Relaxing in a velvet armchair in the living room of a villa on the grounds of the luxurious Sunset Marquis hotel in West Hollywood, California, Ringo Starr’s laid-back friendliness makes him the personification of the “peace and love” mantra that he frequently professes.
Ever since a meteoric rise to stardom in the 1960s as a member of the Beatles, Starr has been the most famous drummer the world has ever known, which makes it a bit daunting to interview him. When I remark that he’s probably already heard every possible question by now, he smiles.
“I have,” he says, “but you won’t be able to tell.” Then he laughs, thus setting the lighthearted tone for the rest of the interview.
Starr is here to discuss Look Up, his 21st solo studio album, which is set for release on January 10 via Lost Highway Records. Its genesis can be traced to his attendance at an event at this very same hotel. Olivia Harrison, the widow of his former Beatles bandmate George Harrison, did a reading from a book she had written, Came the Lightning: Twenty Poems for George (published in 2022 by Genesis Publications).
Afterward, Starr says, “It was about 60 of us standing outside here, and one of them was T Bone [Burnett]—who I’d met, many times, from the middle ’70s on.” Throughout the past five decades, Burnett has built up a stellar reputation as a songwriter and performer in his own right, and he has also worked as a writer and producer with an array of notable artists, including Bob Dylan, Robert Plant, Elton John, Tony Bennett, and Taylor Swift.
So as Starr chatted with Burnett, it occurred to him to make an offer to collaborate. He told Burnett, “‘I’m making an EP. If you have a song and you want to put some meat on it…send it to me.’ He said, ‘OK, let me think about that.’”
Burnett did end up passing along a song, and Starr was immediately mesmerized by it. “He sent me this beautiful country song. The music on it was great, and the sentiment was great,” Starr says.
Up until this point, Starr had been planning to make a pop-rock EP, in line with a series of other such releases he had made during the COVID-19 pandemic (the latest of which, Crooked Boy, came out last spring). But now, because of Burnett’s impressive songwriting, Starr decided he’d switch to country music for this release instead.
When Burnett told Starr that he actually had nine songs to offer, Starr took them all, which expanded the release into a full-length album. Look Up also includes a track written by Billy Swan, as well as the closing number, “Thankful,” which Starr co-wrote with engineer/producer Bruce Sugar.
Starr says writing “Thankful” was easy and resulted from passing ideas back and forth with Sugar until the song naturally came together. It’s a technique that Starr has often employed with other co-writers.
“Writing with other people, I enjoy—but we always end where I want it to end if it’s on my record,” Starr says firmly. And that endpoint, he adds, is invariably centered on an optimistic theme: “There’s always peace and love. There’s always a break in the clouds. There’s always light coming in. And you know, I’ve been like that for many years; it’s not new. But it works a treat on country [music].”
Starr has long expressed his admiration for country music, choosing that genre for his second solo album, Beaucoups of Blues (1970). Even before that, when he was in the Beatles, Starr showed his deep appreciation for the genre, singing on covers of “Matchbox” and “Act Naturally,” which were originally by Carl Perkins and Buck Owens, respectively.
Though he had grown up appreciating all kinds of music, Starr didn’t initially seem like he was likely to become a musician himself—or have many other good prospects, either. Born into a working-class family in Liverpool, he was beset by multiple serious illnesses as a child, which severely impacted his education. After contracting tuberculosis, he had to spend two years of his adolescence in the hospital—but this led to a pivotal moment that changed the course of his life for the better.
“I was sitting in a bed in a hospital with 40 other kids who’ve got tuberculosis,” he says, “and to keep us busy, one day, this woman came in with maracas, triangles, tambourines, and a drum.” Randomly, the woman passed out the instruments, and Starr was given the drum. From the first beat he struck, he knew he was destined to become a drummer.
After Starr was discharged from the hospital, this dream got an unexpected boost. “My stepdad’s cousin died, and he went down to the funeral in London from Liverpool,” Starr says. “And he didn’t know, but the guy was a drummer, and there was a stack of drums in the corner, and he asked his wife, ‘Do you want to sell them?’ And he bought them for me.”
