Speaker 1: I Heart Radio Presents Inside the Studio, I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Joe Leading. For this episode, we went on the road
Speaker 1: to Winnipeg, where the temperatures are frigid even in September,
Speaker 1: and it's apparently illegal to serve a burger anything other
Speaker 1: than well done. We went in search of historic Paul
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney, and he told us about how the fiftieth
Speaker 1: anniversary of Sergeant Pepper's helped inspire work on his new album,
Speaker 1: Egypt Station, why he likes to walk the streets of
Speaker 1: New York by himself, and why the recording of the
Speaker 1: white album itself now getting a box set fiftieth anniversary release,
Speaker 1: may not have been quite as bad as Beatles legend
Speaker 1: has it. Eagypt Station is McCartney's first studio album in
Speaker 1: five years. It's gotten rave reviews, though it won't exactly
Speaker 1: change the truism that McCartney's post Beatles music is most
Speaker 1: undeniable when the cream is skinned for best of collections
Speaker 1: your playlists, but the comparison to his peers is instructed.
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan hit a late career stride producing himself, starting
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one with Love and Theft for
Speaker 1: his last three albums, Dylan is stuck to covers of
Speaker 1: tin pan Alley standards. The Rolling Stones have relied on
Speaker 1: the same producer, Don Was for the last twenty four years,
Speaker 1: and their last album, Blue and Lonesome, was a collection
Speaker 1: of old school blues songs. McCartney, who describes himself as
Speaker 1: still very competitive in a recent GQ cover story, beat
Speaker 1: them both to the covers thing. He did fifties rock
Speaker 1: and roll with Run Devil Run, which you should definitely hear,
Speaker 1: and he did Standards in two thousand and twelve with
Speaker 1: Kisses on the Bottom Him, which you should definitely skip.
Speaker 1: The producers for new in Egypt Station include Paul Epworth,
Speaker 1: Mark Ronson, Greg Kirsten and Ryan Tedder, guys who have
Speaker 1: made some of the biggest hits of recent years with
Speaker 1: Adele Bruno, Mars Beyonce, that kind of thing. If Egypt
Speaker 1: Station is McCartney's first ever solo album to enter the
Speaker 1: charts at number one, that's partly because the charts have
Speaker 1: changed in the streaming era, and partly because the dude
Speaker 1: is seriously trying. Egypt Station has a fair number of
Speaker 1: what Paul once called little love songs, except some of
Speaker 1: them like for You are sex songs, and though he's
Speaker 1: not usually thought of as making protests or political songs,
Speaker 1: the album has a share of those two three If
Speaker 1: you count the anti bullying song who Cares. You might
Speaker 1: enjoy the swampy groove of people Want Peace but think
Speaker 1: it's wishful thinking, although you might also think what's wrong
Speaker 1: with that? But the song, despite repeated warning, sticks a
Speaker 1: little harder. It uses nautical themes what should we do
Speaker 1: with the drunken sailor red sky in the morning sailor's
Speaker 1: warning to paint Donald Trump's presidency is an out of
Speaker 1: control ship of state, and it was inspired in part
Speaker 1: by Trump's climate change denial. Yes, it doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: people have connected this with another song you did motivated
Speaker 1: by climbing change, big boys bickering. Yeah, that was quite
Speaker 1: a few years ago. But at the same thing, you've
Speaker 1: been doing your homework an America I have. It's what
Speaker 1: they paid before. It's an American president again refusing to
Speaker 1: assign a climate accord. But in this case, George H. W.
Speaker 1: Bush in you do so this is an important issue? Well,
Speaker 1: you know the thing is, I think everyone like me
Speaker 1: who believes in climate change and that's a lot of people.
Speaker 1: We're looking at these climates accords and these these meetings.
Speaker 1: There was one in Japan, there was one in Copenhagen,
Speaker 1: and you know, as these came up, we'd all be
Speaker 1: looking at and going, this will be the one. We're
Speaker 1: going to do something about it. Everyone's going to get together,
Speaker 1: all the nations are going to agree that, you know,
Speaker 1: we've got to figure it out. And then it would fail. Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't believe it. America and China didn't sign it,
Speaker 1: and it was so disappointing, you know that. Finally when
Speaker 1: Paris arrived, it's like, yeah, you can't believe it, you know,
Speaker 1: and then Trump pulls out of it. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, that was like really disappointing. But you know,
Speaker 1: the thing is, as far as I'm concerning, is a reality.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any doubt about that. You know,
Speaker 1: we're getting this freak weather. And you could say, as
Speaker 1: some people who deny climate change say, well, you know,
Speaker 1: there's always been freak weather. It's always been you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's just more of the same. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I believe scientists, you know, I don't think they're study
Speaker 1: a bit harder than I do. And they do have
Speaker 1: science on their side. They're clever man, you know, but
Speaker 1: the science does indicate that if you warm up the planet,
Speaker 1: you're going to get these effects. So yeah, I was
Speaker 1: in Japan actually, and I saw in the newspaper. I
Speaker 1: saw this phrase, despite repeated warnings. I can't remember what
Speaker 1: it was about now it's just about something else. But
Speaker 1: I thought, yeah, that's a good phrase, despite repeated warnings,
Speaker 1: and I made the song up about that. And in
Speaker 1: the chorus, when you say how can we stop them?
