Speaker 1: Pushkin. Ringo star is one of the most iconic musicians
Speaker 1: living today, fame drummer for the Beatles and a prolific
Speaker 1: songwriter in his own right. At eighty one, Ringo's gearing
Speaker 1: up to release his latest EP changed the world. Then
Speaker 1: the Lang We Fall Out of up. Following the Beatles
Speaker 1: breakup in nineteen seventy, Ringo released a run of successful
Speaker 1: solo albums and chart topping hits. In addition to a
Speaker 1: budding film career and work as a session player for
Speaker 1: artists like George Harrison, Bob Dylan and The Beach Boys,
Speaker 1: Ringo also formed his all star band who for the
Speaker 1: past thirty years, having looted a rotating lineup of some
Speaker 1: of the world's best musicians. Rick Rubin and Ringo recorded
Speaker 1: this interview the day it was announced that Rolling Stones'
Speaker 1: drummer Charlie Watts passed away. On today's episode, you'll hear
Speaker 1: Ringo reminisce about partying with Charlie and led Zeppelin's drummer
Speaker 1: John Bonna. Ringo also talks about how he was a
Speaker 1: drunk heckler at Beatles shows before we joined the band,
Speaker 1: and why Paul McCartney was the only Beatle who would
Speaker 1: share a room with him. This is broken record liner
Speaker 1: notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmondon. Here's Rick
Speaker 1: Rubin and Ringo Star. There you are, can you hear me? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm good, Ricor. I was just on the phone to Paul.
Speaker 1: He gave me a great advice about to do with you.
Speaker 1: What did he say? He said, you know, wonderful human being.
Speaker 1: It's a weird day for us to be talking because Jollie,
Speaker 1: because Charlie's passing, and I just wanted to ask you
Speaker 1: any fond memories of Charlie. I have a lot of
Speaker 1: fund memories of Charlie, and you know, just because you
Speaker 1: like music. I mean, my line always used to be
Speaker 1: over the years, what do you think of Charlie said? Well,
Speaker 1: Charlie plays even less than I do, you know, and
Speaker 1: any musician got that one. But yeah, we had some
Speaker 1: nights out so someone was just telling me Charlie's quote,
Speaker 1: well you know, what do you think about Ringo's drum?
Speaker 1: And he said, I don't know much of that about
Speaker 1: his druming, but we have a great time when we
Speaker 1: go out together. Fantastic. Yeah, So you know, it's sad
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, but it happens, you know, that's the deal,
Speaker 1: that's part of growing up. Yeah, but he was a
Speaker 1: great plan. I mean he held those guys together for gutsy.
Speaker 1: His job was harder than mine. Yeah, he was incredible, incredible.
Speaker 1: I feel like as good as it, as good as
Speaker 1: it's ever been done. Yeah. Well, you know, we're from
Speaker 1: the school where you don't have to be busy, and
Speaker 1: my absolutely you know when anyone tells me or asked
Speaker 1: me how to play, well, you know, you don't need
Speaker 1: if the singers singing, you don't need to be doing
Speaker 1: drum boogie, you know what I mean, just hold them
Speaker 1: together and then you didn't do fills. That's how I work. Yes,
Speaker 1: with the song, you know, something that changed with your
Speaker 1: style though, Like in the early Beatles stuff, it was
Speaker 1: more straightforward playing a B through the song, but then
Speaker 1: as time went on it got more almost orchestral like, answering,
Speaker 1: answering what the other things were going on? How did
Speaker 1: that start? How did the switch happen? I think that's
Speaker 1: just was a natural progression. Well, I actually understand what
Speaker 1: you're saying. And you know, when the Abbey Road came
Speaker 1: out two years ago, now, I think the remaster, they
Speaker 1: had a big get together at Abbey Road and friends
Speaker 1: and family and all of kids, and they had a
Speaker 1: play back and I'm playing, I'm sitting next to Falling.
Speaker 1: I'm going, man, I'm much too busy, you know. And
Speaker 1: you know, if you're listening to Bathroom Window and those
Speaker 1: that side of that album. I got the new drums,
Speaker 1: you know, a new kid of drums, and they had
Speaker 1: actually carf heads. I never had carf heads and were
Speaker 1: always plastic. And the depth everything I've been trying to
Speaker 1: get with the tea towels and putting packs of cigarettes
Speaker 1: to deaden them because of the skin. The depth was
Speaker 1: so great. So you know, she came into blah blah
Speaker 1: blaham wins. It's all over those tracks. I think that's
Speaker 1: just how I felt then. I just loved the sounds.
Speaker 1: I was going to put them on, you know, I
Speaker 1: just did a master class and I was trying to
Speaker 1: tell them, you know, there's parts the drummer players like
Speaker 1: bump bump dig dig dil. Do you know that's a part.
Speaker 1: And then those pills you know by don blah blam
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah. Don't you know there is a
Speaker 1: difference to it. They you know, they were They all
Speaker 1: think like it's all fills. Well, no, not really, it's
Speaker 1: part of it. Besides Charlie from the old days. Who
Speaker 1: are the other drummers that you were impressed by? Who
Speaker 1: were the ones he liked? Well, I was impressed by
Speaker 1: a lot of different drummers. But you know how weird
Speaker 1: it may sound. You know, I only have a practice
Speaker 1: once and then I learned how to play. Join in
Speaker 1: bands of Liverpool. We all made the same mistakes and
Speaker 1: got it together. And when I played a record, you know,
Speaker 1: Solomon bit doesn't matter who. I listened to the record
Speaker 1: and it wasn't like listening. The drums were just good
Speaker 1: and uh al Greens, I'm a ram. It's like one
Speaker 1: of those moments in my life. I'm in London in
Speaker 1: an apartment George and I shared, but he was out
Speaker 1: in claus Woman and I were playing records and he goes,
Speaker 1: I'm around it does this crazy? It's like parts of
Speaker 1: it and that sort of helped me. Oh well I
Speaker 1: can make parts now, you know what I mean. That
Speaker 1: blew me away. It's such a simple move that it
Speaker 1: changed my life and my way of drumming just that
Speaker 1: high hats amazing. It's amazing how we hear the things
Speaker 1: that we need to hear at the right time to
Speaker 1: move us on our journey. You know, it's amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like you come on planet. No, it's impossible.