Initially, though, Starr remembers feeling disappointed by these “big old drums—I wanted new and shiny. But anyway, that’s how stupid you are when you’re 17.” Still, with the right equipment, he was able to start his drumming career in earnest.
He began playing with his friends Eddie Miles and Alan Caldwell, who eventually took the stage names Eddie Clayton and Rory Storm. “We were all in the same factory,” Starr says. “Me and Eddie were engineers, and my friend Rory was a joiner; he worked in the wood part of the factory. We put a trio together.”
Their first shows, for their co-workers, were less than encouraging: “We used to play for the men in the basement at lunchtime. They were all, ‘Get out of here! Turn that shit off!’ They’d be shouting at us.”
Undaunted, they carried on, with lineup changes eventually leading to the creation of the band Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. They became the most popular band in the city, and Starr recalls that it was a magical time to be in that scene. “At that moment, Liverpool was like the Music City. There were more bands in Liverpool than anywhere in the world,” he says.
Rory Storm and the Hurricanes also performed at “holiday camps” in Wales, where the band would be booked for the entire summer, performing numerous sets every week. By this point, Rory Storm had become a dramatic frontman. “There was an upright piano behind the drums, and he’d climb up on that and then jump over my head and the drums to the floor,” Starr says, smiling at the memory.
But this was also when Starr was given a chance to prove that he, too, could shine in the spotlight. He was given his own segment of the show, dubbed “Ringo Starr Time,” where he would play a drum solo and sing lead vocals for a few songs.
The band went on to perform on the club circuit in Hamburg, Germany—where the Beatles were also earning their stripes. The two bands were friendly towards each other – but when the Beatles asked Starr to become their drummer (replacing Pete Best), “I was as surprised as anyone,” he says.
Starr recalls the moment that Brian Epstein, who was managing the Beatles, called with the offer. “It was funny because he said, ‘Would you join?’ I said, ‘Yeah, when?’ He says, ‘Tonight.’ I said, ‘I can’t join tonight!’” Instead, Starr said he’d take on the position three days later to give Rory Storm time to hire another drummer.
Looking back on his decision to switch to the Beatles, Starr says with a laugh, “I think I made a right move!”
That may be one of the biggest understatements of all time. The Beatles went on to become one of the most popular and influential bands in rock history. They sparked such massive fan hysteria around the world that it earned a name: Beatlemania. For his role in that band, Starr has been appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (he was later separately inducted as a solo artist, as well).
Although his bandmates John Lennon and Paul McCartney composed the majority of the songs that the Beatles recorded, Starr made significant contributions as well. He remembers that he wrote the song “Don’t Pass Me By,” from the 1968 double album The Beatles (better known as the “White Album” because of its plain cover) after the lyrics suddenly popped into his head. “They come from anywhere, you know,” he says of this kind of epiphany. “The thought comes in, and you try and turn it into a song.”
One of Starr’s most famous compositions, “Octopus’s Garden,” had a much clearer origin. Though he’s probably told the story of this song’s creation a thousand times, he agrees to do it once more for American Songwriter readers’ benefit. “This is for all the new songwriters,” he says with a grin. “You go on holiday to Sardinia, and a friend of yours, Peter Sellers, has a yacht, and he lends you this yacht!”
Once on board, Starr and his then-wife, Maureen, and their two young sons, Zak and Jason, asked for fish and chips for lunch. Instead, they were served octopus and chips, which they flatly refused to eat.
Later that day, Starr had a chat with the boat’s captain about the incident. “He said, ‘Do you know, octopus, where they live in their cave, they go ’round and collect all the shiny rocks and make a garden in front of it.’”
Starr recalls thinking, ‘Wow, that is great!’” He had brought a guitar with him for this trip—and cheerfully confesses that he’d smoked a few joints by this point—so he felt instantly inspired to write “Octopus’s Garden” on the spot. The Beatles included the whimsical song on their 1969 album Abbey Road.
As the Beatles experimented with different styles, Starr proved his diversity as a drummer, though he says, “I can’t really play ’til you’ve got the song, because I play with the song and the singer.”
As an example of this, Starr points to the 1969 Beatles track “Get Back.” At first, he recalls, he played a straightforward beat—but after hearing the song a few times, he developed the distinctive galloping rhythm that is so familiar to fans now. “You don’t know where it comes from,” he says of this kind of evolution. “I just know it comes, and that’s good for me.”