Speaker 1: Grab the keys, lock them up? Are you thinking of
Speaker 1: those lacquer up chants directed at Hillary Clinton at the
Speaker 1: Trump I wasn't, actually, you know, but like it kind
Speaker 1: of plays into it, don't you know. You're writing a song,
Speaker 1: so it's not always that logical. You're just writing a song,
Speaker 1: so whatever it's, you know, you you start off maybe
Speaker 1: very logical, and then you give yourself the freedom to roam,
Speaker 1: you know. So I wasn't actually thinking that. I was
Speaker 1: thinking what did we do with the drunken sailor, I
Speaker 1: must admit, And I was hoping no one would spot
Speaker 1: that rebated my head. Well, the captain wasn't this do
Speaker 1: what was now. Shortly after we were done talking, Paul
Speaker 1: went on stage and played in nearly three hour set
Speaker 1: thirty nine songs, twenty three of them Beatles songs, three
Speaker 1: from Egypt Station and the rest drawn from the other
Speaker 1: twenty four studio albums he's recorded solo or with Wings,
Speaker 1: except for the one song he recorded with Kanye West
Speaker 1: and another one he recorded in Night with the Quarryman,
Speaker 1: his band with John Lennon and George Harrison before the Beatles.
Speaker 1: Three hours songs, even for a guy who's not seventy
Speaker 1: six years old, that is a solid night's work. It's
Speaker 1: roughly twice the number of songs played lately by the
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, both still out on the
Speaker 1: road and long may they run. And it's not even
Speaker 1: counting the one hour sound check McCartney played earlier in
Speaker 1: the night for those who bought v I P tickets.
Speaker 1: So that's a grand total of about four hours of
Speaker 1: playing guitar, bass, piano and during his verse and of
Speaker 1: George Harrison's Something Yuka Lately for those keeping score at home,
Speaker 1: four hours. That's about half of the marathon eight hours
Speaker 1: sets the Beatles put in in Hamburg. In n when
Speaker 1: McCartney was just twenty years old. That's pretty remarkable. The
Speaker 1: rock stars of the sixties used to represent an ideal
Speaker 1: of freedom for their audience, the freedom to live however
Speaker 1: you wanted, outside of society's rules, and in their septagenarian years,
Speaker 1: these guys represent a different kind of freedom, the freedom
Speaker 1: to keep on keeping on, to be able to do
Speaker 1: in your seventies what you used to do in your twenties.
Speaker 1: And no one may be a better or more joyous
Speaker 1: representation of that than Paul McCartney. Score one for vegetarianism.
Speaker 1: McCartney's work ethic may come from his dad, Jim, who
Speaker 1: put in ten hour days as a cotton broker in
Speaker 1: Liverpool and also played trumpet and piano, leading a group
Speaker 1: called Jim Max Jazz Band. It goes without saying that
Speaker 1: Paul does not have to do any of this. It's
Speaker 1: not just that he changed the world with the Beatles,
Speaker 1: creating the context that pretty much all of pop music
Speaker 1: unfolds in today. And and by the way, I mean
Speaker 1: that in the most literal sense. The pension for micro
Speaker 1: hooks that defines current modern pop is prefigured by McCartney's
Speaker 1: prodigious gift for melody. Take Band on the Run from
Speaker 1: There must be four songs worth of hooks packed into
Speaker 1: the first eighties seconds guitar, synthesizer, bass, vocal, And that's
Speaker 1: just the intro. Well, really, it's just the first intro,
Speaker 1: because then there's another intra section with another set of guitars,
Speaker 1: sand based and vocal hooks, only this time you could
Speaker 1: count the drum part two, and then there's a horn
Speaker 1: fanfare and then the song actually starts, so in a
Speaker 1: different way than his peers, McCartney has an eternal relevance.
Speaker 1: But the other thing that makes how hard he works
Speaker 1: so striking is that McCartney has long been touted as
Speaker 1: one of the most wealthy figures in the music industry,
Speaker 1: with a net worth estimated at one point two billion
Speaker 1: according to Forbes. He added another fifty four million dollars
Speaker 1: to that pile last year when he was finishing up
Speaker 1: the seventies seven dates of his One on One tour,
Speaker 1: making him the thirteenth highest earning artist in the music business,
Speaker 1: on a list topped by Diddy, Beyonce and Drake. There's
Speaker 1: that eternal relevance again, As you're about to find out,
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney has a pretty optimistic view of the world,
Speaker 1: and you can hear it just in the way he
Speaker 1: pronounces the word Winnipeg. At one point he told us
Speaker 1: that the Beatles never argued about music. If they had
Speaker 1: an argument, it was about other stuff. And then later
Speaker 1: he told us about an argument that they had about music.