Speaker 1: It just happens. I mean, if it's like the ever
Speaker 1: continuing story of sliding doors, you know, if clouds hadden
Speaker 1: to come over. You know, in this moment, if I
Speaker 1: hadn't a been in or whatever, we'd have had another
Speaker 1: drink and forgot that, you know whatever. But it moved
Speaker 1: me along. I wanted to ask you about you're singing
Speaker 1: on the new EP, because it sounds like you're singing
Speaker 1: better than ever. And thanks coming from you, brother, that's good. No,
Speaker 1: you say it's amazing. You know. I think the more
Speaker 1: you do it, you know what I mean, it's uh.
Speaker 1: You know, I got a lot of help from my
Speaker 1: engineer says, oh, let's do that again. You do a
Speaker 1: cover of Rock around the Clock. And I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you, do you remember the first time you ever
Speaker 1: heard the song Rock around the Clock like he was yesterday?
Speaker 1: Tell me. Yeah, So I'm in hospital. I have my
Speaker 1: fourteenth birthday in hospital, and we're weeks away from my
Speaker 1: fifteenth birthday and I don't want to be there for
Speaker 1: my fifteenth birthday. And I'm well, now I'm out of bed.
Speaker 1: I'm walking and running. You know, we're playing. I'm fourteen.
Speaker 1: And so my mom and I tried to get me
Speaker 1: out before my birthday and we went to talk to
Speaker 1: the doctors and they checked me in. Anyway, a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks before it was fifteen, they said you can leave.
Speaker 1: You know, I had TB. So we came out. We
Speaker 1: went down to London to my stepdad's family and said
Speaker 1: hi to them, and then we came back. And then
Speaker 1: of weeks later my grandparents who brought me off with
Speaker 1: my mother. We're going to the Isle of Man. That's
Speaker 1: an island just off England. It was like the holiday spot.
Speaker 1: It was like the Florida of the north of England.
Speaker 1: They would go over the guys from the factories and
Speaker 1: that would kiss me quick hats and you know, they
Speaker 1: were the lads anyway, rocking around the clock. The movie
Speaker 1: was playing and I went to see the movie and
Speaker 1: besides Bill Haley blew me Away. They ripped up the cinema.
Speaker 1: They pulled the seats out there with throwing them at
Speaker 1: the screen. They were just rock and roll crazy and
Speaker 1: I thought that's good, and you know, that was probably
Speaker 1: another move moved me to music. But you know the
Speaker 1: thing with Bill Haley was he was always like your dad.
Speaker 1: We were teenaged, young teenage, and he was just like
Speaker 1: your dad. He played rock. He was the only one.
Speaker 1: And the BBC actually played him several times, you know,
Speaker 1: because they played nothing. The BBC was still boring, living
Speaker 1: in the past. But then when Eddie Cochrane, Elvis of course,
Speaker 1: and you know, Buddy, all that crowd came out, it
Speaker 1: was like, all right, that's rock. You know, rock sort
Speaker 1: of came to its place. But we did have a
Speaker 1: lot of incredible sort of blues player. I loved the blues,
Speaker 1: you know, and everyone knows my story with Lightning Hopkins
Speaker 1: and a lot of other players, of course, and the
Speaker 1: country came out, got into that, loved that, and I
Speaker 1: was on the road to music now, you know. And
Speaker 1: I was playing with Liverpool Band. Then I ended up
Speaker 1: with Rory. And while I was with Rory, I mean,
Speaker 1: Brian Epstein knocked on the door. I was a musician.
Speaker 1: We didn't get up till noon bang bang, as the
Speaker 1: Beatles are doing a lunchtime session. Would you you know
Speaker 1: Pete can't make a kid you come down. That's where
Speaker 1: I started playing with them, and then out of the blue,
Speaker 1: we were on this gig for a holiday account. Three
Speaker 1: month gig in those days was incredible and I got
Speaker 1: a phone from Brian, so that moved that on, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So just being where you're being
Speaker 1: is it's like there's no explanation really, you can just
Speaker 1: say it happened, you know, meant to be, meant to be.
Speaker 1: You know. The fun part of when I joined the
Speaker 1: Beatles was all the people in Liverpool saying, you're not
Speaker 1: leaving Rory, are you? Because Rory was the biggest band
Speaker 1: at the time. I said, yeah, I'm leaving that front line.
Speaker 1: I love that front line. And that's how it started.
Speaker 1: Did you ever record in the studio prior to being
Speaker 1: in the Beatles. No, we did a demo Rory and
Speaker 1: the Hurricanes did a demo in Germany like the Beatles
Speaker 1: did with Tony Sherton an ascetate And the fun side
Speaker 1: of that was I lost mine somewhere in the shuffle
Speaker 1: of life, so I called Johnny guitar, who was the
Speaker 1: guitarist in Rory's band, And I said, man, you know
Speaker 1: i've lost mine. Would you make me a coffee? And
Speaker 1: he says no, he musn't even make me a coffee. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: but that was the only time I've ever been near
Speaker 1: a studio. Was it different playing in the studio than
Speaker 1: playing on stage? Yeah? Why? Well, because you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I to this day, I love the audience. You know
Speaker 1: they I love the They know that, so they love me.
Speaker 1: We have a love fest. And you know, my mother
Speaker 1: said a thing years before. She said, you know what, Sun,
Speaker 1: you always seem like your happiest when you're playing. You know.
