Ringo Starr - The Mike Douglas Show Interview - 17 April 1978

but they also changed the way a whole generation of musicians write and perform the group split up in 1970 and each member has pursued a successful solo career and my next guest is one of those four who put liverpool on the map here is ringo starr [Music] [Applause] oh i said i said i said durango they're standing and he said so are we i've read all about you and found it very fascinating uh i found it interesting that you had a childhood that was not too didn't you well no but you had a lot of a lot of illness in you yes i was very sick as a child mike i hope i make it through the show oh uh yes i was very sick i had peritonitis and they said i'd die three times but i refused and then ho ho that's true uh that's true and then i had uh tb you know for that this interrupted your your schooling a great deal you didn't go to school for it no thank you very much no i didn't like it when i went anyway didn't you what didn't you like about it well the problem was because i was sick i was always late you know i was always two years old and it's the same today i suppose but the teacher would never just take you aside and help you you know they just have to help the 40 or 50 people in the class and so uh you were always behind did your mother help you at all at home yes she went to work i'm talking about you now the reason i brought that up is no she your father left when when you were a very tender age three three when he left you that was enough for him yeah and then it was just you and your mother yeah yes for uh well till i was 13 then she remarried but i was taught to read by a lady used to mind me who was a friend of my mother's and when they'd go out you know she'd look after me and she told me to read when i was nine so don't give up sweat hogs do you read a lot i read everything i can read the anything 75 words any word you want to put in front of me i can read but i can't spell it you do have some problems that's the only problem i spell frenetically i i kind of identified with some of the things that you did as a boy because you were into the gang thing which i didn't know was that you had to be you had to be in liverpool where i came from um we were by the docks and each area had its own gang it's like new york you know that's why you feel close to new york and hamburg they're all the similar cities in germany because um if you weren't in what in the gang around your area uh they'd beat you up anyway yeah you know where he comes i found it interesting you said when we get tired of beating up other people we'd beat up each other yes well they would you know oh let's beat him up buddy i'm with you oh it doesn't matter didn't that begin to work thin after a while yes when i started playing the drums i um i thought this is silly you know i get beaten up we beat somebody up you know it's all that stuff when you're 18 25 years ago [Music] we got your age now haven't we but how did you was was the did you go right to the drums or did you uh have other instruments before that i had a harmonica at seven and from that i went to the drums i went to the drums because i used to walk to school one of the days i went and um and it was a music store and i always looked thank you drummer i always looked at the drums it was all these instruments but i only wanted the drum i don't know it's just that was it 14 you know how did you get your first one i uh i bought the first one well it the first one i was given in hospitals yeah that's what i mean you know and they used to have a band come round and uh you know they'd have triangles and drums and symbols and the teacher had big yellow dots and big red dots and when she hit the red i would hit the drum and that and then if they wouldn't give me a drum i wouldn't join the band i wouldn't play in the hospital do you read music no formal training at all i can't read it to this day it doesn't matter doesn't it no i can read books though did your mom object to your practicing because that's a very noisy thing you know the story to say it fast is that i looked at this drum then i had one big bass one with one skin that they'd let me play at parties at 15 and 16 because i've been sick then they put me away and then my stepfather found a kit for me that a friend of his because he was from london we were in liverpool was selling for fifty dollars at the most and uh he went and got it and brought it to me and i got that in january and in february i joined a band because none of them could play either what was the name of that that was the eddie clayton skiffle group how many in the band well it built up it started with three and then we ended up with five we had the biggest skiffle band in town what's this what's a skiffle band i'm not sure well skiffle you know lonnie donegan yes oh yes well he started skiffing england but it went back to to the blues and it was originally rend parties where someone had opened the house you'd come in and someone have a harmonica or a jug you know like joke bends yeah oh i see and you made it up you know and they'd all say hey lily and cotton fields and all that and um we and then people would give them a quarter for spending the night there or something you know i'm trying to translate to american money um and that's what it started from so it was like good time bans but you didn't have to play too much well you became a beatle almost by mistake didn't you you were with another band at the time uh i was with several bands i was with most of the bands in the one one time in liverpool we used to do an hour show and there were three bands on the show and you do half an hour the next band and i played with every bend and the curtains would open and i'd be there and you all had jackets in those days and suits and so the cairns would open night places and then the curtains would close they'd open again i'd be there just in a different jacket all right cause we're all playing the same songs so that was a good one but they the other members changed but you just stayed on drums is that the idea is that what you yeah uh paul actually got to a base because the other two wouldn't play it when stewart died in germany paul used to play when i um well i met them in liverpool for a brief period because i was with a band called rory storm and they were just getting together sounds like this is your life the three of them there were four of them at the time there was a drummer right yeah best and then well when i first met them there was only uh john george and stewart that were teaching to to play bass because he didn't play so over the first couple of months he used to play with his back to the audience because he'd be going uh oh and look at it [Applause] the first time you sat down with the other three members did you know at that moment that that was very special was it did something register with you um to be honest the they were the best band in