Speaker 1: Does he contradict himself? Maybe he was also there. I
Speaker 1: think he knows better than you and I so let
Speaker 1: me get out of the way, because I've always wanted
Speaker 1: to say this, ladies and gentlemen, Paul McCartney, Paul McCartney,
Speaker 1: welcome to inside the studio like Joe or a very
Speaker 1: special edition of Backstage at the Paul McCartney Show. Okay,
Speaker 1: and here we are in the Winnipeg. In Winnipeg a
Speaker 1: few months ago, I'm walking up Park Avenue and I
Speaker 1: pass a guy coming down the street who looks remarkably
Speaker 1: like Paul McCartney Park Avenue in eighty nine street. I think,
Speaker 1: can't be Paul McCartney. No one with him, no one
Speaker 1: around did a double take. It was Paul McCartney. It
Speaker 1: couldn't have been him, but it was. You were just
Speaker 1: walking down the street by yourself and I walked down streets.
Speaker 1: Therefore walking down I've heard that, you know, I like
Speaker 1: to get out and about and people say, oh no,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have acreuse of security behind you and stuff.
Speaker 1: But I'd like to just get out, you know, just
Speaker 1: so as you feel like yourself instead of like a
Speaker 1: rock star. Are there times you do like to feel
Speaker 1: like a rock star? You know, when I do the show,
Speaker 1: that's good, but then you know you need to balance it,
Speaker 1: so you get off the stage and maybe you know,
Speaker 1: like you said, you're walking somewhere. So I like to
Speaker 1: just get out like I always did when I was
Speaker 1: a kid. So you know, it's just keeps me sane,
Speaker 1: and it's it's the same feeling as when I was
Speaker 1: okay just walking around, only differences. I get recognized. Everyone
Speaker 1: reaches in their pocket immediately, you know, but no, I got,
Speaker 1: you know, quite a lot of freedom much and I
Speaker 1: I value it. And then you know, if I'm out
Speaker 1: at a restaurant and stuff with my wife, so I'm like,
Speaker 1: come over to grab a father, I say not not
Speaker 1: just now. You know, it's a private moment and most
Speaker 1: people are very cool, understand it. So I like to
Speaker 1: keep that, you know, a private bit of my life,
Speaker 1: and then I like the other bit even more because
Speaker 1: it's like, wow, this is cool, the other bit being
Speaker 1: in public, being on stage. Yeah, you have to like it.
Speaker 1: You are playing these three hour shows. We just saw
Speaker 1: a one hour sound check, and that's something that people
Speaker 1: don't actually know that many concerts are preceded by this
Speaker 1: one hour sound check. I think you have no set
Speaker 1: list for that. Many of those songs aren't in the set, right. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: we always do that, I mean because it's good because
Speaker 1: we need to check the instruments we're going to use,
Speaker 1: just to make sure they're all plugged in, they all work,
Speaker 1: and I mean there was a little moment there. Normally
Speaker 1: doesn't screw up too much, but our keyboard players moog
Speaker 1: didn't work. So that's good. That's what the sound checks for,
Speaker 1: instead of just doing all the numbers from the show,
Speaker 1: which kind of spoils the show for us because when
Speaker 1: we get a bit bored doing the numbers again, we
Speaker 1: just use the same instruments we're going to use, but
Speaker 1: we switched the numbers. About we do any ill thing,
Speaker 1: you know, so we'll do kind of like skillful things,
Speaker 1: folk things, early rock and roll things, like a little
Speaker 1: solely Things Midnight Special tonight, which was kind of amazing,
Speaker 1: and we always do Midnight Specially, Yeah, what we often do.
Speaker 1: You know, You've got certain songs that go way back
Speaker 1: before I started even playing, you know. I think that's
Speaker 1: like a big Bill Brunsi song. So he's an old
Speaker 1: blues sing and they're just songs you learn along the
Speaker 1: way and you like them. So if you get an
Speaker 1: opportunity or something like this where there's a sound check,
Speaker 1: all you really need to do is just make sure
Speaker 1: everything's working. Then you can indulge yourself and play something
Speaker 1: like that, you know, and it's nice. Keeps it all fresh,
Speaker 1: you know. Talking about the songs, you do know, there's
Speaker 1: something I wanted to ask you about in the set
Speaker 1: list now, is in spite of all the danger, the
Speaker 1: first song recorded by the Quarryman in nineteen Oh my god,
Speaker 1: so it's now sixty years old and that can't be true.
