help.
Naturally, within that general framework you would express your own
personality. Sometimes I would come up with something completely
different than what was asked for.
MUSICIAN: Did that cause problems?
RINGO: Never. That was the great thing about the Beatles: it didn't
matter who came up with it, if you had a better idea it was used. No
one stood on their ego. Hell, even our roadies like Mal contributed
some lyrics or came up with titles for our albums. We weren't going to
stand there like four big babies and say, "Well, we didn't think of it
so we won't use it." We were always open to any good suggestion that
was better than ours. Our egos didn't get in the way of the music.
MUSICIAN: Maybe it didn't affect the music directly, but there were
obviously personality problems in the band by the time of The White
Album. Paul claimed that that was the most tense….
RINGO: ... it was so tense I left the group.
MUSICIAN: What went wrong?
RINGO: We were going through madness. Everyone thought everybody else
was okay - that the other three were friends - and it turned out that
none of us were getting along with each other. We were all paranoid
and crazy at the time. So I left for a few weeks and went on holiday
because I just couldn't take it anymore. When I came back George met
me with a horseshoe of flowers, and it was all beautiful again.
MUSICIAN: Is it possible that the friction may have somehow helped to
get your collective creative juices flowing again? Musically, it had
to be one of your best efforts.
RINGO: As a band member, I've always felt The White Album was better
than Sgt. Pepper, because by the end it was more like a real group
again. There weren't so many overdubs like on Pepper. With all those
orchestras and whatnot we were virtually reduced to being a session
group on our own album. So The White Album I really enjoyed, because
we were playing like a real band again.
MUSICIAN: Paul seems to get blamed more than the others for the
craziness that went down at the time. Some people say he tried to take
over the band after Brian died. Did the Beatles need a musical
director or leader at that point?
RINGO: Paul wasn't a musical director. Paul just likes to work - he's
a workaholic. We'd all be wandering around the garden on a summer's
day and there'd come this phone call, and it would be Paul saying "I
think it's time we went back to work, lads!" So he would call us in,
but not as musical director, because if, for instance, George wrote a
particular track, then he'd be director on that, and so on.
MUSICIAN: As a drummer, was it difficult working with a bass player as
busy and innovative as McCartney?
RINGO: It was always interesting, because Paul is one of the finest
and most melodic bass players in the world. We'd always work out the
bass and bass drum parts together to complement each other, and so we
wouldn't get in each other's way. Going back to your earlier question,
I think that's when we started to be brought forward in the mix. We
were playing a very strong rhythmic mix of bass, snare, toms, and bass
drum, and it was becoming an important element in our overall sound.
So we'd work on that, and I still to this day always work closely with
the bass player.
MUSICIAN: Were you thoroughly disgusted with touring by the time you
stopped?
RINGO: The main thing about the road was that no matter how good or
bad we played, we got the same reaction. When we came off stage we
were the only ones who knew how well or poorly we'd actually played.
It didn't matter if we'd just done the worst show in the world, they'd
scream and applaud anyway. That doesn't help you.
MUSICIAN: Steve Winwood told us that he left Blind Faith for just that
reason; he felt they were losing touch with reality because there was
no reliable feedback. People cheered anything ...
RINGO: That's exactly right, and it was screwing our brains over!
After a while we figured we could probably go out there and just fart
and we'd still get the same manic response. It wasn't appreciation for
the act anymore, it was just a reaction to the phenomenon.
MUSICIAN: So you felt they weren't really listening ...
RINGO: Well, they couldn't even hear it at that point. They didn't
come to our shows to listen to music - they came to watch four guys
mime. It must have looked like miming, because nobody could hear
anything - including us!
MUSICIAN: I've always wondered how you managed to coordinate your
playing in the middle of all that pandemonium?
RINGO: I couldn't do any fills, for one thing. If I did, we'd all lose
track of the whole song. I used to lean over and try to read Paul's
lips to keep track of where we were at, because I simply couldn't hear
anything. I was actually lip-reading the songs to see where we were!
So if I ever went off into a fill you could feel everybody get a
little nervous and start to wonder, "Where the hell are we?"
MUSICIAN: Is it true that you were just playing on the off -beat most
of the time?