liverpool and uh we met in germany that's where we really got to know each other because we played the same club together with germany and they we used to do 12 hours between us two bands and that's where we all learned to play you didn't have to audition for the band as it were um no no we got to know each other and then when we all got back to liverpool um pete wasn't well one day i used to say he was sick and he kept suing me so he wasn't well and uh and they they got me out of bed for a lunch time session because you never get up till one anyway and i played and i played the lunchtime session at the cavern and then we went and played in a place called southport and that was the end of it everyone accepted it and the audience accepted it and i played and he wasn't well again and i played again and everyone said yeah and then suddenly i got a call not suddenly because we had talked about it i was playing skegness with rory stone hurricanes at a holiday camp we had three months work then brian found me up and said brian epstein brian epstein yes he said uh will you join the band and i said when and he says today and i said no saturday because my band the band i was in would have lost the job so you oh i gave until saturday i played with them then they had all that time and sunday we were off to find a drummer what did you earn the first time you worked with the beatles for a solid week uh a week i don't know when i was in yeah 25 pound that'd be about what equivalent to about 50 60 60 70 but that was wages you know i mean brian would give you like wages i had a wage package until 1917. it's just the thing you get into give me a wage packet you know 50 50 pounds i used to get a week had a lot more in the bank though michael where did you go to practice i never practiced to get back to that story i practiced one time upstairs we were in the house and all the houses are together you know just the street house so everyone was screaming you know we call them row homes here what do you homes what do you call them in england it's a street street of houses you know street of houses no i'm saying no i'm not being funny we really do call them row homes where do they call it though in the east in philadelphia they have well all the major cities have row homes somewhere you don't have it here though yes they must have somewhere they've got that do they have it here no thank you gong you're out most of the members of the band what was it like the first time you heard you were coming to america because you had felt you knew that you had to make it in america to be what you well the thing was you only you had to make in america didn't matter where you made it you'd pretend and say this is fine but you're always looking to america because that's where most of the influences came from and it was interesting because um george had a sister who lives here but he still has her i suppose and um and he came a couple of months before you know everyone knows why we were we we came to do the ed sullivan because he saw us in london when we came from switzerland not switzerland sweden sweden we came from and there's a lot of kids on the roof of those and he said watch this and he booked us for his show but george had been like six months before and you know going around the record so we've got near the beagle records so get out of here who are they and um so he came back saying they don't know us that it's terrible because we were big in europe and we were used to the very big big records over there but we arrived as everyone knows with well you don't know you're too young we arrive to um you know a lot of people and the big time and did it happen almost automatically from no first appearance or did you have to come back for subsequent appearances no no you from that appearance we hit them yeah but we toured because that's what we're doing at the time and it was part of the life is touring yeah we have to pause for a minute will you stay i hope right after this you guys up [Music] um a lot of things not one thing like everything it's like a divorce not one thing can break you up it's you know it's the little things you get into um we'd stopped tour and we ended up in the studio and then we'd all got married you know i had children um john had a you know a child and then um different ladies came into their lives and we just all wanted to do different things anyway you know it when it went on for like two years it was dying it never just came to one point said that's it but are you saying that at one point everybody wanted to do something else we sat in the office and uh said well what are you saying well i've got nothing to say what are you saying well i've got nothing to say well we have nothing to say let's say it ourselves you know it was just one of those things where well let's end it okay you were very very young when all the success came to what did you spend all the money did you save the money what did you do with it all see this coach yes is that it that's it [Music] [Laughter] um no i saved some of it i have a big car is it difficult in a situation like that to maintain a marriage uh that's not what broke it up mine broke up after it we went through it all together you know we had the children we went through it and mine ended uh after the uh the beatles ended and nothing to do with them you know but that was a there was a lot of talk about the fact that when john and yoko una got together that was the start of it all right yes that's a lot of talk there's nothing to that at all no it's part of it you know and linda's part of it and maureen and my children are part of and george and patty's part of it and alan klein and um you know the eastman and you know there's a million things that are part of it don't sue me yeah okay you know what i'm saying how did it work out when there was a disagreement did you what did you guys argue about mainly it couldn't have been billing because it all had equal billing there was no real main arguments when we were close you know at the end uh there was arguments one time i left because i thought those three were very close and i was outside and i went knocking on the door excuse me what made you feel that way well i was probably paranoid aren't we all you know so so i went you know it's the old story i went well i'm leaving you three are real close you know and i don't feel i'm playing well and i feel i'm not like the new three are really wonderful and they said i thought it was you three so i went knocking on the other door knock knock i'm leaving i think i thought it was the other three so i said well i'm going on holiday and i went to sardinia for two weeks and then came back and this was in the white album and we did that and then when we were doing let it be george decided to leave he had around with paul you tear me off just when i said it say it into that camera he said you know ringo he had a row with paul you know poor poor elvis