Speaker 1: That's before my time. I will say, for those just
Speaker 1: listening at home, he could pull that off, because it
Speaker 1: does look like he's not old enough to have written really,
Speaker 1: but thank you. But that said, the amazing thing that
Speaker 1: I realized is that, you know, you're performing songs from
Speaker 1: your your newest record, Egypt Station, and the very first
Speaker 1: thing you ever recorded, So the audience tonight will hear
Speaker 1: sixty years parmacurns. It's right, Yeah, yeah, it is crazy,
Speaker 1: you know. It's um. I've been enjoying playing for that
Speaker 1: long and when I do that song in spite of
Speaker 1: all the danger, which was just the first little demo
Speaker 1: we ever did with the Beatles, before we got a
Speaker 1: record contract or anything. So I always imagine us all
Speaker 1: going to this little studio in Liverpool, all paying a
Speaker 1: pound each for five pound demo and doing this little song,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's it's so ancient that it's great
Speaker 1: for me because it's like what it is, it's like
Speaker 1: reaching back into your childhood. So it'd be like somebody
Speaker 1: maybe listening to this thinking of when they were on
Speaker 1: the beach when they were one, and it's what a
Speaker 1: great memory, you know, So it makes it special for
Speaker 1: me just thinking that, Wow, you know, it goes back
Speaker 1: really before we ever went down to Ivy Road, before
Speaker 1: we got a record country, before you've been too Hamburg, right,
Speaker 1: I mean we've been to Hamburg. Yeah, So it's a
Speaker 1: great memory for me and I like doing it because
Speaker 1: we get the audience involved on that one, you know,
Speaker 1: and so we have fun with it. So it is
Speaker 1: nice to be able to say this is the very
Speaker 1: first thing we ever did, first record I was ever
Speaker 1: involved with, and then we come right up to date
Speaker 1: and were saying, now this is like the most recent
Speaker 1: somehow it seems to fit together, you know. You know.
Speaker 1: So that's twice now that you've mentioned drawing on those
Speaker 1: childhood feelings. First when we were talking about walking around
Speaker 1: by yourself, and now when we're talking about playing that
Speaker 1: song in spite of all the danger. Is that a
Speaker 1: wild spring for you going back to that time or
Speaker 1: holding onto that energy. Yeah, you know. It's funny. In
Speaker 1: the Beatles, even when we were like maybe twenty four
Speaker 1: years old or something in the height of the Beatles,
Speaker 1: we often would we were trying to work out something
Speaker 1: on a song or what we're going to do with
Speaker 1: the recording, we'd often say, what would we have done
Speaker 1: when we were seventeen, And we check back to our
Speaker 1: seventeen year old selves, who we thought like, we're like
Speaker 1: the coolest opinion in the world. Well, we would have said, yeah,
Speaker 1: do it, yeah, do it man, or no way that
Speaker 1: that's no good, you know, so you always refer to
Speaker 1: that period. You know, it's your formative period, so when
Speaker 1: you get a lot of your ideas, and in my case,
Speaker 1: if you're writing songs, those memories are very rich wells
Speaker 1: of inspiration. So you know, I can just think I
Speaker 1: remember walking along the road with our guitars on our backs,
Speaker 1: me and John just before we were famous, you know,
Speaker 1: and me writing let us to people, dear sir, we
Speaker 1: are a rock combo, and you know we would love
Speaker 1: to play at your place, you know, So all that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. It's kind of like magic for me,
Speaker 1: I think also because of how far I've come. So
Speaker 1: you've got that very early innocent period. And then we
Speaker 1: get famous with the Beatles. What before that? We go
Speaker 1: to Hamburg, as you say, and then we get famous
Speaker 1: with the Beatles, and then we get the American fame,
Speaker 1: and then we make records and we we go through
Speaker 1: our various phases. So it's a long, long, long journey.
Speaker 1: And then right now, you know, here I am, you know,
Speaker 1: making a new album in Egypt station and long behold
Speaker 1: it goes to number one in America. You know, you
Speaker 1: can imagine, you know where partying that night was a party,
Speaker 1: We'll see. I wanted to ask you about that. Egypt
Speaker 1: Station enters the charts at number one, so I guess
Speaker 1: that if you're keeping score at home, that's your first
Speaker 1: record to debut at number one since the Beatles, since
Speaker 1: the Beatles, and the first number one and I believe
Speaker 1: thirty six years. So what was the party? What was
Speaker 1: the well, you know, the great thing was after the show.
Speaker 1: Sometimes if the guys don't have to load out, if
Speaker 1: they're all in a place and we're going to play
Speaker 1: the place tomorrow, which was that occasion, I'll say, okay,
Speaker 1: let's all get together, have a little drink, I have
Speaker 1: something to eat, and we get the crowd in so
Speaker 1: we'll get to hang with each other, because it's a
Speaker 1: bit like a family, your tour family, you know. So
Speaker 1: we all get together and then our DJ who comes
Speaker 1: with us on the tour, he'll DJ some nice dance
Speaker 1: music and stuff. So we were going to have that
Speaker 1: little party anyway. And then suddenly that afternoon, right after
Speaker 1: sound check, on my phone, I get the message Bank
Speaker 1: congratulations request count in the morning and I'm just about
Speaker 1: to go to the dressingroomhich I stopped. Oh wait a minute,
Speaker 1: hey guys, I announced to everyone every number one. You know,
Speaker 1: So that party that evening, that was special because we
Speaker 1: had a real great reason to celebrate. We were going
Speaker 1: to celebrate anyway, just having a party, but it became
Speaker 1: really special. We danced the night away. Baby. I was
Speaker 1: talking to someone at you label in Los Angeles Capital
Speaker 1: and the people, well, they said back at you. They said,
Speaker 1: we're amazed at how hard this guy works, seventy six
Speaker 1: years old, three hour concerts. But also he's out there
Speaker 1: doing things, taking advantage of opportunities we bring him. If
Speaker 1: we bring them to a twenty three year old artists,
Speaker 1: they might complain. I was like, yeah, let's do it
Speaker 1: what I always do. Promoting a record used to be
Speaker 1: quite boring because they would trot out the same old things.