RINGO: Sure. The bass and guitars were off on the other end of the
stage where I could hardly hear them, so I'd wind up just doing off
-beats. And then we'd have days where we'd entertain ourselves, and
I'd wind up playing "Love Me Do" as a rhumba, or do a waltz-time while
the rest of the band was playing in 4/4. That was one of our favorite
little variations ... we used to think we were sooooooooo clever! No
one knew; we'd just do it for ourselves - to have a little laugh.
MUSICIAN: In the early days, one of the most striking things about you
guys was the incredible good humor and cheerfulness you communicated.
In these cynical times some people might wonder if you were really
enjoying yourselves up there.
RINGO: Sure, it was satisfying. I mean, look at the footage from the
Shea Stadium Concert. John's just going over the edge with the organ,
laughing hysterically. You don't fake that. We used to love to make
each other laugh; we enjoyed it. Not all the time, of course. If we
had a bad day we might only do a half-hour show. And if we really
didn't like the place we'd race through the set and get off in
twenty-five minutes.
MUSICIAN: What was the worst experience you had touring with the
Beatles?
RINGO: The worst experience was Montreal, where they threatened to
shoot me. They said they were going to get the "little English Jew."
MUSICIAN: You mean someone wanted to kill you because you were an
English Jew?
RINGO: Yeah, in Quebec they were against the Queen and all, so that
explains the English part. But the weird thing is, I'm not even
Jewish!
MUSICIAN: Did you take any precautions that night?
RINGO: They had a plainclothes detective on stage with me ready to
catch the bullets. He was actually hired to move in front of me real
quick whenever he heard gunshots... and at the end of every number
I'd come down hard on the cymbals and then grab them at the bottom and
tilt them up like two shields to protect me. But we always managed to
get to the limo or the van after the shows and get away. We never got
hurt once by the crowds
.MUSICIAN: Didn't you get roughed up a bit in Manila?
RINGO: Oh, Manila I hated! When we arrived at Manila airport there was
this impressive motorcade with a thousand policemen on motorbikes.
Then we did the concert at the stadium, which was fine. When we got
back to the hotel we switched on the TV to see how the concert was
being reported. But instead of concert footage, the camera showed all
these glum-faced little kids at the Presidential Palace looking real
down. And there was the President's wife, Mrs. Marcos, looking real
angry, and talking about how we were supposed to have come to this
special luncheon for all these children, and how we just didn't show
up. Then there's the camera again panning across these sad little
faces, and they showed the food that had been prepared and their
little party hats ... We were completely confused by all this, we
couldn't figure out what had happened. So we got up and got dressed
and wandered out and our road manager says, "HURRUMMPH, WELL, THERE'S
BEEN A BIT OF TROUBLE, LADS."What happened was we'd been invited to
this luncheon, but our people told them we couldn't come because we'd
been travelling and playing for days and needed a break. Meanwhile,
Mrs. Marcos is on the TV saying we'd promised to come, and then didn't
show up, even though we'd really said no. So the next morning John and
I ordered some newspapers to see what was happening. They never came.
We asked for some breakfast -that never came either. So we had to
leave for the airport, and downstairs there was this big crowd waiting
for us - only this time they didn't want autographs, they wanted to
kill us! We'd come in with a thousand police escorts - we left with
one car. When we got to the airport, it got really tense - people were
shouting and spitting and cursing at us. Boo! Hiss! Then they tried to
kick us as we headed for customs - there seemed like millions of them
trying to get at us
MUSICIAN: So what did you do?
RINGO: John and I spotted a group of nuns, so we went and hid behind
them, thinking we'd be safe from physical attacks or flying turds. We
figured they wouldn't come after us if we were surrounded by nuns ...
We finally got on the plane and thought well, that's over. The next
thing we knew they were calling us off the plane by name, one by one!
We thought if we got off, we'd never be seen again, so we sat there.
Luckily, it was a British Airways plane. So we took off for India and
tried to straighten out our brains. That was probably the most
frightening experience - a whole country hating you for something you
didn't even do.
MUSICIAN: What about the other side of the coin ... what were the best
experiences?
RINGO: Oh, no ... that's just too hard ... there isn't any one or two
"bests," there were so many of them, all around the world.
MUSICIAN: Okay, how about in terms of your recorded work. Which tracks
or albums were you most satisfied with?
