Ringo
Starr
At
an age where most would be settling back and reaping the rewards of
their major accomplishments in
life, Richard Starkey, better known to
the world as Ringo Starr, is not even thinking about slowing down. In fact,
he's exactly where he wants to be at this stage of his life, happy just being a member of a
band.
By Billy
Amendola
Back
in Liverpool, England in the early '60s, Ringo was already a star,
playing
drums in the biggest local group at that time, Rory Storm &
The Hurricanes. This was before he joined The Beatles - a band
that would
not only change his life forever, but would go on to change the world.
Most of us know the story; those who are too
young to remember, please
go back and study everything you can get your hands on about that era.
Ringo -
a
man of many talents - has dabbled in quite a bit of show biz in his
sixty-five years on earth. Besides being one of the
greatest drummers
of all-time, he's played the role of rock star, actor, filmmaker, TV
star, studio musician, artist,
photographer, and the leader of his own
bands with the All-Starrs and The Roundheads. MD Online caught
up with
Ringo - a man who truly and respectfully deserves the title
"living legend" - for a quick conversation while he was in New York
City
promoting his latest solo recording on Koch Records, Choose Love.
MD: Do you have any favorite
drum tracks from your solo recordings?
Ringo: "Drumming Is My Madness" is one, because it was fun. It was
Harry Nilsson Jim Keltner and I. For the Ringorama
CD, we specifically made it sort of drum-prominent, and I sort
of
played some really good stuff. [laughs] Though I never practice, I do
feel I'm getting better. It's just how it is. The
more you do it, the
more comfortable you are with it. I've been touring with the
All-Starrs, I'm touring now with The
Roundheads, I'm making records - I'm
sort of back in the business. I'm playing more, so I'm
more
comfortable. But the feel I have - many of you have asked me about my
feel - that just comes from God. I truly believe
that my heartbeat keeps
the tempo, because I naturally have great time, as you all noticed, and
that's not blowing my
own horn. I just have great time, and that's the
rhythm of my heart and my soul.
MD: Do you ever record
with a click-track?
Ringo: Never do. Click tracks make me too tense. I'm useless with a click track.
I'm just not from the click track school.
MD:
What were some of your favorite drum tracks that you played
live with
the All-Starrs, and did you find any particularly challenging?
Ringo:
My favorites - anything with Joe
Walsh or with Todd Rundgren was great.
If it was too challenging, then I would leave it to the other
drummer.
[laughs]
MD: How did you develop the two-handed snare/floor-tom rolls, like on "Tell Me Why" and
"Help"?
Ringo:
Well, it's the only way I can do it, I suppose. That's just how it
worked out. I
didn't develop anything really; I just did it that way.
MD: What made you change your mind about "Give Me
Back The Beat," a track from your new CD Choose Love, in terms of it not being a 'drum
song?'
Ringo:
On "Give Me Back The Beat," the idea was to have guest drummers. On
every record
we've had guest guitarists, guest singers, so I thought,
Well, let's have guest drummers. I'll do a verse and
Charlie [Watts]
will do a chorus, then my son Zak, Jim [Keltner], whoever - all my
favorites. But anyway, it just didn't
work out. So listening to the
playback of "Give Me Back The Beat," I just thought it needed a
half-time feel. And so for the first
time ever, I went back and
actually did a secondary drum track, and it's all in one. It's not
spliced and fixed,
it's like, "Turn the track on and we'll do what we
do." So it was very exciting really in a way to put two tracks on
it,
and they're both me. It would have been more interesting for me in many
ways if it had been another drummer. But
that's how it worked out.
MD:
How do you prefer to record your drum tracks? Do you still like to get
the
'live' element down by playing it through with the band, or do you
track separately with music tracks? Also,
nowadays, if you hear a
mistake, will you do your drum track over, or would you take advantage
of the new methods and just
fix it in the mix?
Ringo: No
matter what Mark [Hudson] says, I will not redo the drum tracks. On all
the
records, my drum tracks are live. I played them from start to
finish, and that's what you get. And I have the band in the
studio with
me, all looking at me. No one is more than six feet away, and I'm live
and they're direct. And
that's one of the reasons you can hear a lot of
talking and mumbling on my records. [laughs]
MD:
A
spiritual question: The track "Oh My Lord," also from the new record,
got me thinking. I was having a conversation with Jim
Keltner not too
long ago, and he told me he prays every time before he plays his drums.
Do you?
Ringo: No,
I don't pray every time before I play my drums, but I do pray every morning and every night.
MD:
What's next?
Ringo: Well, right now I'm promoting the new CD, Choose Love.
Then
there's a project with [Spiderman creator] Stan Lee in progress.
We've got the writer now, we like the outline,
we'll get the story,
I'll do the voice, and the animators will do their job. That should be
out, hopefully, by the end of
next year.
For more with Ringo, check out the November '05 issue
of Modern Drummer. For more on what Ringo's up to, check out www.ringostarr.com.