Speaker 1: You gotta go there, you gotta do thirty six interviews.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take you to some place central in Europe
Speaker 1: where all the European territories can come in and it
Speaker 1: how it was that was Cologne. They always say you're
Speaker 1: going to Cologne and said why Cologne? So well, it's
Speaker 1: in the middle of Europe, and we'll bring the Italians,
Speaker 1: the French and Swiss and everybody in and so I
Speaker 1: kind of did it, thinking well, I've got to promote
Speaker 1: the record, but it was a deadly ball. It was
Speaker 1: really like, oh no, not that again. So I kind
Speaker 1: of rebelled one day and the meeting, I said, look,
Speaker 1: you know, let's make it something that we're excited about.
Speaker 1: Because if we're excited, we actually have a good time.
Speaker 1: So let's cook up some ideas that are like fun
Speaker 1: and they're different, and it's not going to Cologne and
Speaker 1: with endless interviews. So we had some great little things.
Speaker 1: We had playbacks at the studio in l A. We
Speaker 1: were working at Henson and we had these little playbacks
Speaker 1: for my heart. These are great little sessions. We just
Speaker 1: cranked it up, played the album for them. So that
Speaker 1: was easy. That wasn't like the cancer to Debbey Road
Speaker 1: that you did. And we did a CAVN. We went
Speaker 1: back to my old school and the little concert there,
Speaker 1: so you know, it made it fun, it made it interesting,
Speaker 1: and each little thing was different, and so it was Yeah,
Speaker 1: capital were happy, but I was happy with the ideas
Speaker 1: we were cooking up together. You know, as long as
Speaker 1: I have a good idea, is that we're exciting everyone.
Speaker 1: We had a blest. You worked with Greg Kirstin and
Speaker 1: Ryan Tedter on this record, and Ryan, you did the
Speaker 1: single for you or some might hear it the way
Speaker 1: I do, MM, which would be a nought of your word,
Speaker 1: and we can say it for you. There we go.
Speaker 1: So give you. If you give someone a present, you
Speaker 1: don't say this is for you, You go, this is
Speaker 1: for you, for you, okay, if you h okay. So
Speaker 1: this is my story and I'm sticking to it, okay.
Speaker 1: And yet I was immediately reminded of something I grew
Speaker 1: up reading a Grill Marcus essay in the Old Rolling
Speaker 1: Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll about the Beatles,
Speaker 1: where he recalls hearing I saw her standing there on
Speaker 1: the radio immediately in the days after the first appearance
Speaker 1: on The Ed Sullivan Show. He writes, Paul's one two
Speaker 1: three fuck opening. How in the world did they expect
Speaker 1: to get away with that? And the thing is is,
Speaker 1: after I read that, I never heard it another way.
Speaker 1: I always heard it, but I'll never hear another way. Now.
Speaker 1: It wasn't that, But I like it. O. Man. You know,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a kind of nice thing when people
Speaker 1: kind of misinterpret what you've done, or they put extra
Speaker 1: meaning on it. I mean, I did the song Hi
Speaker 1: Hi Hi, which we'll do tonight, and there's a line
Speaker 1: in it which I was just kind of writing, just
Speaker 1: like surrealist lyrics. I was like, so I wrote, I
Speaker 1: wrote lie on the bed and get ready for my polygone.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean anything was a polygon, you know, but
Speaker 1: people thought it was getting ready for my body gun.
Speaker 1: I thought, you know what, that is better if you
Speaker 1: ever sung it that way. Okay, So you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: the misinterpretation is actually better than the real lyric. You know.
Speaker 1: Tell me you've said that the songs you you worked
Speaker 1: on with Greg you brought into the studio, but when
Speaker 1: you worked with Ryan Tedder, he wanted to make it
Speaker 1: up in the studio. Yeah, tell me a little bit
Speaker 1: about putting that song for you together. As you say.
Speaker 1: When I was working with Greg, which was most of
Speaker 1: the time, I had a lot of songs I wanted
Speaker 1: to record, so I came in and we worked on
Speaker 1: them together. But they were ready written. And then there
Speaker 1: was a period there where Great couldn't work. But I
Speaker 1: had a couple of weeks off, so I took one
Speaker 1: of the weeks as a holiday. Uh. And then the
Speaker 1: other week my manager said, you want to keep the
Speaker 1: momentum going. You know, you're on a bit of a
Speaker 1: role here and if you want to keep it going,
Speaker 1: you know, I can suggest other people you might work with,
Speaker 1: you know. So he sent me a few suggestions and
Speaker 1: I liked what I was hearing that Ryan was doing.