RINGO: I've always thought that "Rain" is the finest drumming I've
ever done, maybe even the finest anyone's ever done; "Strawberry
Fields" is another favorite. I enjoyed the little weird ones more than
the nice ones ...
MUSICIAN: ... Mostly John's?
RINGO: Mostly John's, yeah. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is a really
beautiful piece, but for my own work, I've always liked "Rain." That,
and the second side of Abbey Road where we had all those bits strung
together with tom-toms and madness and Polyethylene Pams coming
through bathroom windows and all the rest. I really enjoyed doing
that.
MUSICIAN: How were they all stitched together?
RINGO: They were all done separately. When we finished one segment,
we'd play along with the end of the completed tape of that bit to
synchronize our timing and then we'd come into the next section. Some
of them were just complete edits, though.
MUSICIAN: What tracks or albums would you say the group as a whole
seemed most satisfied with?
RINGO: Funnily enough, we felt that a lot of the cuts on the Let It Be
album worked well, even though it was the last one ... well, the next
to last one; it only came out later than Abbey Road because of the
movie. What was that track of John's? (taps on table) bump-bump
didila-didila ah, "Come Together," that felt quite good. I'd found
that little drum riff and it seemed to fit that track well.
MUSICIAN: How did the group feel about Sgt. Pepper?
RINGO: With Pepper the backing tracks were fine, but there was so much
to be put on top of them that you couldn't tell how good they were
until we finished six months later. Something like "The One After 909"
on Let It Be was done in just one or two takes, a simple skiffle tune.
But everybody felt good about it because we were back to being a band
again.
MUSICIAN: What about the earlier albums - any standouts for you?
RINGO: Please, Please Me felt good to everybody because we finally had
a piece of plastic in our hands! Then Rubber Soul was a turning point
for us; it was the first record that was totally under our direction.
MUSICIAN: I think both Paul and John later said that Dylan was a major
influence at the time.
RINGO: Well, maybe so. But it's very hard for a drummer to be
influenced by Dylan!
MUSICIAN: Also, those were the first songs that were obviously drawn
from real-life experience.
RINGO: And all written by some artists named John, Paul and George.
MUSICIAN: I want to ask you about Brian Epstein. I think it was John
who was quoted as saying that by the time you had arrived in the
states Brian had sanitized your act to the point where a lot of the
balls was wrung out of it. Was that true?
RINGO: We weren't playing like in Hamburg. It's the old story that
Brian was the one who made us put on ties..
.MUSICIAN: But did that really affect the music?
RINGO: Well, no, it affected our attitude toward Brian!
MUSICIAN: What had your attitude been like up till then?
RINGO: We were drunken slobs! Just drunken slobs smoking and drinking
onstage and having fun, and to hell with Eppy's prissy fussing about
our appearance and manners. But eventually it turned into a business.
From saying things like "AH, PISS OFF!" to the audience, we became a
professional group. It became a little... nice.
MUSICIAN: Just an off-the-wall question: did you guys ever feel you
had any serious rivals?
RINGO: Well, as Paul said, the Beach Boys did that record (Pet Sounds)
... but no, I never thought we had any.
MUSICIAN: What about the Stones?
RINGO: We were always friends with the Stones. Whenever we did
anything special they'd always come along, and vice versa. The only
battles we had were in the press, it was never anything else. Anyway,
we were appealing to totally different audiences. They were full on
teenagers, while we were trying to cover everyone from children to old
ladies.
MUSICIAN: I'm sure it's significant that the two best rock'n' roll
bands in history both had drummers that were solid, straight-forward,
and in the pocket.
RINGO: I've always said that Charlie's an amazing musician, and very
underrated. He's the only one who holds out on doing fills longer than
I do.
MUSICIAN: What was it about England in the early sixties that made it
such an incredible breeding ground for great bands?
RINGO: I always thought it was because National Service (the draft)
ended, and so at 18 you weren't regimented. Everyone was wondering
what to do, and people were picking up instruments instead of guns.
There were so many kids, so many bands, so many places to play - it
just mushroomed. Then we landed a contract and the next thing you know
this record company comes to Liverpool and signs 80 groups….80
friggin' groups! Maybe two of them wound up doing something that
people would actually go out and buy. Then the German scene opened up,
and all the Liverpool groups were being shipped across the channel to
Hamburg.
