Rolling Stone Magazine 1979
Paul McCartney Interviewed by Paul Gambaccini
Paul McCartney Interviewed by Paul Gambaccini, 1979, Rolling Stone Introduction by Ben Fong-Torres from collection of RS interviews: Between the first long Paul McCartney interview and this one, London correspondent Paul Gambaccini filed what seemed to him like hundreds random notes about McCartney and Wings.
"I began to feel embarrassed by the number of McCartney pieces I'd done," he says. "But it was -- simple. Paul doesn't like schedules. So you couldn't plan weeks ahead, from America, and nail him down on a specific date. And if he wanted to do something, he'd ring up two or three days in advance."
In spring 1979, a McCartney aide rang up Gambaccini. Paul had just finished the album Back to the Egg "and they knew Rolling Stone was interested -- the magazine had sent a writer over a couple of years before, and he could never pin McCartney down, so this was the interview that was supposed to have been done in 1977.
"Back to the Egg turned out to be McCartney's major disappointment, says Gambaccini. But, he would bounce back, in 1980, with the hit "Coming Up," reunite with Beatles producer George Martin and release Cold Cuts. [sic]
1979 Introduction: Fifteen years ago the Beatles' first film, 'A Hard Day's Night,' opened around the world. The mere fact that it was a black-and-white film tells us how much time has passed. During the intervening decade and a half, millions of lives were affected, some profoundly, by the Beatles. It sounds heretical and contradictory, but one person who seems relatively unchanged is Paul McCartney. He is definitely a richer man, but his wealth has merely brought him the freedom to do what he wants, and that is simply to make music and be with his family. He makes few concessions to his celebrity and attends few public functions, unintentionally ensuring that each appearance is an event. The Buddy Holly tribute he has been involved with have drawn the most star-studded assembly the London musical fraternity has seen during the last three years. At home on his estate south of london, Paul watches a good deal of television with Linda and the kids. He listens to BBC radio going to and from his London studio, preferring to drive himself rather than be chauffered. Anyone searching for a departure in his behavior from that of the people who buy his records would be disappointed.
Whereas 'Please Please Me,' the Beatles' first British album, was recorded in one day, McCartney, now works for weeks on a Wings LP. He records where fancy strikes: in Nigeria ['Band on the Run'], New Orleans ['Venus and Mars'], on a boat afloat in the Caribbean ['London Town'] or, in the case of the new LP, 'Back to the Egg,' in a castle overlooking the English Channel.
'Back to the Egg' does not include his recent disco-influenced hit single, "Goodnight Tonight," simply because McCartney felt it would not fit musically. While the LP makes few obvious concessions to disco or New Wave, it rocks more than 'London Town'; "Old Siam, Sir," the new single in Britain, sounds more like Tina Turner or a manic bluesman than Paul McCartney.
Paul is frightened of critical reaction, but this is nothing new: He remembers when a top BBC disc jockey predicted "She Loves You' would not be a hit. Time and public acclaim of his work have given him the confidence to plan activities that critics may not consider rock & roll. He is also relieved to have put behind him the financial mismanagement the Beatles suffered and to be in the skilled hands of his father-in-law, Lee Eastman, who with his son John has succeeded both in negotiating the most preferential recording contract in history and in investing the McCartney profits in publishing catalogs that have already earned many times their purchase prices. John also represents Paul in the seemingly neverending negotiations to allocate the funds of the Beatles' now-defunct record company, Apple.
I have Known Paul McCartney, for over five years, since just before the release of 'Band on the Run.' When I first met him, he was struggling to establish Wings. After an inauspicious start with "Wild Life, " "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Give Ireland Back to the Irish, " the group had rallied for three hits: "Hi, Hi, Hi," "My Love" and "Live and Let Die." Not surprisingly, McCartney at that time was desperate to avoid talking about the Beatles, especially about the neverending reunion rumors. He regarded me with the suspicion he had for any inquisitive young reporter and dismissed mention of the Beatles' early days as "ancient history".
In the years since "Band on the Run", Paul has let down his defenses. Anecdotes about the Beatles now flow , in addition to reminiscences of pre-Beatles days. He seems pleased with his past. This is a product of being happy with his presence.
This interview was conducted in two installments in late March 1979. We began in EMI Studios, Abbey Road, where McCartney worked with the Beatles and where he works with Wings whenever they are not flying around the world. "Silly Love Songs" and "My Love," Wings' biggest American hits, as well as "Goodnight Tonight," their latest hit single, were cut here.
The second phase of the interview, was held in a photography studio above Belsize Park subway station in north London. While the cover picture of the new alum was being set up, a long and exhausting process, we chatted in a third-story room discussing the new album, the two-song supersession that Paul calls the Rockestra and McCartney's hope that Wings can tour later this year and turn up unannounced at small clubs. We also talked about his opinion of the British New Wave; the time Paul and the original Beatles drummer, Pete Best, were deported from Germany; how McCartney considered counseling Sid Viscious the, Beatles' fear that Gerry and the Pacemakers would be more popular -- things like that.