Speaker 1: I didn't know much about him. I phoned him up
Speaker 1: and we had a great conversation. So I said, well,
Speaker 1: come to my studio in England and we'll just figure
Speaker 1: it out. We'll just think of something, you know. So
Speaker 1: I said, I've got a couple of songs we could
Speaker 1: do these. He said, no, no, let's just make it
Speaker 1: up because we didn't have long We just had the
Speaker 1: seven days. It might have even been five days, and
Speaker 1: so we just made them up and we ended up
Speaker 1: making up three tracks. When you say make them up,
Speaker 1: were you writing side by side? Were you trying just
Speaker 1: had ideas, you know, just throwing ideas out. He'd sort
Speaker 1: of say, what about yeah do John Dodd? I go yeah.
Speaker 1: So I go out on the mic and go yeah do.
Speaker 1: And they think, oh God, put us stick some words in.
Speaker 1: Hey you want uanu and I eventually put some words
Speaker 1: to it, and then we put a beat to it,
Speaker 1: and I put some guitar on or bass on or whatever,
Speaker 1: and him and his co producers zac, you know, they
Speaker 1: just got grooving with the sounds, and I'd get sort
Speaker 1: of thinking of what I was going to do on
Speaker 1: the vocal. They throw ideas out and he said, what
Speaker 1: about that? He said, well, let me try it, you know.
Speaker 1: So some of the things didn't work. We can those.
Speaker 1: It was funny because because of this method of work,
Speaker 1: the trouble was often that yeah dad u dado becomes yeah,
Speaker 1: I love you baby, and it's like, this is a
Speaker 1: bit boring. So I said to Ryan in the middle
Speaker 1: of the week, I said, hey, you know, man, I said,
Speaker 1: I'm known for doing songs like eleanor Rigby or you know,
Speaker 1: Living Let Die, which you've got a little bit of
Speaker 1: meaning to them, you know. So I said, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure I can do this. Hey, I love your baby.
Speaker 1: Said well, I'll tell you what. So we decided what
Speaker 1: we would do because we'd carry on like that and
Speaker 1: then I'd revisit it and come up with what I
Speaker 1: thought were better lyrics. So that was how how we
Speaker 1: did it. And made a lot of it up as
Speaker 1: we went along and thought that was good. But the
Speaker 1: bits I thought were a bit corny. I just rewrote
Speaker 1: and then went in and fix the vocal with these
Speaker 1: new words. You know. A week or sore ago, I
Speaker 1: was in Los Angeles. I saw a band, Lake Street Dive,
Speaker 1: terrifically talented band and the will turn and they do
Speaker 1: in their set let me roll it, and it's it's great.
Speaker 1: And afterwards I was talking to them, that's terrific, and
Speaker 1: they looked at me and they shrugged, Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney song. But then they started talking about for You,
Speaker 1: and he's got a song out now, and the thing
Speaker 1: is it's so on trend, like it's got these the
Speaker 1: drum track and these little drops in it. So they
Speaker 1: were like amazed at that classic McCartney melotticism up against
Speaker 1: the sort of modern touches that Bryan Tyder brought to it. YEA,
Speaker 1: well that's that's what it was. Yeah, Ryan brought that
Speaker 1: to it, and say Zach is co producers, a young
Speaker 1: guy called Zack, and the two of them took care
Speaker 1: of that side of things. What's about this you know list?
Speaker 1: So they would take a little bit of my vocal
Speaker 1: and speed it up and drop it back in and
Speaker 1: do these little crazy things. And you know the idea
Speaker 1: was if I didn't like it, I go, oh, no,
Speaker 1: way man. But most of the time I go, oh,
Speaker 1: that's cool. I like that. There were three tracks. Only
Speaker 1: one has been released from that week, but the others
Speaker 1: are pretty good too. And then when you were working
Speaker 1: with Greg that's over a longer period, and you've said
Speaker 1: that one thing that charged those sessions was seeing this
Speaker 1: documentary Howard Goodall did about the rerelease the fiftieth anniversary
Speaker 1: set of Sergeant Pepper's that you actually had this experience
Speaker 1: of learning wait, wait, that's how we did it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean I wasn't really gonna watch this
Speaker 1: because you know, it's like I thought, well, I kind
Speaker 1: of know everything he didn't tell me. I know about this.
Speaker 1: But then he started in on Penny Lane. He hooked
Speaker 1: me in because he started to say, oh, now Paul
Speaker 1: wants to go higher, but he actually modulates down a key.
Speaker 1: I'm going, did I, oh, wow, that's good. I'm getting
Speaker 1: impressed by this young twenty four year olds work. You know.
Speaker 1: Now I'm intrigued. And he got to this pit where
Speaker 1: he sort of said, and the penny lane piano. I thought, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I know I played it. I know how that went.
Speaker 1: And he said, it's not just one piano. And I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there going, yeah it is. What do you mean
Speaker 1: it's not just one? And he saw he starts going
Speaker 1: back to the multi tracks and he goes, well, there's
Speaker 1: this one piano. I said, yeah, that's it, and he
Speaker 1: goes and then they got this little spiky piano and
Speaker 1: then he plays and there's this very trebling, little ding
Speaker 1: ding ding piano playing along with it, and he goes on.