MUSICIAN: Speaking of crossing oceans, were you surprised when you
went over so well in America? What were you thinking as you stepped
off the plane?
RINGO: We were really worried about America. The whole thing came off
by chance, you know.
MUSICIAN: Your coming over?
RINGO: Yeah. The story is that Ed Sullivan happened to be getting off
a plane in London just as we were arriving back on a flight from
Sweden. We were known all over Europe at the time, but nobody knew us
in America. And so there's 10,000 kids screaming and greeting us at
the airport, and Ed Sullivan saying, "What the hell is this?" and he
booked us on the spot.
MUSICIAN: Hadn't one of you come over for a brief visit the year
before?
RINGO: Right. George had a sister who lived in the Midwest who he came
to visit six or eight months before. He'd been going into record shops
there and asking, "Have you, uh got anything by the, uh, Beatles?" And
they'd say, "Are you kidding?! We never even heard of them!" So George
came back saying (knits brows, shakes head), "AWWWWWWWWW, I don't know
what this is going to be like, I just don't know; they've never heard
of us!" And we all said, "WHOOOOOAAHH MY GOD, I HOPE IT WORKS!!!"
Because for any group, America's the place to make it. You can be as
big as you like in Australia or England, but you have to make it here
to actually make it.
MUSICIAN: I can still remember the every detail of what I was doing
the first time I heard "I Want To Hold Your Hand" in December of '63.
Cynics at the time said it was a mass hallucination but it wasn't. It
was the exact opposite - it was like everybody woke up for the first
time. It was a real taste of our potential as individuals and as a
community - that there were deeper joys and a fuller understanding
available to us than what we'd been taught. Could you feel any of that
at the time? Did it make any sense to you?
RINGO: Sure, it made complete sense to us. It was like everyone was
getting together, and we were the catalysts for it. And it seemed a
whole generation was suddenly singing the same song.
MUSICIAN: Did you ever ask yourself, "Why us?"
RINGO: No, no! (rolls eyes towards ceiling, smiles and shrugs) I mean,
WHHHHHHHHYYYYY US?! We just always had the attitude that we were going
to the top.
MUSICIAN: And where was "the top"?
RINGO: It changed as we went along. At one time the top was the London
Palladium. My mother was always a great supporter, even in the early
days, and she'd always say, "One day your name will be up in lights,
son, and I'll see you on the telly at the Palladium."
MUSICIAN: After you'd conquered Liverpool, how long did it take the
rest of England to catch on?
RINGO: We used to get laughed at in England when we got started. The
audiences used to think a bunch of clowns were coming on - what with
these new songs and weird clothes and drinking and being silly, and
they'd laugh at us. Then we'd finally start playing, and three or four
songs into it they weren't laughing anymore! They'd all crowd down
around the center and say, "Hey, something's happening here!", and
you'd know you'd got 'em. Even as far as the Outer Islands and
Scotland they'd all be coming in their Wellington boots and Mac
raincoats and going nuts
.MUSICIAN: When did you begin to suspect that this was something more
than just another good rock band?
RINGO: We knew it when our first record came out, because that gave us
so much scope. Before that we were mainly playing in Liverpool and the
outlying districts, with maybe an occasional odd gig a hundred miles
away or so...
MUSICIAN: Still regional favorites...
RINGO: Right, and then after the record we started getting calls from
all over Europe, even Paris.
MUSICIAN: But you reportedly didn't want to go to Paris...
RINGO: ... because I didn't like the French!
MUSICIAN: Is that really why you didn't want to go?
RINGO: No, I don't know ... we were booked into this club in Paris and
it was a variety show thing with Sylvie Vartan and a couple of poodles
who did tricks...
MUSICIAN: It didn't work out very well, anyway, did it?
RINGO: Well, it was strange because it was a male audience there,
unlike England and America where there are a lot of females at rock
shows. By then we were getting used to the high-pitched screams and
suddenly there were these deep voices going (in deepest basso profundo
voice), "RAH RAH BEATLES!!!" And we'd be walking up the boulevard and
you'd hear these queer boys saying (like a teenage Maurice Chevalier),
"'ALLO ZARE BEATLES!" But the kids weren't against us in Paris, it was
just the press that got weird, and that was because our press agent
got into some... I don't know, some madness came down and the press
just turned against us.
