'Paul likes to think he's the only remaining Beatle': Ringo Starr on why the world's most famous band was lucky to have him
By Cole Moreton
Last updated at 10:00 PM on 21st May 2011
Sir Paul McCartney won't go on Ringo's new tour either. Is he bothered? If you got to keep a sense of humour, £200 million and a Bond girl, would you be?
'It's difficult, because people don't want you to grow up. A lot of people outside the Beatles want to keep me in that world... They want you to be that person they related to, in a movie, on record,' said Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr looks at a photograph of his young self and laughs.
‘We didn’t know what was ahead of us. You never do. We didn’t think it would last.’
The black-and-white image shows the Beatles in suits in the early Sixties, waiting to appear on a television show. He’s not sure which one. Paul is whistling, George is distracted, John is wide-eyed and Ringo is staring at the camera, his feet up on a seat. In the picture (below) he looks the most assured, by far.
‘Even Paul thought, “Well, I’ll probably end up as a writer.” So did John. George was going to have a garage.’
But Ringo was a drummer before the Beatles and he still is, long after them. Nearly half a century later, at the age of 70, the boy in that picture is preparing to go on the road again, touring Britain and Europe with the latest incarnation of his All Starr Band.
He rarely gives interviews, and gets frustrated when all people want to talk about is the Fab Four, but today says he’s ‘at ease with it’. So here goes. How does it feel to be a Beatle, at his age?
‘It is difficult, because people don’t want you to grow up. A lot of people outside the Beatles want to keep me in that world. They look at that guy from A Hard Day’s Night and think, “That’s still him.” They want you to be that person they related to, in a movie, on record.’
The cheeky chappy? ‘Yeah. Exactly.’
'I think it's people on the outside who perceive Paul (McCartney) as thinking he's the only one left. Actually, it's me. I am the last remaining Beatle'
What would he say to that young Ringo, if he could?
‘Who, me? I don’t know. “Hey, how you doing?” Or, “Hey, cool!”’
He gives the peace sign with both hands, and chuckles. Ringo has never pretended to be deep. He was always the natural clown in the band, the friendly face the kids and grannies loved, the yin to the yang of John Lennon’s caustic wit. But he hasn’t given up on the Sixties idealism, even after all this time. ‘Peace and love’ is his catchphrase, and his T-shirt says ‘Give Love’.
He’s still dressing like a rock star – dark suit, dark glasses, three big silver rings in his ear lobe, making it droop – with brushed-forward hair and a closely cut beard, both of which look suspiciously black. Ringo is small, skinny and familiar – that habit of sitting back in the chair, head up like a meerkat, echoes the images of him drumming in the Cavern, at Shea Stadium, on the roof of the Apple building. And we are surrounded by such ghosts, here in the offices of Apple, the company the Beatles set up to run their business affairs.
The Beatles brand is bigger than ever: they passed a billion record sales a long time ago, and they’ve conquered the world again lately, thanks to new technology. More than two million of us own the computer game The Beatles: Rock Band. But the masterstroke was to wait a long time before releasing their 13 albums on iTunes – making sure they were remastered and repackaged, and the clamour was intense.
Yet Ringo has ‘only’ made an estimated £200 million from the Beatles – far less than Sir Paul McCartney, one of the two main songwriters. As the only two members left to face old age, how do they get on?
‘We are as close as we want to be,’ he says, laughing. ‘We’re the only two remaining Beatles, although he likes to think he’s the only one.’
The Beatles during rehearsals for The Ed Sullivan Show, 1964
Ringo has a habit of saying audacious things with a poker face, so you can’t tell if he’s being funny or mad. It’s safer to laugh, and in this case right to do so – because he and Macca made glorious fun of that idea of themselves for this year’s Comic Relief.
If you haven’t seen the sketch, look it up online. James Corden and a room full of superstars are arguing about who should be picked to film a special appeal in Africa, until Sir Paul butts in, as pompous as a knight of the realm can be.
‘You all know that the only person round this table who can go is me. I was in the biggest rock ’n’ roll band in the history of music… I am the last remaining Beatle.’
They all fall silent in awed agreement – until a familiar, flat voice pipes up from the corner: ‘What about me?’
It’s funny and self-aware, but how on Earth did Comic Relief persuade Ringo to do it?
‘I thought it was a great sketch; it worked really well. I did my bit in Los Angeles, where I live half the time. I just sat in a hotel with a camera.’
The best jokes are based on truth, so does he feel like the forgotten man sometimes? And is Paul that self-important?
‘There is an element of truth in it,’ Ringo says, before pausing for thought.
‘But I think it’s people on the outside who perceive Paul as thinking he’s the only one left. Actually, it’s me. I am the last remaining Beatle.’
Deadpan is his default setting. Once you realise that, Ringo is a very engaging man. I’m not surprised he’s still mates with Macca.