Speaker 1: Then there's this harmonium, and it turned out I'd forgotten,
Speaker 1: but we'd put all these layers into this piano that
Speaker 1: eventually sounds like one very groovy piano, so much so
Speaker 1: that I believed it myself. So I went in the
Speaker 1: next day with Greg and I said, why wait a minute.
Speaker 1: You know, so this is a really great idea. So
Speaker 1: we started messing with like harpsichords and piano and mixing
Speaker 1: them and getting them very exact so you couldn't tell
Speaker 1: it was two pianos, but it was like a hybrid.
Speaker 1: That's a kind of interesting way to work, and you've
Speaker 1: been working for almost a year at that point, So
Speaker 1: were you going back and adding a retexturing tracks the
Speaker 1: truth we've been doing a bit of that anyway, because
Speaker 1: the rerelease of Sergeant Pepper. I was inspired by how
Speaker 1: experimental we were and the inspiration that we'd had for
Speaker 1: Sergeant Pepper, and I thought, yeah, you know, that's a
Speaker 1: kind of good way to go, is to just not
Speaker 1: make the same old record, just try and think outside
Speaker 1: the box and think, you know, what can we do
Speaker 1: now that that's crazy? And at the same time it
Speaker 1: comes out just like a song. You know, it's still
Speaker 1: in the end, isn't isn't some crazy mess. It's actually
Speaker 1: Penny Lane, you know, your day in the Life. It's
Speaker 1: it's a proper song. But the approach was very experimental,
Speaker 1: So we've been doing a bit of that with Greg.
Speaker 1: But once I saw that program about it, then started
Speaker 1: to pick apart some of the stuff we've done, made
Speaker 1: pianos consisting of a few things instead of just the piano.
Speaker 1: Were there any particular tracks that you remember that you
Speaker 1: began to to rewire this way. I think the track
Speaker 1: that's the opening track, the opening song. I don't know yeah.
Speaker 1: I think we cooked the piano a bit there, and
Speaker 1: also we kind of de tuned it because what was
Speaker 1: anice was I played it in a certain key and
Speaker 1: song along with it, but I was finding the vocals
Speaker 1: a little bit too high and I was just going
Speaker 1: to struggle with it. But Greg, a good producer, says,
Speaker 1: why don't we just take it down a bit? You know,
Speaker 1: it would be easier to sing. And what was cool
Speaker 1: about it was the piano I had already played now
Speaker 1: got a little bit darker, and it actually is a
Speaker 1: bit one of his sounds. I think I heard it
Speaker 1: on the Adele Hello. I listened to that, and I thought,
Speaker 1: this is one of Greg's tricks, you know. But it
Speaker 1: happened anyway to us, and I liked the sound of
Speaker 1: the piano we were experimenting as well. And the thing is,
Speaker 1: you know, it keeps it really interesting to you go
Speaker 1: in each day and instead of thinking, oh I gotta
Speaker 1: do this song, I'll but do it good. There'd be
Speaker 1: a bit of that, but mainly it'll be whatever, don't
Speaker 1: do it good. We'll mess around, you know, we'll get
Speaker 1: something that excites us. We'll put a crazy sound on it.
Speaker 1: And I got yeah, I can see to that, and
Speaker 1: it's often that when we did a lot of that
Speaker 1: in the Beatles. I mean, John was particularly fond of
Speaker 1: putting an echo when he was doing the vocal so
Speaker 1: he would do what we called the bog echo in Liverpool.
Speaker 1: Bog means the toilet. You know, I'm going to bog
Speaker 1: and the toilet traditionally has got a good acoustic so
Speaker 1: we would call this little delay on the vocal sound
Speaker 1: the bog echo. It just gives you a little bit
Speaker 1: different feeling than when you're just hearing your own voice,
Speaker 1: plane and straightforward. It's like your eldest days, somebody with
Speaker 1: a crazy sound on his voice. Jean Vincent, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know whatever. The sounds like your old rock idols. So
Speaker 1: it inspires you a little bit. You know. It's interesting
Speaker 1: you you mentioned the darker sound that Greg brought to
Speaker 1: that to the piano, and then you talk about John's experimentation,
Speaker 1: because John was sometimes the one bringing in the darker energy,
Speaker 1: the slight darkness of you know, like it's getting better
Speaker 1: all the time. It couldn't couldn't get much worse like that.
Speaker 1: That's the famous example of a little addition that that
Speaker 1: just adds a different shadow. Yeah, that's true. I mean
Speaker 1: we all brought that. You know, this is the thing
Speaker 1: well has. You know, over time things become legendary, so
Speaker 1: you'll get John was the dark one, Paul was a
Speaker 1: cute one, and that's not true because we each had
Speaker 1: a bit of that or the other. So George could
Speaker 1: be very much the one who would bring that in.
Speaker 1: But you know what I'm talking about it. I always
Speaker 1: use that example of the song getting better. I go,
Speaker 1: it's getting better all the time, and John goes couldn't
Speaker 1: get much worse. So you know, that's a good example
Speaker 1: of how he would do that. But often it could
Speaker 1: be George who do it just as much as John would.
Speaker 1: And I think you know I would sometimes take John's
Speaker 1: songs and darken them. I mean, Come Together was a
Speaker 1: very jolly little song when John brought it in and
Speaker 1: it was like, no, we're not going to do that.