Speaker 1: That was a great line I remembered, and I did.
Speaker 1: I love to play. I'd play now. I mean I
Speaker 1: never practiced, but if you came with a piano or bass,
Speaker 1: didn't matter guitar, I'd sit with you all night. I
Speaker 1: would playing with another person, but not by myself. I
Speaker 1: never liked me bombardon you know, it's like what it's
Speaker 1: not what it's about. Oh, tell me about skiffle music,
Speaker 1: because skiffle music was before all of the music style.
Speaker 1: Piffle music, if you had the instrument you were in
Speaker 1: the band and I had a snare drum, so I
Speaker 1: was in the band. But the band the first bound
Speaker 1: Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group and Lonnie Donaghan and it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, New Orleans house party blues, you know, the
Speaker 1: rock is line as a man of good. What do
Speaker 1: we know about the rock Islam and nothing? But you know,
Speaker 1: we're in Liverpool, but songs like that, you know, and
Speaker 1: hey Lily, Lily, Lily, and you know, the laft was
Speaker 1: you could play anything schiffle in one chord. But anyway,
Speaker 1: next door neighbor and worked in the same factory was
Speaker 1: a guy called Eddie Miles who liked to call himself
Speaker 1: Eddie Clayton. But he was an incredible guitar player. And
Speaker 1: I had my snare drum. And then I had my
Speaker 1: friend Roy in the factory and he took up the
Speaker 1: tea chests, just a tea chest with a you know,
Speaker 1: a broom pole and a piece of string. So he
Speaker 1: turned into the bass place. We were the trio and
Speaker 1: we went around playing skiffle songs, you know, and that's
Speaker 1: how it started. And you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: we did in those days, we'd play weddings. We'd play anywhere.
Speaker 1: We didn't care. And we were playing at this dance
Speaker 1: and people were dancing to us. But we had no
Speaker 1: sense of time. So everythink we get fast, I can
Speaker 1: express and you throw it down he lightly. We'd get
Speaker 1: excited or whatever and anyway, so I learned my lesson
Speaker 1: and I'm a great timekeeper. But at the beginning, you
Speaker 1: don't know, You're just excited. So skiffle music. Skiffle music
Speaker 1: gave us all a chance to play. Yeah, And the
Speaker 1: government didn't know what they were doing when they you know,
Speaker 1: we start the call up. You had to go in
Speaker 1: the army at eighteen. And they came out and made
Speaker 1: an announcements after the wars in the fifties, they said,
Speaker 1: if you were born, I have to November nineteen thirty nine,
Speaker 1: you don't have to come in the army. Great, because
Speaker 1: you know, I was like an apprentice, because if you
Speaker 1: had a job or something could experience, they'd put you
Speaker 1: like on the back bench, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But if you were just a working guy, they'd take
Speaker 1: you in the army. So that was like an incredible
Speaker 1: moment because I just thought, okay, no, what eight months
Speaker 1: nine months how you doing, Captain, you know. So anyway,
Speaker 1: that's what happened there. And then we don't think of
Speaker 1: skiffle as a popular music in the US, but it
Speaker 1: sounds like in the UK a huge skiffle music was
Speaker 1: essentially coming. Was it coming from America? The roots of it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was America. It's like the blues, you know, we'd
Speaker 1: do a blues song the stone to do a blue
Speaker 1: song and it wasn't really big in America, and then
Speaker 1: everyone got into the blues because we were passing it back. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was blessed or we were blessed. We lived in
Speaker 1: Liverpool because it was a port, so all the guys,
Speaker 1: you know, the eighteen to twenty pours would go to America.
Speaker 1: You know, it was the merchant Navy. They weren't in
Speaker 1: the Navy, and they'd bring all these records back and
Speaker 1: then they'd spend all the money and getting drunk, and
Speaker 1: then they'd sell their records and we were picking those
Speaker 1: records up. It was incredible, you know, the records we
Speaker 1: had in those days, so that you know, you have
Speaker 1: to thank them. We'll be back after a short break
Speaker 1: with more from Ringo. We're back with more from Rick
Speaker 1: Rubin's conversation with Ringo Star. Besides Rock around the Clock,
Speaker 1: what were the songs when you heard them? A like
Speaker 1: life changing songs from childhood? Well, you know, I'm a
Speaker 1: sentimental fool. Eddie Calvert, Oh my papa. And I was
Speaker 1: blessed with my stepdad because he like big bands. He
Speaker 1: had big band fever in it, like Billy Eckstein and
Speaker 1: you know, Billy Daniels and I just remember the Billy's
Speaker 1: he always played. And he was so great with me
Speaker 1: because I'd be playing whatever I'm playing and he'd said,
Speaker 1: have you heard this? You know, and he'd moved me
Speaker 1: off for Steff And the time he said to me,
Speaker 1: have you heard this? And he never said that ship
Speaker 1: get it off. You just said, hey, have you heard this?
Speaker 1: And he gave me Sarah on and said, whoa wo
Speaker 1: Yeah that was far out now looking back, yes, So
Speaker 1: she changed my life. She doesn't know it. Amazing, amazing
Speaker 1: And I bet I bet other kids in the UK
Speaker 1: weren't hearing that kind of music. They weren't. And Glenn
Speaker 1: Miller and all the big bands of the day, you know,
Speaker 1: at the side stories of this is when we were
Speaker 1: the Beatles and we were opening for Helen Shapiro. She
Speaker 1: had this band. Do you remember the Ted Heath Big Band.