MUSICIAN: How do you feel about the press today? Do they treat you
fairly?
RINGO: I do what I do and they do what they do. Whatever I say to you
today you're going to put down whatever you want. As honest as you may
be, I have no control over what you may say. Sometimes it seems to be
going fine, and then you find out later that the guy really hates you.
The press can make you out to be biased one way or another. Sometimes
I'll make a little joke while the tape is running, but when it's
written down it seldom looks funny.
MUSICIAN: Don't worry, I'll duly note that.
RINGO: I'm mostly talking about newspapers now. Sometimes it's not the
writer's fault - it's the editor who gashes it up.
MUSICIAN: I know - I'm an editor, too!
RINGO: Okay, here's a funny story for you. As I said before, years ago
I went down to Montserrat to work on one of Paul's album - but not to
do a tribute album like the press was saying. So Barbara and I get
back to L.A. and we're watching the evening news at a friend's house
and this newswoman ... what's her name, Connie ... Toyota?
BARBARA: Toyota?? (laughing) Connie Chung, on CBS.
RINGO: That's it ... so Connie Chung's there on the evening news
saying, "We 've confirmed that Ringo Starr has just been in Montserrat
with Paul McCartney doing this tribute album..." So I grabbed the
phone and called the station, and finally got her just after the news
finished. I said, "Look, you've got it all wrong, I've denied over and
over that it's a tribute, and I'm sick of this bullshit. So please do
me a favor and go back on the air right now and tell them you heard
from me and it's not true!" And she says (in his best Monty
Python-in-drag voice), "WHAAAAAT?! AND TAKE OFF THE JEFFERSONS?!! I
CAN'T TAKE OFF THE JEFFERSONS!!!" (loudly laughs) I said, "Oh no,
don't do that."
MUSICIAN: One thing that probably sparked that rumor was the fact that
Paul had shelved Wings and was bringing in all these superstar types.
RINGO: I think after all those years with Wings, Paul just wanted a
change, like I did. Stevie Wonder had come down; when I got there,
Steve Gadd was around and Stanley Clarke had already been through.
Denny Laine was playing guitar, though they've since split. He just
wanted a different sound and emotion on his record.
MUSICIAN: How did he handle all the press hanging around down there?
RINGO: He drove his jeep into a group of them! You do get pissed off,
you know. So I understood that, but it's also the surest way to get
your picture in the papers, which is what you're trying to avoid.
MUSICIAN: If all the craziness dies down eventually, would you enjoy
playing with Paul again in a live situation?
RINGO: I always enjoyed playing with him, but I haven't the desire to
get together again because of all the aggravation and bullshit that
would go on around it. And it would only be classified as the Beatles
Leftovers, even if we called it something else. There's only two of
us now, 'ya know. There's just no incentive. But we do get to work
together in the studio.
MUSICIAN: Was it a hassle getting everyone together to work on those
early solo albums where the other three contributed a song apiece,
with four producers named in the album credits?
RINGO: That's exactly the way I wanted to do it; I didn't want to get
stuck with any one producer. What happened was that my 1978 album, Bad
Boys, was, well, all right, I guess - but that's about all. I just
didn't want to go in and make another album, repeat the formula and
all that, so I let it go for two years. Then Barbara, who really loves
music, said, "You've got to get back in the studio again." As it said
on the back of that album, she kicked me out of bed and made me go to
work again. When someone has that enthusiasm for what you're doing, it
really helps. We decided to do it travelling around the world - to
have a holiday and work at the same time. We bumped into Paul in
Cannes where he and Linda were showing one of their cartoons that won
the competition. So I told him I was thinking of doing this album with
all different producers, and would he do two or three tracks? He said
fine, and we agreed we'd do it sometime later in France. Two days
later he calls back, "Well, set up the studio, the band'll be there,
everything's ready, I want you there on such-and-such..." Like I said,
Paul's an alcoholic and ... no, I mean workaholic and ...
MUSICIAN: Not so fast, I heard that! (jumps up, grabs microphone) STOP
THE PRESSES!!RINGO CLAIMS PAUL IS AN ALCOHOLIC!!! FILM AT ELEVEN!!
RINGO: (leaps up, waving arms, grabs microphone, imitates radio) BEEP
BEEP BEEP NEWSFLASH! NEWSFLASH! CALLING ALL STATIONS! SPECIAL
BULLETIN!!