Despite their enormous popularity, the Beatles broke up in 1970, and Starr immediately started a solo career, but he admits, “I was terrified.” After all, even after being in such a phenomenally successful band, there was still no guarantee that he would do well on his own. But he soon had significant hits with “It Don’t Come Easy” (1971), “Back Off Boogaloo” (1972), “Photograph” (1973), and “You’re Sixteen” (1973).
With a laugh, Starr recalls how he wrote “Back Off Boogaloo,” which was inspired by his friend Marc Bolan, the frontman for the influential glam rock band T. Rex. “Marc Bolan had been over; we’d had dinner. He was always, ‘Back off, boogaloo!’” That evening, as Starr fell asleep, that line kept recurring to him until it coalesced into a melody.
“So I jumped up and ran downstairs, and not one tape recorder was working, of course, and I was trying to get batteries out of the kids’ toys,” Starr says with a laugh. “I had to try and keep it. I’ve lost so many songs because I couldn’t hold on to it: it came in and went out.” This time, though, he was successful at capturing the idea, and the song became a hit single in 10 countries.
Starr remained friends with all three of his former Beatles bandmates, and he also continued to work with each of them. He recorded the song “I Am the Greatest,” which John Lennon had written for himself, but then decided to have Starr record instead. Starr’s 1973 album Ringo features the song “Six O’Clock,” which Paul McCartney co-wrote with his wife, Linda McCartney. And George Harrison worked with Starr on a few songs, including “Photograph” and “It Don’t Come Easy” (for the latter of which, Starr says, “I wrote most of it, and then he was great at finishing”).
When asked what it is about him that enables him to get along so well with others, even his former bandmates, he deadpans, “I’m lovable.” Then he laughs and adds simply, “I love to play.”
This ability to get along well with others has certainly served Starr particularly well since 1989, when he formed Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band. This is an ever-evolving collective wherein Starr is a kind of ringleader, bringing together noteworthy musicians in a “supergroup” that performs a selection of each of the members’ best-loved hits.
Past All-Starr band lineups have included Joe Walsh (Eagles), Nils Lofgren (Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band), Dr. John, Billy Preston, Levon Helm (The Band), Todd Rundgren, Dave Edmunds (Rockpile), John Entwistle (The Who), Peter Frampton, Ian Hunter (Mott the Hoople), Howard Jones, and Sheila E., to name just a few. The present band—now in its 14th iteration—includes Colin Hay (Men at Work), Edgar Winter, and Steve Lukather (Toto), among others.
Starr says he doesn’t mind playing the same hits over and over again for these shows “because I know that 90 percent of the audience want to hear those songs,” he says. “I have no problem doing “[With a Little] Help from My Friends” over and over again. That’s why they’re here. And it’s why I’m there.”
Although Starr is the band leader, he isn’t the sole focus of the show. he and all of the other members must put their egos aside in order to properly perform each other’s songs. Starr admits that sometimes, though, doing this has been a problem for some musicians.
“I’ve had a couple of All-Starr bands, and people like that were in it: they thought that it was their band, their show. And I said, ‘Yes, and which band were you in?’” He laughs but then becomes serious again. “But I have had some trouble with musicians who can’t do that.”
Now, he says, whenever there’s a new All-Starr lineup, he makes a point to let everyone know exactly what’s expected of all members, including himself. “Every time, I have a speech: ‘Look, I will do my best for you, and I want you to do your best for me, and your best for him…and we do the best we can, every night.’”
As a result, “Some nights are just magical. I love the audience, and I know they love me. It’s a peace and love show.” He invariably closes each performance with a rendition of “With a Little Help from My Friends,” the uplifting 1967 Beatles track for which he sang the lead vocal part. In this way, he honors the Beatles’ legacy that continues to thrive to this day. “Every generation, we get another crowd. That is so great,” he says.
He sees no end to his solo work, either, confirming that he plans to continue releasing music and touring with his All-Starr Band for the foreseeable future. “I like to have joy in my life,” he says, “and playing is a joy.”
Cover Photo by Scott Robert Ritchie