Speaker 1: It was a big band in England at the time,
Speaker 1: the fifties. He was huge. Anyway, They were all like
Speaker 1: his players. But anyway, we were lads and I'm saying, yeah, Hi,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? How old are you? And he'd say,
Speaker 1: like forty forty and you're still playing. We were looking
Speaker 1: at them like these red old guys, but hey, I'm
Speaker 1: way past forty. Did you always imagine playing music young
Speaker 1: and then getting a job. Was that always like how
Speaker 1: you imagine life going? No. I dreamt from when I
Speaker 1: was thirteen in this same hospital. This hospital had a
Speaker 1: lot to do with me because I was laying in
Speaker 1: bed that we had people come around and teach it
Speaker 1: to nits and stuff you can do in bed, and
Speaker 1: had knit and they brought in these maracas and tambourines
Speaker 1: and little drums and like acoustic stuff you can hit
Speaker 1: and shake. And I hit that drum and I wanted
Speaker 1: to be a drummer. Wow. And every time she came back,
Speaker 1: if she didn't give me a drum, I wouldn't play
Speaker 1: in the band. You know. It was like lightning. Lightning
Speaker 1: attacked meats and I wanted to be only from that
Speaker 1: that moment I wanted to be a drummer. And when
Speaker 1: I came out of hospital, I go around the stores.
Speaker 1: There's are quite a few music stores in Liverpool, you know,
Speaker 1: the pretty musical city really and just look at the
Speaker 1: drums and you know God's gift. I mean, my stepdad's
Speaker 1: uncle died. We lived in Liverpool. He went down to
Speaker 1: London outside London, Romford to go to the funeral. Little
Speaker 1: did he know the guy was a drummer. And he
Speaker 1: saw that upstairs they had all these drums and he
Speaker 1: asked the guy's wife, which you sell them to him?
Speaker 1: Could he buy those drums? And he brought me my
Speaker 1: first kit that gave me a snare drum that allowed
Speaker 1: me to join all those early bands. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like magice. Something you said earlier is interesting to me
Speaker 1: that you first heard the song that you covered in
Speaker 1: a movie. It's interesting because we now we think of
Speaker 1: if you hear a song in a movie, it's because
Speaker 1: it's already popular in the world, and now it's in
Speaker 1: a movie. You know, then you get to see it
Speaker 1: in a movie. But it sounds like for you it
Speaker 1: was the opposite where the first time you got to
Speaker 1: hear it was in a movie. Yeah, but you know,
Speaker 1: Bill was huge in that time, and it was rock
Speaker 1: and roll. I mean we'd never heard of it. You know.
Speaker 1: We went from skiffle into rock into soul music really
Speaker 1: and one of the good you know, tell me Steele,
Speaker 1: the English singer from the fifties and sixties. He was
Speaker 1: in the Mansian Navy and he came back and he
Speaker 1: was set as a singer the Two Eyes coffee Bar
Speaker 1: in London and they were saying, well, what do you
Speaker 1: call that music? And he go, I think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: call it rock and roll and all the British press
Speaker 1: he's calling it rock and roll like he invented it.
Speaker 1: It was so fun because there wasn't a lot of
Speaker 1: rock and roll infest in England at the time. You know,
Speaker 1: it's uh, you know, all the family parties I went to,
Speaker 1: it was all music from the forties. Really. Everybody had
Speaker 1: to sing like show tunes, show tunes and stuff like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So anyway, you know, my moves came from out of
Speaker 1: the blue and that made me go left or right
Speaker 1: and in my opinion, made the right decisions. Was it
Speaker 1: as much the energy of rock and roll that spoke
Speaker 1: to you first. Was it like, what was it? How
Speaker 1: would you describe the connection having never heard it before,
Speaker 1: never heard it before. I heard Bill Haley and he
Speaker 1: was rocking. But more important, all those teenagers loved rock
Speaker 1: and roll. They'd been into it whereever it was, and
Speaker 1: that their attitude was if we hear rock and roll,
Speaker 1: we rip up the cinema, you know, because they were
Speaker 1: just so excited. I mean, I remember what was that
Speaker 1: first movie Elvis did? And it was like a western
Speaker 1: in a way. They were country boys. He's like this
Speaker 1: big on the screen and we're going on a cinema
Speaker 1: to see Elvis in Liverpool and this big All the
Speaker 1: girls screamed and said, we can't even fucking see him.
Speaker 1: There he comes. They knew he was coming and they
Speaker 1: took off. So we were not the first band to
Speaker 1: be screamed at. Was there a turning point when it
Speaker 1: went from feeling like you were in a band like everybody,
Speaker 1: like the other the other lads that were in bands,
Speaker 1: to where it felt like, Okay, this is really different
Speaker 1: being in this band. In my own way, it's all
Speaker 1: about the band and I my all my moves to
Speaker 1: get in better bands, and as we know where we
Speaker 1: ended up. But anyway, Rory was great because it was
Speaker 1: a show band and we had suits and you know,
Speaker 1: we're dressed off from those days, more like the fifties.
Speaker 1: You know. His big act of craziness at the end
Speaker 1: of the set was he'd be singing some rock number
Speaker 1: and he'd get up. There was always enough right piano
Speaker 1: behind me. A climb on that and jump over my
Speaker 1: head to the fall. But so it was like a
Speaker 1: lot of Rory in the Hurricanes. We had. The Johnny
Speaker 1: guitar was this incredible rhythm guitarist. I loved him and
Speaker 1: he stood there and he played. I was related him
Speaker 1: to Jimmy Andricks. And Rory did his staff and Lou
Speaker 1: had a great voice. He would do mail Man giving
Speaker 1: you know, Buddy Holly's numbers and it really worked. But
Speaker 1: when we ended up in Germany playing the Kaiser Keller
Speaker 1: and the Beatles were playing down the road in the
Speaker 1: band Bikino, living behind the toilets. Then Cosh Media, the
Speaker 1: guy who owned both clubs, decided to put us both
Speaker 1: on the same cloth. That's where I became an huge
Speaker 1: fan of the Beatles. Of that front line. I have
Speaker 1: to say I only love that front line. And where
Speaker 1: we got our strength from, when I think helped us
Speaker 1: become who we are, was between two bands we did
Speaker 1: at the weekend. We did twelve hours between us, and
Speaker 1: you know, you get to know what you're doing and
Speaker 1: you get to play and you get to feel each other,
Speaker 1: you know. And then I went back and played a
Speaker 1: month with Tony Sheridan and you know, that was off.