Speaker 1: Seventeen year old you seventeen year old, Yeah, we would
Speaker 1: have swamped it out, man. So that's the point in
Speaker 1: case where John's thing was, and then I would We
Speaker 1: had those kind of influences on each other. But the
Speaker 1: story sticks that John was the dark one. I was
Speaker 1: the light one. George was the mystic one, you know,
Speaker 1: and to some degree that's true, but we each had
Speaker 1: aspects of all those kind of forces. And Ringo too,
Speaker 1: you know, he would come in sort of put some
Speaker 1: drumming on it. That would be like whoa, I mean,
Speaker 1: I had the song get Back and I'm just going
Speaker 1: to get back, get Back and he comes up with
Speaker 1: and that drum makes that record, you know, so say, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're all four corners of a square. The Beatles. It
Speaker 1: was a very democratic group, so we all brought ideas in.
Speaker 1: Maybe John and I wrote most of the songs, but
Speaker 1: George wrote some of the best songs, you know, like
Speaker 1: something you know, some of those songs he wrote. So
Speaker 1: sticking with this idea of it comes the legends that
Speaker 1: stick and what we might be missing. Will soon hear
Speaker 1: the fiftieth anniversary box set of the White album. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what surprises are in store for us. So the legend,
Speaker 1: of course is that this is where things get difficult.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of tension during these sessions that have
Speaker 1: spread over I think five months or so, and sometimes
Speaker 1: the group is recording as individuals rather than as a group.
Speaker 1: Is the legend they're true? Or do you remember those
Speaker 1: sessions differently. You know. The thing is, because it was
Speaker 1: towards the end of the Beatles all the forces that
Speaker 1: were later going to break the Beatles up, which is
Speaker 1: mainly business, to tell you the truth, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of arguing about business and we didn't like that.
Speaker 1: We'd always traditionally just left that to someone else. But
Speaker 1: it got a bit dangerous to do that, and that
Speaker 1: someone else, it was a different someone else actually was
Speaker 1: about to nicke it all. So that got This is
Speaker 1: a period after Brian Epstein's death and the start of
Speaker 1: Applecord referring to called Alan Klein. You know, it got dangerous.
Speaker 1: It was an idea that he was maybe going to
Speaker 1: take over and take over all the money and all
Speaker 1: the stuff that we'd ever done, and that made it
Speaker 1: a difficult period. But you know, the great thing was
Speaker 1: when we got in the studio it all changed because
Speaker 1: we were just these four guys again and it wasn't
Speaker 1: to do with business. It was now to do with music,
Speaker 1: and so sometimes we did record separately. I would do Blackbird,
Speaker 1: but only because it's a solo song I did yesterday,
Speaker 1: and I said to him me, okay, guys, what are
Speaker 1: you gonna do on this, and they also, well, we can't.
Speaker 1: It's the solo song. You know. It wasn't because we
Speaker 1: were arguing some of the great songs like She's So Heavy,
Speaker 1: John's I mean, we all got right in there. There's
Speaker 1: no we were at peace. When we were playing music
Speaker 1: in the studio. It was always a thrill from the
Speaker 1: word go when the Beatles were formed to the word stop.
Speaker 1: You know, we always got in the studio and even
Speaker 1: if we were arguing, that kind of got superseded by
Speaker 1: the music. And you know, we argued like families argue.
Speaker 1: I mean, in the early days, it was always John
Speaker 1: and George arguing about who would have his amp loudest.
Speaker 1: They degree, okay, look, you know we gotta yeah, let's
Speaker 1: put it at seven. Okay, and they put it at seven,
Speaker 1: And then you will be playing and you just see
Speaker 1: George kind of back towards his up and go nine.
Speaker 1: And then Johnathan noticed, so he quietly sneak towards his ten,
Speaker 1: you know, and then that would go, hey, well what
Speaker 1: are you doing? You know, that might cause a bit
Speaker 1: of an argument, but other than that, you know that
Speaker 1: when we played music, it came good, but we're not
Speaker 1: going to keep you any longer. It is almost time
Speaker 1: to I'm in a mispronounsis, but they're going mak chow
Speaker 1: Mick show. Yeah all, that's what they used to say
Speaker 1: in Germany. I remember the guy's name, Billy. He was
Speaker 1: the chefts for like the manager of the little club.
Speaker 1: We first played him and he used to come, okay, chat.
Speaker 1: We tried to. We weren't very good at MAC and show.
Speaker 1: Make show in German. Come on, make a show in German.
Speaker 1: But sometimes there's people in the audience hold that signal,
Speaker 1: so it's still you know, there we are, and that
Speaker 1: is it. I do have to go. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: have to go on MAC show. Thanks very much for
Speaker 1: chatting nice one. Inside the Studio is an I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio original podcast. This episode was written and hosted by
Speaker 1: me Joe Levy. We'd like to give a big thank
Speaker 1: you to Paul McCartney and Capitol Records. You can follow
Speaker 1: Inside the Studio on I Heart Radio, or you can
Speaker 1: subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.