Los Angeles --- It is always a thrill to meet or interview a musical icon, especially if they are former Beatles.
We have seen Sir Paul McCartney perform at the Staples Center and met him when he attended the Golden Globes in 2010 when he was nominated alongside U2 for “Best Original Song” for his track “I Want To Come Home” which was recorded for the film “Everbody’s Fine.”
Recently, we talked to the charismatic former drummer of the Beatles, Ringo Starr while he was self-isolating in Los Angeles.
Looking back at his life, what does he consider his biggest accomplishment, if he has any regrets, and if he has any goals he would like to achieve.
“Well to go backwards, goals, I just love to play,” Ringo, wearing sunglasses during the interview, revealed. “I’m still playing. I should have been playing right now and in the first tour this year, then having a break for my birthday; then September, October tour and again I really miss that. I’m playing actually more now than I ever did. With the All Stars, we do one tour a year, now I’m doing two tours a year.”
He added, “I have many blessings, family blessings, my children are blessings. I’ve got eight grandkids now and a great grandson. They’re all blessings. I’m an only child and I look around the table and I go what? All these people are related to me. It’s far out. And Barbara’s in my life, that’s another blessing. And things I didn’t do, usually the things you want to do and you don’t do are the ones you keep thinking of.”
How has fatherhood and being a grandfather changed him? What did he learn from being a father?
“I learned from being a father that I could have been a better father,” he admitted. “And I love being a grandfather because you can have all that fun and just give them back…”
On July 7, Ringo will be celebrating a milestone. He is turning 80. He told us how he would celebrate this special day.
“I’m going to celebrate it a little different than I have for the last 12 years, where we have the peace and love moment,” he disclosed.
“To celebrate, I’ve asked several of my friends to either send me footage from a show they’ve done and I’m using some of mine from the All Stars last year and I’ll be there introducing. They’ve done some things differently. They’ve done it themselves. I’ll be surprised too. We’re putting the show on, 5 o’clock on Access and somewhere else. And that’s how we’re doing it this year. But it’s still my birthday and still peace and love.”
The special is available on YouTube featuring performances from Ringo, Paul McCartney, Joe Walsh, Ben Harper, Sheryl Crow, Gary Clark Jr., Sheila E. just to name a few. It will benefit Black Lives Matter Global Network, The David Lynch Foundation, MusiCares and WaterAid.
So since most people in the world know who he is, has fame been a burden to him? How has his journey been from the days of the Beatles to now?
“Well yes at the beginning, the Beatles, we wanted to make good music, which we did and we played to audiences, which we did,” he replied. “But we got so big the price to pay was that you couldn’t go into a restaurant. And it actually happened to me. I was eating a meal in a restaurant, I’ve got the fork into my mouth and some woman pushed it out and said sign this. And I said no, I’m having dinner. And she told me then, and this was like in ’67, she told me then, you ruined your whole career.
“So I never took it personally after that anymore. Yeah, but it was part of it, you had to do that to do what you wanted to do...You know it’s all eased off now; we can go where we like. And thanks to the pandemic we’ve all got masks on so they don’t know me.”