Speaker 1: It was like the music city Hamburg was great. It's
Speaker 1: very sad now was there a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: with Klaus and it's all gone. But anyway, things change. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, what did you see in that front line?
Speaker 1: Like when you would go to see them play before
Speaker 1: you join the band? What was it like? How were
Speaker 1: they different? They were just the vibe was so tight
Speaker 1: and great, and then you know, Rory and I, you know,
Speaker 1: the group would finish and they'd have another two hours
Speaker 1: to do for an hour or something. I'd always just
Speaker 1: I was drunk by then. Of course we were teenagers,
Speaker 1: well not really, it was about twenty. But I would
Speaker 1: just sit in the front, you know, in front of
Speaker 1: the club, not on front of the stage, and just
Speaker 1: yeah and then you know, would empty out because they
Speaker 1: were onto four of them, all answering, and I would
Speaker 1: request songs. I don't remember one song I requested, you
Speaker 1: have to call Paul. And later on when I and
Speaker 1: I just loved the front line. It was powerful and
Speaker 1: it was the best front line in Liverpool. That's how
Speaker 1: it was. And when I joined the band, John was
Speaker 1: talking to me one day he says, you know, we
Speaker 1: used to be really scared of you because I'd be
Speaker 1: that guy. Hey, play me in all three balls in
Speaker 1: the fact I'm Heckla and drunken Heckler in the back.
Speaker 1: But yeah, something warmed by heart when I saw them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just thought And when I would play for them
Speaker 1: when Pete couldn't make it, it just worked great to
Speaker 1: play with. It just was good for me, you know.
Speaker 1: And in the end, look where you end up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: amazing best move they ever made, yes, arguably, yes, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean why didn't they pick me? I mean, what's that?
Speaker 1: There was other drummers, you know, Johnny Hudch I like
Speaker 1: to talk about Johnny Huch. There were two drummers in
Speaker 1: Liverpool and Johnny Hodge was the other one. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: just the energy was right and you can hear it
Speaker 1: when you hear the recordings to this day. You can
Speaker 1: hear the excitement in the performances. Yeah, they're alive. You know,
Speaker 1: No one will believe how incredible it was that we
Speaker 1: were in a studio making a record and then you
Speaker 1: saw it as your ascetate first and always give me
Speaker 1: facitates a little tapes and it was like you made
Speaker 1: a record and we knew every time it was going
Speaker 1: to be played on the BBC because they had a playlist,
Speaker 1: so and we were always in the same car, and
Speaker 1: you know, it's like love me do whatever's going to
Speaker 1: be on at eleven fourteen, you know, they'd have it
Speaker 1: that precise and we'd pull over like eleven twelve, get ready,
Speaker 1: Well it's on the radio. I mean then, you know, nowadays,
Speaker 1: I don't think the kids understand that the step up
Speaker 1: is easier now, But then these were major steps and
Speaker 1: we were making them. That was what was great, amazing
Speaker 1: it all turned out. Well, was it strange when the
Speaker 1: band decided to stop doing shows and still record, No,
Speaker 1: that was the best move we ever made. We went
Speaker 1: on stage and the audience made a lot of noise,
Speaker 1: and in the end we were playing such big venues,
Speaker 1: I couldn't hear them. You know. We were always house pa.
Speaker 1: Now it'd be great, but we was a house pa.
Speaker 1: So I'd have to like look at Paul's foot, he
Speaker 1: was always tapping, and John at that so oh yeah.
Speaker 1: And then if they went I'd never heard it. If
Speaker 1: they went, oh that's where we are, you know, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's that song, and I couldn't do any fills. I
Speaker 1: just just keeping it together, you know, because they were
Speaker 1: there was silence. I have to just keep the groove going.
Speaker 1: And you know, I felt I was turning into a
Speaker 1: really not as good a drummer as I could be.
Speaker 1: I was just doing it for the live and just happened.
Speaker 1: John felt the same. And then we told to Paul
Speaker 1: and George and we thought, well, let's take a break
Speaker 1: and go in the studio and we can just be
Speaker 1: in the studio. And yeah, turned out fine, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And we lived in the studio and
Speaker 1: we you know, the livest we got was on the
Speaker 1: roof what's in the documentary coming out? Yeah, And even
Speaker 1: then I was laughing with Paul the other day where
Speaker 1: there's conversations going on, I'm not in the shot him,
Speaker 1: and he said, well, who wants to play live? And
Speaker 1: you hear me going, I do and let The joke
Speaker 1: with the Beatles was including the Habby Road, Let's do
Speaker 1: it in the Egypt, Let's do it in the Roman
Speaker 1: amphitheater of the cover, Let's walk across the road. I
Speaker 1: think that was Paul said, let's just walk across Happy Road. Great,
Speaker 1: and you know with the roof show, we've gone through that.
Speaker 1: Let's do it in Alaska. Let's do it, you know,
Speaker 1: Mount Everest, Let's do it. You know, we don't like this.
Speaker 1: And Michael lindsay Over was pushing for this Roman dome
Speaker 1: drone thing in somewhere yeah, you know, God knows where.
Speaker 1: But anyway, well I think it was probably let's do
Speaker 1: it on the roof O. Okay, we're playing live. You know.