‘We are good friends. We don’t live in each other’s pockets, but if we’re in the same country, we get together. He’s singing and playing on my latest album and I played on several of his. We’re just pals. We’re the only two who’ve experienced all this who are still here.’
The pair of them work with the widows of John and George, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison, on managing the Beatles legacy. But how close is that relationship?
‘I was with Yoko and Olivia in Iceland in October for the celebration to mark what would have been John’s 70th birthday. She and my wife Barbara are really good friends. She got up on stage with me on my birthday. We’re all OK together. What’s your point?’
'We didn't think it would last... Even Paul thought, "Well, I'll probably end up as a writer." So did John (Lennon). George (Harrison) was going to have a garage'
Only that the rancour which followed the Beatles split, and which lasted for years, seems to have gone now. Yoko performed at Ringo’s 70th birthday bash at Radio City Music Hall in New York last summer, and Sir Paul sang the Beatles song Birthday. Doesn’t it make him wonder if a reunion might have become possible by now, had they all survived?
‘We don’t know,’ says Ringo with a sigh, which may be because the question irritates him, or because it makes him sad.
‘We didn’t do it when we’d just split up. God knows. It would have been a great moment for me if the four of us were just sitting around talking about it. It’s never going to happen with us.’
He’s getting restless, wanting questions about the present day, so I ask him if he’s annoyed that he hasn’t been given a knighthood like Sir Paul.
‘Well. That’s up to them. It doesn’t grate with me. It doesn’t alter my life. People have tried campaigns, but it never goes anywhere. Maybe you should start one. What can I say? That’s why I called my last album Y Not. To all the questions like that, I just say, “Well, why not?” I thought I was cool, just using the letter Y.’
Ringo’s idea of cool is unique. He won’t shake hands, but prefers to bump elbows. British crowds will see it a lot this summer, as he plays stately homes and theatres with the All Starr Band, which has toured every few years since 1989. Why does he still do it?
‘I still love to play. I go down the front and sing Photograph or whatever, then I get to go back to the drums and play with all these other musicians. It’s a win-win situation. I get the chance to be both the entertainer and the musician. Everyone’s a star, but I’m the big star. The band gets to play 12 numbers between them and I do 12 numbers.’
Ringo does Beatles songs, as well as his solo hits from some of the 16 albums he has released since the Beatles broke up. Has he ever invited Sir Paul to join him?
‘Every time I ask him to join the All Starrs he says he’s too busy. I tell him he’ll have his two numbers…’
Ringo has been married to former Bond girl Barbara Bach for 30 year
So Ringo sticks to the songs he sang in the first place.
‘I have to do With A Little Help From My Friends. I have to do Yellow Sub. And for myself, I have to do Boys, because I’ve done that since I was with Rory Storm and The Hurricanes, the band I was in before the Fabs. People love to see me playing and singing from the drums. There is a responsibility to do stuff that people have come to hear.’
Today is the 30th anniversary of his marriage to Barbara Bach.
‘There’s a song on the new record that says, “The worst it ever was, was wonderful.” That’s a cool line. Everything in it relates to Barbara. I loved the woman from when we met and I still love the woman, and I know she loves me. It’s not like we don’t have a row, but underneath it all there’s always love.’
Bach was a Bond girl, hailed as one of the most beautiful women in the world, when he first set eyes on her in 1980.
‘I met her at Los Angeles airport. Her boyfriend was putting her on the plane. I was on the other side of the counter dealing with my ticket, and I just fell in love with the woman. Then we went off to Mexico to do a movie together, Caveman, and I got to know her through that.’
Ringo had been married before, to Maureen Cox, and had two sons and a daughter (his son Zak is a drummer who has played with Oasis). But he was divorced and free to marry Barbara in 1981. They seemed to have everything, but checked into a rehab clinic in Arizona seven years later; Ringo has said, ‘We both have addictive personalities.’
They’ve been through some hard times, then?
‘We’ve been together for 30 years, so we’ve been through all the times. And we’re still together.’
The couple have a charity, The Lotus Foundation, which supports projects to assist those affected by addiction, as well as domestic violence, cerebral palsy and cancer. They live in Los Angeles and Surrey.
‘Home is England. But we split it pretty even.’
He’s not one of those wealthy men who flee the country, saying it’s going to the dogs?
‘Not our house,’ he says dryly, the Scouse in his voice overpowering the Californian for a moment.
‘Our house is great.’
A 17th-century mansion in 200 acres of prime Surrey countryside is certainly great, compared to where he came from. No 9 Madryn Street in the Dingle area of Liverpool is scheduled for demolition by the city council, although the housing minister Grant Shapps is resisting the plan. Ringo isn’t sentimental about the place at all, and clearly on the side of local residents who want new homes.