poor elvis he never got a chance to yeah i don't know whether it was the people around him who kept him from going out and seeing people i felt uh were you able to a few times i met elvis see we were very strong because we were four musicians together so we were close like that and what our job and our lives were involved in that i felt i felt sad one time i went to see elvis what we all did it was the big meet you know they made elvis and he had uh sort of football players you know what you were his friends and things but there's no musical input or output from a football player nothing about football play what is this guess the camera no no wait a minute we've got a new idea for a show yes the camera but you were saying there's no output from football uh well i didn't think that would feed him in anything musically it was fine in the yard yeah pass it over here but you know when he came to make records and in that period when we came through i i felt personally um his records weren't uh too exciting but he came back but what did what did you do when you when you decided you want to go out in public just walk around looking store windows did you have a disguise you could wear no they used to um close the stores and open them for us are you serious they opened harrods for us one day especially they kept all the staff and harrods which is a big department store in england they opened it for us and we went in and christmas shopped our brains away oh that's i'll have ten of them nine of those six of those it doesn't fit it doesn't matter is that the way you shop really yes well at christmas you do don't you know someone will fit it you know someone's bound to like one of them the group the group at least on the surface seem to be full of pranks yes what kind of pranks do they pull on you oh no real pranks on each other no real pranks just laughs and fun but no real prank when we first tore and we used to you know that the bill was better because you'd have four or five acts on the bill now you know if a group goes on that's it so what we do you know you you try and pull the other band off stage or you'd have people who come on through your set and drink coffee or something you know and they're sitting on the side of the drawers what what's he doing here reading the newspaper those sort of pranks you know what puzzled me watching you guys perform i used to sit and wonder how in the world can they hear themselves they never did are you are you serious yeah because of the kids if you look at any old footage and it's certainly going to be old um you'll watch me as i play i play like this you see i'm i'm looking at the mails because you're like lip reading you know what i'm saying what's he saying now which song are we doing and you really want to hear it were you ever frightened by a crowd because uh they can you know they can really get out of hand yes but you must realize we were so well protected that none of us got really injured you know how could you be well protected a whole ballpark full of people because how many people were protecting you well half of them were policemen no we were well protected well the ball like when we played that was helicopters and um what's at wells fargo we arrived in the wells fargo truck good night good night no no no no no no no no no oh you're so bad sorry are you into i i understand that you and george are possibly closer than you and paul are you and janice uh this week george and i are very close this week it's me and george tomorrow could be john and i could you know that it goes round it depends where we are if i'm in new york i'm very close to john because he lives there [Applause] it's the good life there's been a lot of talk i know i know there's always a problem and about you you're probably you're probably bored stiff of hearing this but we keep reading about this these phenomenal offers that you're getting for the four of you to get back together at least for this one tremendous uh satellite job which everybody in the world will see in theaters etc is that ever going to happen no but i've read that no they've offered you how many millions have you been offered seriously 50 50 million for one show that was just for me [Applause] what would it take to get the beatles back together ringo i can't see it ever happening personally we're all busy you know god this story sorry um i can't see it happening because we're all too busy that's the main thing we all we split because we wanted to do our separate things you know and to go back now and it's such a long time yeah and we'd have to spend such a long time you know how would we go back yeah what would you do what would you do it's like it's you know it's over okay what over what's next for ringo starr well michael there's a beautiful tv special coming up funny you should mention that well i had to you wouldn't but i was going to imagine you know and you see i'm going to mention it because i'm going to be honored well i'm very excited yes well we have michael on the show we have a lot of nice guests it's my special based loosely on the prince and the pauper i didn't want to do nothing against them but i personally didn't want to do the show where i am the star and the guest comes on does a number we do a number together we do a sketch or something like that i wanted something that followed that through the whole thing you're talking you know so i decided um with a lot of help from a lot of people that we would do it's more like a musical but we incorporate my songs from the past and from now where the prince and the pope and the two parts of one is um ringo starr high [Music] are we playing guess are we playing guess the camera again and the other one i would talk to the audience because i like that and the other one is um ogna rats tell them what that tell them tell us about my crew clapping i know that's ringo starr backwards ugh backwards and one is ringo star with the card and the women and everything whatever they think it is and the other one sells maps to the star's homes isn't that cute it's great you'd watch that wouldn't you you better believe it it's going to be on april 26th april 27th eastern standard and what in eight o'clock in the midwest oh i don't know about that it has to be eight o'clock in the midwest i got it right i'm english you know i don't know about your time changes this is this has been a great idea and we have a lot of nice guests we have um we have our county we have vincent price we have vinnie poncia we have uh several others oh sorry uh what's your name sam levinson sam levinson he's got a very big part i'm going to verify right now it's going to be terrific it is going to be trivial i hope you all watch and good luck and thank you ringo starr thank you

Channel: The Beatles Videos

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Id: CJaxY8VZ1nM

Length: 22min 34sec (1354 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 27 2020