Speaker 1: It all happened after the big discussion, a big, big, big,
Speaker 1: big wow. Let's just do this, you know. I mean
Speaker 1: I mentioned how we know because that is so iconic
Speaker 1: and it's just four boys walking across a zebra crossing
Speaker 1: for Christie. Yes, people are still doing it today. They're
Speaker 1: flying in from all around the world. Stand and stop
Speaker 1: the traffic. You know, the joy is we made some
Speaker 1: great music and I'm part of it and I love
Speaker 1: that and it's still happening today. It's amazing. Did you
Speaker 1: have you seen the Peter Jackson yet of the of
Speaker 1: the let It piece? I've seen six hours editude. Wow,
Speaker 1: and it's from the start and it's a band in
Speaker 1: a room, you know what I mean. And for me,
Speaker 1: the first two hours it's very cold because we had
Speaker 1: twickened them in a film students too big. But you
Speaker 1: know we're there, so we we got some of our
Speaker 1: troubles out. So but this I've seen the six Hours
Speaker 1: that were was the documentary, but because of lockdown, Peter
Speaker 1: Jackson is locked in New Zealand and he has cleaned
Speaker 1: up a few bits, so put a bit of this in.
Speaker 1: So I haven't seen the absolute vinyl understood. But I
Speaker 1: heard Paul at a showing of an Hour forty or
Speaker 1: two hours forty It is holiday home with his holiday friends,
Speaker 1: and he said it looks great, so good. When you
Speaker 1: saw the six Hours, did it put you back in
Speaker 1: the room or did you did you remember it differently
Speaker 1: than you saw? Tell me about the experience of the
Speaker 1: six Hours was great because I saw what I'd been
Speaker 1: moaning about for the last thirty years or forty years
Speaker 1: that there's no joy. In the first one, there's not
Speaker 1: I didn't find one moment of joy. And when Peter
Speaker 1: took the job, God bless him, and he'd keep coming
Speaker 1: into La with his eye. I'd say, look what I found.
Speaker 1: And we're laughing, we're fooling around, we're being the lads.
Speaker 1: You know, we were musicians, we were the lads. We
Speaker 1: had our up, three had our downs, just how it is,
Speaker 1: and Michael sort of took the down to be the
Speaker 1: most important thing in life. You know, God bless him.
Speaker 1: But that's what he did. And this one shows you
Speaker 1: there's joy, and there's discussions and you know, some arguments.
Speaker 1: But that's what it was always like. When you talk
Speaker 1: about discussions. I always remember years ago, early days of
Speaker 1: the Beatles, and John came in with a song with
Speaker 1: a record. He said, oh, I want you to play
Speaker 1: like this, and we played it and it had two
Speaker 1: drummers on it. I said, but it's got two Drummies said, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: just do what you do, you know, And that's how
Speaker 1: it was. You know, you did whatever the idea was,
Speaker 1: you did what you could do. Because I couldn't. I
Speaker 1: wasn't an octopus. Then I couldn't I didn't have four
Speaker 1: on talking about Johnny Hodge one of the craziest things
Speaker 1: he ever did and blew us all the way. It
Speaker 1: used to be a club in Liverpool Saturday night, all
Speaker 1: night and we'd all all the bands who've been playing
Speaker 1: would end up there. But Johnny was playing with two
Speaker 1: sticks in each hand. You've never known so many confused
Speaker 1: people in your life, he said, what, Yeah, yeah, because
Speaker 1: he was like that. Lad. All right, What was it
Speaker 1: like when he moved from the UK to the US.
Speaker 1: You moved to California at one point in time. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: when we landed in New York, there was no bigger
Speaker 1: moment in my life than that. Where actually in America,
Speaker 1: all the music we love is from America, and America
Speaker 1: is big. And you know, talking about coincidences, we got
Speaker 1: off a plane from Sweden at Heathrow. What's his face?
Speaker 1: The guy ran it, Ed Sullivan got off a plane
Speaker 1: from New York. Didn't know anything about it. We didn't
Speaker 1: know him either, but and he sort of booked us.
Speaker 1: But on the way to that show, Brian had gone
Speaker 1: to Capitalty that he wanted more promotion, and we landed
Speaker 1: with the number one. I mean, you can't work that out.
Speaker 1: We landed with the number one thanks to Murray the
Speaker 1: Kay and all those DJs amazing far out because we
Speaker 1: were worried, you know, we were like, you must have
Speaker 1: heard the story that George had his sister lived in America.
Speaker 1: He went on holiday, so he'd be going around the
Speaker 1: record stores. Have you got the beauty? Never heard of them?
Speaker 1: You know we're on I think we're on the Swan label.
Speaker 1: Then yes, And he came back to Oh, they don't
Speaker 1: know us over there, because we were used to it
Speaker 1: now Spain, Denmark, Holland wherever we played it was crowded.
Speaker 1: So he was said, oh, they don't know us, and
Speaker 1: we were like a bit worried. But anyway, we're going
Speaker 1: to America, you know. And that's what we did. And
Speaker 1: the other thing that saved our lives there we found
Speaker 1: out from the press because you know, after and sold,
Speaker 1: we all got on a train and went to Washington.
Speaker 1: We were talking to the press and they said, you know,
Speaker 1: we've all come to shit on you to shoot you
Speaker 1: down from England. Who needs it, you know, And he said,
Speaker 1: and you started shouting at us. Oh so we love
Speaker 1: you because we were answering back. We're from Liverpool, from
Speaker 1: New York and oh I what do you think about?
Speaker 1: We were given them what they were giving us, and
Speaker 1: they couldn't believe that because everyone was so paid deference
Speaker 1: to them. Oh yes, it's very nice. Thank you. We're
Speaker 1: going to take a quick break, but we'll be right
Speaker 1: back with more from Ringo. Here's the rest of Rick
Speaker 1: Rubin's conversation with The Ringo Star. How would you describe
Speaker 1: the relationships within the band? Well, big relationship of course,
Speaker 1: with all rights, John and Paul and I mean things
Speaker 1: that went on when I joined the band. We only
Speaker 1: ever had two rooms in hotels. We're all in the
Speaker 1: same car. We had two rooms. We're always getting to
Speaker 1: know each other anyway. Paul was the only one to
Speaker 1: sleep with me because the other job. We don't know
Speaker 1: if he falls or whatever, you know. Anyway, so together.
