 Rory Storm and the Hurricanes featured the drumming of Richard "Ringo" Starkey. He remembers checking out his rivals [on the Hamburg scene] They [the Beatles] impressed me more as vocalists than musicians. Paul wasn't actually playing an instrument, he was strumming a two-string guitar just so he could hold something. The Beatles and Rory both really wanted to be the top band - we'd do any craziness to get the audience going. The competition, and all those hours, really forced us to learn our craft. It was like a cram course. On recording: It was like mental telepathy when we played - you knew when someone else was going to do something, and we'd all do it together without anyone saying anything. Things would happen like magic, all the time. When we'd hit a snag, we'd struggle with it, sometimes well into the night. Then we'd break for a cup of tea, go up on the roof, come back in and suddenly everyone would come together and it fell in place. On playing live: After a while, we figured we could probably go out there and just fart, and still get the same manic response. It must have looked like miming because nobody could hear anything, including us. That doesn't help you as a musician. I couldn't do any fills or we'd lose track of the song. I used to lean over and try to read Paul's lips to keep track of where we were at. The band never performed anything from Rubber Soul or Revolver in concert. The final 1966 shows were the proverbial Tour From Hell. Lennon's misinterpreted remarks about the Beatles being "bigger than Jesus" caused riots, there were threats against Ringo's life in Montreal, and even the Filipino police kicked and shoved them as they barely escaped from Manila after failing to appear at a reception held by President Ferdinand Marcos. The Beatles decided never to tour again. Instead, they entered EMI studios and spent a then-unheard of six months layering overdubs, bringing in an orchestra, and finally giving birth to a milestone album that was at once overwhelming and overblown. If they wouldn't tour, why not create a virtual reality version of themselves to send out to the world? They called it Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. On Sgt Pepper: There were so many overdubs on Pepper. The backing tracks were fine, but there was so much to be put on top of them you couldn't tell how good the songs were til we finished six months later. With all those orchestras and whatnot we were virtually reduced to being a session group on our own album. On the White Album: It was so tense I left the group for a while. Paul played drums on "Back in the USSR" We were going through madness. Everyone thought the other three were friends, and it turned out none of us were getting along with each other. We were all paranoid and crazy. But Paul wasn't the musical director. He's just a workaholic. In the end George was in the most difficult position, because John and Paul even wanted to write his solos! Ringo on the rooftop: We were playing for the whole of London! Then the bank next door complained during "Get Back" so the police came up and told us to stop. And I wasn't telling them off, like many people may think. I was begging them to drag us away. We couldn't figure out how to end it, and I thought it would have made a fabulous ending [laughs] |