MUSICIAN: See, I told you you could trust me...
RINGO: (laughs) He's a workaholic, folks. Honest!
MUSICIAN: Special report tomorrow: DID GEORGE REALLY HAVE WEBBED FEET?
Speaking of George, he helped produce two tracks on Stop and Smell the
Roses while you appeared on his single, "All Those Years Ago"...
RINGO: Actually, that track was originally done for my album. We did
three tracks, initially: "Wrack My Brain," the oldie "You Belong to
Me" and an early version of "All Those Years Ago," but it didn't work
for me; vocally it was a bit too high. I could have gotten it in the
end, but I really didn' t like the original words. So I told George I
didn't feel comfortable with it, let's forget about it. Later he put
new words on it and Paul dropped by and wound up adding background
vocals. But as I say, it started off as my track and wound up with him
doing it.
MUSICIAN: I've always had the feeling that George was the most
frustrated member of the group. George Martin reportedly gave him a
hard time, telling him what to play, and then he had to wedge his
songs in there among John's and Paul's ...
RINGO: In the end he was in the most difficult position, because John
and Paul even wanted to write his solos. Paul was very definite about
how he wanted his solos and George was very frustrated. There was some
friction, but it all got cleared up. I never really had that problem;
once we'd set up the general rhythms I would add fills and things
where I wanted.
MUSICIAN: George Martin obviously played a very crucial role as a
producer and arranger, particularly in the early days. Did any of you
feel any resentment towards him at any point?
RINGO: No, George was very helpful. In the beginning he was in charge,
but in all honesty - and I think George himself would admit this - he
didn't actually produce the records; John and Paul did. For instance,
they'd be sitting at the board and I'd be out in the box playing drums
and then Paul would come out and play bass and the rest of us would be
at the board trying to get the right sound - but mainly it was John
and Paul. George was really needed when we'd come to put strings on or
something, because none of us could write music. John would come up
and say, "George, the horns should go dah-dah-doo-dah," or whatever,
and George would write out the charts.
MUSICIAN: How did you actually go about working through a song around
the time, say, of The White Album? Did you do your parts together or
separately, was there a lot of overdubbing?
RINGO: No, we'd always lay down the bass, drums and guitars together.
Sometimes they'd play each other's instruments at first, with Paul
maybe playing piano on the track and John playing bass. But then Paul
might come back later and overdub his own bass lines, because he'd
find somewhere else to take it.
MUSICIAN: How did you go about working out your own parts? Did you
work them out on the spot? Did you ever take a tape home to experiment
with?
RINGO: No, we did it all in the studio. I never took anything home...
(laughs) we never had homework in the Beatles. It went like this: If
Paul had written it, he'd sit with his guitar and play the basics for
us. Then we'd play along with him, after which we'd all discuss it and
make suggestions about how we might play it. I'd say, "I'll do a 4/4
there - or we might do several versions with me playing a straight
four on one, and maybe a shuffle or waltz on another. Sometimes we'd
sit on a track for a few weeks. I know a lot of groups don't have that
much time, but I feel we earned it.
MUSICIAN: What would you do when you hit a snag?
RINGO: We'd struggle with it, sometimes well into the night, and then
we'd break for a cuppa' tea or a joint or something, or walk around
the room or go up on the roof. Then we'd come back in and it would all
just magically mesh together - just like that. You'd been struggling
for six hours and then suddenly everyone came together and it fell
into place.
MUSICIAN: Wasn't Let It Be supposed to involve "getting back to the
roots" - recording live in the studio?
RINGO: Well, everything changes. I mean, Sgt. Pepper was supposed to
have been this complete musical montage with all the songs blending
into each other. That idea went out the window two tracks in, after
"Sgt. Pepper" and "Little Help From My Friends." We did get back to
being a band again on Let It Be. We were playing live on top of this
building and that's what was being recorded. But it was getting too
late then ...
MUSICIAN: Why?
RINGO: We all wanted to do a lot of other things. We were all grown
up, had families, and everybody was working on their solo albums. The
full force wasn't coming into the group anymore.
MUSICIAN: Was the breakup inevitable?
RINGO: It was time. You can only mine a gold mine until the seam runs
out. Oh, you'll search for a little bit more then, and that's what we
were determined to do, because after eight years it's hard to stop.