Speaker 1: There's a famous story historically where when John and Yoko
Speaker 1: kind of split up for a minute and John came
Speaker 1: to California. Were you living in California at that time?
Speaker 1: I was in California at that time. Yeah, did you
Speaker 1: guys get to hang out we got to hang out
Speaker 1: a loss and he was doing Mary Nilson's Pussycat album.
Speaker 1: And the good and the bad thing about that was
Speaker 1: that's where Harry lost his voice. Because we were all
Speaker 1: living in a house in Malibu, twelve of us, and
Speaker 1: there was a lot of mood altering situations. You know.
Speaker 1: There were one night I go into the studio. There's
Speaker 1: Keith Moon, Jim Calton, and I wear the drummers. But
Speaker 1: we got around Keith and told me he should go home.
Speaker 1: But he was living at the house, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. We were all just hanging out, taking whatever
Speaker 1: and doing music and we you know, talk about Rock
Speaker 1: around the clock. If you had his version, and Jesse
Speaker 1: had Davis the guitar player, you know, we'd all taken
Speaker 1: like a hitter speed at the counting and so it's
Speaker 1: very fast if you listen. But Jesse had actually played
Speaker 1: the solo, and we're all, wow, Jesse, yes, Davis the solo.
Speaker 1: So a lot of old stories from the olden days.
Speaker 1: I remember going up to the upstairs room at the Rainbow,
Speaker 1: the Rainbow Bar and grill on Sunset, and there's some
Speaker 1: sort of a plaque there that I think that Keith's
Speaker 1: name your name. A few of the people who spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time up there commemorated. Yeah, you ended up.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, where do you end up. You've
Speaker 1: been here, you've done this, it's the second night, you know,
Speaker 1: you've been up fifty hours or whatever, and you just
Speaker 1: sort of your body would just sort of take you
Speaker 1: up those stairs and we all, you know, because everyone
Speaker 1: up there was pretty far gone, we'd all hang out
Speaker 1: together and it was just a great vibe and we
Speaker 1: could go up there and be crazy. You know. One
Speaker 1: of the other crazy things that happened was I had
Speaker 1: a house in la and every time let Zephlen come
Speaker 1: bonom his mission in life was to get in a car,
Speaker 1: come to my house, pick me up, and throw me
Speaker 1: in the pool. And then I remember vividly one night,
Speaker 1: I'm dressed up, I'm going out as whatever, and no, John, No, John, John,
Speaker 1: I'm look, I'm dressed in the pool. Use we hung
Speaker 1: out quite a bit, John and I. It was so good.
Speaker 1: Then then we'd sort of moved to on the Rocks.
Speaker 1: That was the next place where we hung out. Do
Speaker 1: you remember the first time you saw John Bonham play? No,
Speaker 1: But I remember the first time I I invited the
Speaker 1: boys to a party in England. We were having a
Speaker 1: party and it's actually a great day to mention this
Speaker 1: story and let Zeppelin come. But you know, Jimmy can't come.
Speaker 1: Jimmy doesn't come to parties anyway, Jimmy came and John
Speaker 1: came and I had a kid of drums upstairs in
Speaker 1: the attic was like the playroom, and John Bonham was
Speaker 1: playing them and Jollie and I got dressed your soul, Jollie.
Speaker 1: Jollie and I were holding the base room because it
Speaker 1: was hopping and this leg was getting too short, so
Speaker 1: we were holding and there's no photo of Jolly. Watch
Speaker 1: Ringos are holding the drum the base. It was far
Speaker 1: out amazing, So they us moments in the life. I mean,
Speaker 1: the rest of the day was pretty regular. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: was a there was a story that I remembered John
Speaker 1: told on a TV interview where he said, when the
Speaker 1: band broke up, they all knew they were going to
Speaker 1: be okay, but they were worried about you because you
Speaker 1: were one of the main songwriters and they were afraid, like,
Speaker 1: what's Ringo gonna do? And then when your work came out,
Speaker 1: your solo stuff, post Beatles was the most successful of
Speaker 1: any post beatle right from the beginning. I know it
Speaker 1: blew the mind, but they were all on my early records.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I sat in the garden, what am I
Speaker 1: gonna do? You know, I'm not a front guy, and
Speaker 1: I thought, well, you know, as we spoke before all
Speaker 1: family parties and we had a lot of them Saturday nights.
Speaker 1: They like to get happy and marry my mom and
Speaker 1: her sisters and uncles, and they'd all sing these songs,
Speaker 1: you know, show tunes and standards. Yes, and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do them. You know. That was my idea.
Speaker 1: Called George Martinson, you know, to get me out of
Speaker 1: the house. I was like, okay, I'm going to sing
Speaker 1: those songs that I've listened to all my life. And
Speaker 1: so that's how we started. Then the other record was
Speaker 1: an accident with Pete Drake. So George is doing all
Speaker 1: things must pass these flowing Pete and you know we're
Speaker 1: talking about how it happens. I sent my car to
Speaker 1: get Pete at the airport and when he came back
Speaker 1: to Dome a horse. I see you like country music
Speaker 1: because I had a lot of in those cassettes. And
Speaker 1: as were the sessions went on, he said, you know,
Speaker 1: you should come to Nashville and make a record. And
Speaker 1: I can't go to Nashville. What three or four months
Speaker 1: to make a record? Said what Nashville Skyline took two days?
