Ringo Starr has revealed that The Beatles wouldn’t have made as many records had it not been for “workaholic” Paul McCartney.
The drummer of the legendary band sat down with journalist Dan Rather for a new interview on AXS TV. Starr opened up about how The Beatles didn’t get along and how without Macca, they wouldn’t have made nearly as many records as they did.
“No no, we didn’t get along. We were four guys, we had rouse. It never got in the way of the music no matter how bad the row was. Once the count in, we all gave our best. And that was a little later too which I think it was a natural thing, you know,” explained Starr.
He continued: “Suddenly, we’ve got lives and iv’e got children and you know, the effort that we put in cause we worked really hard was starting to pale a little and we always thank Paul to this day.
“Because of Paul, who was the workaholic of our band, we made a lot more records than John and I would’ve made. We liked to sit around a little more and then Paul would call ‘Alright lads’, and we’d go in.”
The rock legend also went on to speak about how they were able to remain humble throughout their career and the time the fab four met Elvis.
“I think its all part of where we came from. I always give credit that there was four of us all from the same city and we would look at each other, you know one of us would be freaking out or being a big shot and three other people would go ‘Excuse me’ and that kept us straight,” he told Rather.
He continued: “You know it’s interesting because the time we met Elvis, I really thought ‘How sad that he’s on his own’. He had all those people around but he was on his own. I had three great mates.”
The Beatles are the biggest selling band of all time, selling over 500 million records. Throughout the span of their career, the have released 12 studio albums (17 in the US), 5 live albums, 51 compilation albums, 36 extended plays (EPs), 63 singles, 17 box sets, 22 video albums and 53 music videos.
In 1963, the released both ‘Please Please Me’ and ‘With the Beatles’. In 1964, they released ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and ‘Beatles for Sale’ the following year they released ‘Help!’ and ‘Rubber Soul’. An single album usually takes roughly a year to complete but the Beatles were able to consecutively release two a year for three years straight. Every year after 1965 until 1970, the fab four released either one or two albums.
In other news, the band recently released a brand new restored video for ‘Let It Be’. The video features clips from the newly released and restored 1970 film Let It Be.
In a four-star review of the film, NME shared: “There may not be a more punk rock bit of film on earth than George being told the police were on the roof to shut them down, and casually turning his amp back on. For that alone, for all its whitewashing and line-toeing, Let It Be remains a staggering watch.”
Elsewhere, Mike Love and Bruce Johnston of The Beach Boys recently discussed the support they had from The Beatles, sharing “Our best promo guys in the whole world were John Lennon and Paul McCartney”.