Even though inside we felt it had ended, it still took a year for us
to say "stop."
MUSICIAN: Anything you wish you could go back and change?
RINGO: Looking back on it 35 years after we split - even though it
wasn't all good - there's nothing major I'd really change ... even the
bad days were good.
MUSICIAN: I was just thinking that Abbey Road was a pretty
extraordinary swan song for a group on its last legs.
RINGO: That's because no matter what was going down we all still loved
to play, and once we were sitting there as four musicians it all came
together again - the magic was there.
MUSICIAN: On Abbey Road you finally stepped out and did a drum solo.
Why hadn't you done one before?
RINGO: BECAUSE I HATE DRUM SOLOS!!! I really do. I think they're
boring, and I haven't heard one yet that's got me. But people always
applaud them because it's the drummer having his day. And, of course,
a lot of drummers like to do them because it's their one big spot. So
I never liked drum solos, but when we were doing that track at the end
they ganged up on me and said, "C'mon, give us a solo!" And I said,
"NAAAAH, I'm not gonna do it, I never do 'em." Finally I gave in. I
think it lasts only 13 ½ bars because I just went off and did my
"funny little fills" and ended it. We were all laughing with each
other, so I guess they caught me in a good mood.
MUSICIAN: A quick one for the tech people: what kind of traps are you
using?
RINGO: You mean like for catching mice?
MUSICIAN: Exactly. RINGO TORTURES SMALL ANIMALS - DETAILS AT ELEVEN!!!
RINGO: No no, I'll tell. I use Ludwig drums. Always have. I think
they're the finest. My kit includes a snare, bass drum, two tom-toms,
and two cymbals, a ride and a crash. All Ludwigs. And a Speed King
pedal. As for sticks, I can use anything. I used to use the Ringo
Stick, but they went out of production.
MUSICIAN: Gee, just like Billy Beer back in the Seventies...
RINGO: I did try the fiberglass stick but they're too heavy; they
don't play right for me.
MUSICIAN: Some people may think it's strange that we've talked this
long and I haven't asked you about John or George, directly. I can
imagine all the questions you've had to answer - you must have said
everything that you thought was appropriate ... but let me put it
simply: how would you like John and George to be remembered?
RINGO: The way they WILL be remembered - for their music. They were
honest human beings who always laid their soul on the line for the
public ... each was a very open man. Each stood up more times than
anyone else I can think of and said, "This is what I think." And what
they thought was mainly the truth... they were and still are my
friends, and I miss them dearly.
MUSICIAN: When you get together to work with Paul - is it very
different from the old days?
RINGO: We still have a natural rapport because of the last 35 years of
playing. It was like mental telepathy when we'd play - you knew when
someone else was going to do something. We'd all do things together
without anyone saying anything. Things would happen like ... magic. It
was magical all the time.
MUSICIAN: Did that fall apart at the end, or was it still there?
RINGO: When we played, it was there.
MUSICIAN: Even in the rooftop concert?
RINGO: Even on the roof. We all had a great time.
MUSICIAN: That whole scene seemed so beautiful and sad at the same
time. It was so joyous and liberating to see you all playing live
again, but so ironic and sad in a way that you had to go up on a roof
to do it.
RINGO: But look at it this way - we were playing for the whole of
London! Then the bank next door complained so the police came up and
told us we were "disturbing the peace" and we had to stop.
MUSICIAN: I remember you telling them off while you were playing.
RINGO: But I wasn't telling them off!
MUSICIAN: Then what were you saying?
RINGO: I was begging them to drag us off! "HEY, COME AND GET US, TAKE
ME AWAY!" We couldn't figure out how to end the film, and I thought it
was a wonderful solution to that problem - it would have made a
fabulous ending for the movie, them just dragging us away ... (smiles
and shakes head slowly) ... yeah, that would've been a wonderful way
to end it.
Runnnerr
Is this really a new interview? So much of it reads so familiarly to
me.
bab...@yahoo.com
>
>Is this really a new interview? So much of it reads so familiarly to
>me.
It's new. Ringo's interviews tend to sound a lot alike.... the same
way his albums do.
appe...@yahoo.com
bab...@yahoo.com wrote:
> It's new. Ringo's interviews tend to sound a lot alike.... the same
> way his albums do.