‘You only have to go walking round there to see where I lived. It was dark and damp. I have to tell you those lyrics on my song The Other Side Of Liverpool are true: “The house I lived in was cold and damp/My mother was a barmaid/At the age of three, my father was gone.”
'As a kid you didn’t care. That’s what we knew. Every woman in our street was a mother if mine wasn’t there. If you fell over they’d pick you up. If you had a cough they’d be putting cough mixture in you. I had a great childhood, besides being a little ill. But then you move out. I grew up. I’m not a child. I’ve moved on.’
Not everybody appreciates that.
‘When the Beatles moved south to London there were people in Liverpool calling us traitors. You know, like they said it to Bob Dylan when he went electric? I was there that night, by the way. People who are like that don’t want you to grow in any way.’
Ringo works with Sir Paul and the widows of John and George, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison, on managing the Beatles legacy
After the last time he went back, in 2008, there was a huge fuss about something he said.
‘Not at the gig. I played the Echo Arena and everything was great. Then I did the Jonathan Ross show and he said, “Is there anything you miss about Liverpool?” I said, “No.” I was being flippant. It was funny. I thought the whole of Liverpool would laugh.’
It didn’t. There were complaints to the BBC. Somebody vandalised a Beatles tribute in the city, cutting his head off.
‘My auntie and my relations laughed at what I said to Jonathan. You know, I’d just had my whole family – those that are left – round for tea on the Sunday.’
At his house?
‘Like I have a house in Liverpool! No. Round the back of the Arena. We took a room and we put on a great thing. The family are still important. My mother’s dead, so I don’t go back that often.’
He hasn’t been to Liverpool since – and hasn’t spoken about the controversy until now.
‘But I’m going back this summer to do what I do best.’
He nearly spent his life doing something else, as it happens. The career of Richard Starkey, born in 1940, would have been very different if the boy had listened to his family. Having made his first drum kit out of biscuit tins and bits of firewood at the age of 13, he faced a huge decision in the summer of 1960.
‘I was working in a factory, for Henry Hunt and Sons, a light engineering company. I was an apprentice engineer, which was very big news in our family. But I was also playing with Rory and The Hurricanes, and we got the offer of a three-month gig in Butlin’s at Skegness and Pwllheli, so we had to give up our jobs. All my uncles and aunties came over to try and tell me that drumming was OK as a hobby. I had to stand there and defend myself. I said, “No, I’m a drummer, I’m off.” That’s a Sliding Doors moment. Some decisions are good.’
Butlin’s led to a season in Hamburg at the same time as the Beatles were there, which led to an invitation to join them. John Lennon said people forget that Ringo was a star before he joined the band.
‘I was. Within Liverpool I was a lot more well known than them. Rory and The Hurricanes were big shots in the city. We had suits. That was our claim to fame.’
So rather than Ringo being lucky to join the Beatles – as lots of jealous people have said over the years – the opposite was true?
‘Yeah. They were lucky to get me. It wasn’t just that I was a big shot; I was a cool drummer. Brian Epstein asked if I would play a lunchtime at the Cavern with them. That’s how I got started.’
There’s your reason why he’s still on the road. He was joking earlier, but maybe Ringo is the one who has stayed closest to the original spirit of the Beatles, as lads from Liverpool who played the clubs, worked at their music and made people feel good. He’s the only one of the Fab Four who doesn’t get treated as a legend, which is exactly what he wants.
‘That’s your word. I’m a dad and a grandfather and a husband. I’m a regular guy. I like doing regular stuff. But we did leave music behind. The moptops, the style you see around you on the wall, was all transient, but the records are still holding up. The remasters are great – because you can hear the drums. The drums are up, brother.’
Now that you can hear what he’s playing clearly, on all those remastered songs, Ringo is finally getting the credit he deserves. John’s quip about him not even being the best drummer in the Beatles was put to rest when Rolling Stone magazine recently chose Ringo as the fifth greatest rock drummer of all time.
‘I did do some great music. And I’m not done yet.’
He gets up to go, and I tell him it’s been an honour. Ringo laughs loudly.
‘An honour, you say? Ha! That’s great. Put that in your damn article. Peace and love, brother, peace and love.’
Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band are on tour in the UK from June 17. ringostarr.com
One day, John Lennon found a stray cat in the snow, which his Aunt Mimi allowed him to keep. (John’s beloved Aunt Mimi raised him from a young boy through his late teenage years.) He named the marmalade-colored half-Persian cat Tim.
John and Cynthia also had a cat named Mimi who was, of course, named after his Aunt Mimi. They soon got another cat, a tabby, who they dubbed Babaghi. John and Cynthia continued acquiring more cats until they eventually owned around 10 of them.
John also had two cats with his later wife, Yoko Ono. One was black, one was white. As befitting John’s offbeat sense of humor, he christened the white cat Pepper and the black one Salt.