Speaker 1: And I said, oh okay. So anyway, I ended up
Speaker 1: in Nashville and two days later we'd finished bookoos the Blues,
Speaker 1: you know, and then Richard Ferry I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: these are all side stories. Harry Neilson and I were
Speaker 1: doing the Grammys in Nashville because we were great pals,
Speaker 1: and Richard came and I thought, oh, Richard, because he
Speaker 1: produced Harry Man, why don't we stay after the Grammys
Speaker 1: and do a record? And he was the one, why
Speaker 1: don't we go to La? Yeah? And uh and we
Speaker 1: came to LA and who knew? John arrived, George arrived,
Speaker 1: you know, the band were on it. I mean it
Speaker 1: was like an all Stars record, really, yes, And that
Speaker 1: I've kept momentum going on the road. I have all
Speaker 1: these different plays. You have to have hits, you have
Speaker 1: to want to have a good time, and uh, you
Speaker 1: know thirty rg years we've had the old Stars now.
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's how we got to the Ringo album,
Speaker 1: which was great, Yeah, amazing. Yeah. If you look at
Speaker 1: the players, it's like who's who? Yeah, and I bet
Speaker 1: it was super fun make. But it was really fun
Speaker 1: to make them as well. It was we had a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. And the No No song was fun
Speaker 1: because we were doing everything no no was it? Was
Speaker 1: it true at the time or no no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: That's what I said. Anything we were doing was no no.
Speaker 1: Did you play on All Things Must Pass? I'm not
Speaker 1: aware of that. Yeah, you sound sounded like George. He
Speaker 1: called me up saying, Ringo, did you play in All
Speaker 1: Things Must Fastna? I don't know, I don't remember. And anyway,
Speaker 1: then when he puts the record out and the little
Speaker 1: booklet and he said Ringo didn't even remember. He didn't
Speaker 1: mention he didn't remember. I hadn't played. So that was
Speaker 1: a great track, great album. It's a really good album.
Speaker 1: And so what other what other post Beatles stuff did
Speaker 1: you play on with the other lads? Well, they played
Speaker 1: on mine. I played a course. The Plastic Gona band
Speaker 1: was just incredible, just John and Klaus and I, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and John going through final stream. So it wasn't even
Speaker 1: in between takes. Sometimes in the take he would get
Speaker 1: it out. You know, it's great. It's great to be
Speaker 1: part of that one. I love that record. And because
Speaker 1: it's three of us, you know what I mean, the
Speaker 1: dynamics just really great. And uh I played on Leon
Speaker 1: Russell's first album, solo album, Stephen Stills, and I played
Speaker 1: on bb King London. You know, after my s of
Speaker 1: six weeks after the break off, I got on my
Speaker 1: feet and started moving and playing and doing you know,
Speaker 1: and that's all it takes. But I did have like
Speaker 1: a moment of sadness. What am I going to do?
Speaker 1: And look what I'm doing now. I'm talking to you,
Speaker 1: the great Nick Rubin. I can remember you coming to
Speaker 1: the studio to play on a Tom Petty song. Yeah
Speaker 1: at East West Oh the studio. Yeah. Yeah. You played
Speaker 1: a smaller drum kit than most of the other drummers
Speaker 1: who had played, and you seem to be working less
Speaker 1: hard than everybody else, and the sound of tone coming
Speaker 1: off the drums filled the room much more than anybody else,
Speaker 1: and it was it looked like a magic trick. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well that's how I played. I mean, I you know,
Speaker 1: people said, well how do well, just what I do
Speaker 1: you know. It's the other thing about Tom was I
Speaker 1: said I'll play on four tracks because I don't want
Speaker 1: to live with him forever, because he was a beautiful
Speaker 1: human being he was. I called him once. I was
Speaker 1: making a record and I called him and he said,
Speaker 1: I'll do it. I said, I haven't even asked you. Yes,
Speaker 1: she said, look, I'll do it. And he came and
Speaker 1: sang this song that somebody else had sang with me,
Speaker 1: but the management thought it would ruin the whole career.
Speaker 1: So Tom just came out and I was in some
Speaker 1: of their videos. So we were hanging, you know. But
Speaker 1: when I said, okay, I'll play him four by three,
Speaker 1: Oh Daddy, enough as you were there, I said, and
Speaker 1: he said, trickier than your thoughts, I won't think as
Speaker 1: there were some like weirdness. Yeah. Absolutely, And I remember
Speaker 1: at that point in time, we really would orchestrate how
Speaker 1: the drums would go, and you were used to a
Speaker 1: different style of playing where you would just kind of
Speaker 1: groove through it and then play pills. And it was
Speaker 1: fascinating to me the way you worked, and it really
Speaker 1: worked out great for the stuff you played on with Tom.
Speaker 1: Yeah good. They sent me a gold disc you know
Speaker 1: you got a gold disc for that record. Great, he
Speaker 1: sent me one. I was looking around, but I've just
Speaker 1: moved around some of my stuff and I've taken that
Speaker 1: one down. Anyway, Rick, you got one more minute? Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm good. It's a pleasure speaking to you and seeing
Speaker 1: you again, okay, and I look forward to doing it
Speaker 1: again soon. I'm gonna FaceTime Paul and tell me you're
Speaker 1: gonna push over, please do. He called me today because
Speaker 1: he knew it, said, oh, you know you want to
Speaker 1: know about drums and music. Okay, he's in love. He's
Speaker 1: in love. Talk to you later, man. Thanks to Ringo
Speaker 1: Star for talking about the good old days with you
Speaker 1: Rink do your Ringos new ep Change the World and
Speaker 1: all of her favorite Ringos songs. Check out Broken Record
Speaker 1: podcast dot com. You should have subscribed to our YouTube
Speaker 1: channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast. We
Speaker 1: can find all our news if you could follow us
Speaker 1: on Twitter at broken rap. Broken Record is produced with
Speaker 1: help from Lea Rose, Jason Gambrell, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler,
Speaker 1: and Jennifer Sanchez, with the engineer and help from Nick Chafee.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Milo Bell. Broken record is production
Speaker 1: of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others
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Speaker 1: Our theme music spect Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.