Thanks. A real delight.
Funny, the last time I was at the Beverly Wishire (yes, a gaudy place!)
I slept in a bit, went downstairs for their brunch spread, and sat
across from Mark Lindsay and Dave Clark having a bite together. Neil
Simon was there too.
cally...@gmail.com
Then you don't know much about Ringo's albums.
Tom K
<bab...@yahoo.com> skrev i en meddelelse
news:k32fd2lsqjcvslnvf...@4ax.com...
> From MUSICIAN magazine -
>
Love Ringo. My fave exchange:
Sixties Gen
bab...@yahoo.com wrote:
> From MUSICIAN magazine -
>
> "He's remembered as much for his personality as for his percussion.
> His droll humor, cheerful easygoing nature, and unflappable,
> down-to-earth disposition helped ground the Beatles psychologically as
> surely as his rock-steady, understated backbeat anchored them
> musically. But his very willingness to accommodate sometimes obscured
> Ringo Starr's own creative talents - the slow tom fills he introduced
> on Sgt. Pepper were a minor, if unacknowledged, innovation in rock
> drumming. All well and good, you say. But what's he done lately?
> "Ringo" and "Goodnight Vienna" weren't half-bad as Beatle solo albums
> go, but that was thirty odd years ago."
<snip>
I enjoyed that. Thanks for posting it.
cally...@gmail.com
Me, too. I saw Ringo last month in Chicago and the concert was great.
He's like a ray of sunshine.
Papa John
wrote:
Here's MY fave quote -
"I think I freaked George (Martin) out because of the way I played the
demo on "Please Please Me." There I was playing the full kit with bass
drum, snare, toms, high hats, and at the same time I had a tambourine
in one hand and a maraca in the other, using them like drumsticks. I
could see George in the control booth shaking his head in
disgust....."
812...@gmail.com
places: adding George to Ringo's comments about missing John, adding
the uncharacteristically boastful "maybe even the finest anyone's ever
done" to his comments about his own drumming on "Rain", and God knows
what else. Of all the perils of being famous, surely one of the
biggest pains in the ass has got to be when some dork decides to put
their own words in your mouth, and there's absolutely nothing in the
world that you can do about it. It would drive me completely nuts.
Even more of a pity because this seems like it was actually a very
delightful interview. Here's a version that is hopefully closer to
what Ringo actually said:
http://groups.google.com/groups?lnk=hpsg&hl=en&q=%22Ringo+%27Musician%27+1981%22
Runnnerr
Ya know, if you read my earlier post, I stated that this interview
sounded very familiar to me. I remember this interview and probably
still have the issue of Musician Magazine in which it appeared. If what
you say is true, I guess that baba booey has nothing better to do with
his time than shit like this.
Rocket Scientist
drive me nuts to have someone else put their own words in my mouth. I
wonder how many times the doctored interview will be referenced as the
truth regarding his boasting that "Rain" had the finest drumming
anyone's ever done. It definitely is uncharacteristic of Ringo -
doesn't sound like him at all.
-H
Papa John
Did he also make up that part about using the tamborine and maracas as
drum sticks?
812...@gmail.com
> drum sticks?
Yep. No mention of "using them like drumsticks" in the original.
Also no "in disgust", no "real drummer", switched "single" and "album"
version attributions, and no "unless he re-recorded the drum track on
some songs after I left the studio, which he may have done." That's
what, 4 alterations in these 2 paragraphs alone? Why the hell??
Here's the original:
"RINGO: I still can't do a roll. I think I freaked George out because
of the
way I played the demo on "Please Please Me" There I was playing the
full kit
with bass drum, snare, toms, high hats, and at the same time I had a
tambourine in one hand and a maraca in the other. I could see George in
the
control booth shaking his head and thinking, "NOOOOOOOOOO, I DON'T
THINK
THAT'S VERY PROFESSIONAL," or whatever he thought. Then he brought in
a
professional drummer, Andy White, who plays on the single of "Love Me
Do",
and I play on the album version.
MUSICIAN: Were there any other Beatle tracks that you didn't play on?
RINGO: Only two: Paul played drums on "The Ballad of John and Yoko" and
on
"Back In The U.S.S.R." I did all the rest. But as George Martin said
later,
and I quote, although he didn't want me in the beginning, now he'd like