I remember reading a quote from journalist-broadcaster Tony Palmer, I believe, who said at one point in the Sixties, "lt must be the hardest thing in The world to be Paul McCartney." Have you ever thought it was hard to be you?
No, I think it would be harder to be Idi Amin and one or two others. To go from being a kid living on a street on some council estate [public-housing project] to becoming very famous is a big change. Living with all the trappings of that isn't an easy adjustment; your privacy has to go a bit. It is a bit humiliating sometimes if you have a hangover or you really just feel rough, and you've got to do an autograph or stand while someone takes a picture. But you reach a point where you realize you can't turn back.
I wonder if live television would be too nerveracking now for groups, considering that the audiences would just multiply a million-fold by international broadcast. Do you think that would be a bit nerveracking?
I don't think any group minds an audience of millions. I think they thrive on that.
That's interesting, because when those silly offers to reunite the Beatles were being made a couple of years ago, I thought the most terrifying aspect of it would have been so many people watching, but that wasn't scaring you?
No, I don't think that had anything to do with it. The whole Beatles reunion thing was always a nonstarter, because we had all just broken up. It is like getting divorced: After you've made the big decision you don't want someone coming up and saying, "Hey, listen, I think it would be a great idea if you all got married again." Things like money and TV exposure are not relevant. If we'd wanted to get together, instead of the opposite, then I'm sure no one would have minded. They would have wanted all that TV exposure. In fact, I remember when the Beatles were breaking up, my thought was that what we needed to do was get back on the road and do what I want to do now, which is sort of turn up at small clubs. And I remember John saying, "No way. We want to play to 200,000, don't we!"
Well, do you think you will be turning up unadvertised with Wings?
Me! Yes, I think so. I like just turning up on a bunch of people. There is a different kind of electricity when they didn't expect you. You get something and they get something, which was my original idea for the Beatles [in the late Sixties]. As far as a Beatles reunion is concerned, I don't think that would ever happen. I don't think it would really be a good thing if it did.
By now it has taken on such a mythic quality.
Yeah... it gets a bit that, doesn't it! A bit legendary, and the mists of time roll back to I mean, you know, there's no use. say, "Look, you know we're all humans, and we were in this fun group together and we had a great time, but it ended for various reasons." I don't need to go into them for you; it was bad enough going into them for me. So you don't really need people expecting all that sort of stuff to happen, but people still do.
There are still little legal hassles to this day, aren't there?
Not legal hassles. What happened is that when we were the Beatles, instead of setting us all up legally as individuals, everyone set us up as a partnership. So when we wanted to split up I just naively thought, "Well, I'll take my ball and go. I'll just have my bit, and we'll call it a day." But we found that you couldn't just take your little ball and go because of millions of legal reasons. So it's now ten years since we started the whole thing, and you wouldn't believe what we've been through. You just wouldn't.
How much of this is because of being young and naive when you originally signed your contracts, and how much of it is because of disagreements within the group?
Well, I think I was young and naive about all of that until the Beatles broke up. It was just, "Well, we all know nobody will screw each other. We all pretty much know each other. We'll all do it okay." It's just disagreements within the group because, as I say, all contracts that were signed could have broken up quite easily. I would be happy to do a deal that's going now. Just so that we don't have that hanging over our heads and can just say hello again without having to say, "Hello, and by the way, Apple requires you to sign this."
Have you been following the trial of Allen Klein? [The Beatles' short-term mentor after the death of Brian Epstein, Klein was convicted this year on one count of income-tax evasion for failing to declare a "substantial" amount of cash obtained in 1970 by selling promotional copies of Beatles albums, He was to be sentenced June 18th and faced up to three years in prison and a maximum fine of $5000.]
No, I just started reading about it the other day. I feel sorry for him now. I was caught in his net once, and that panicked me. I really wanted to do everything to get him. I was contemplating going to where he lives and walking outside his house with placards, doing all that. I was really that crazy at the time. I would have done anything to get out of it, but it all turned out okay.
Do you now regret selling the publishing rights to the Beatles songs?
I don't now because I own some of my new stuff totally, and my company is into publishing. So I don't mind, but it's funny to think somebody owns,"Yesterday" and that it's only to do with me as far as the royalties are concerned. It's funny to think of some of the things that went down. In fact, it's more than funny, it's crazy, because companies were sold behind our backs, and we always had a tiny share of everything. And all the big businessmen always advised us to sell everything. They never said, "Hold onto your paintings because one day they might be valuable." So we were persuaded to sell all the bits and pieces of our rights, which is about the worst advice you can get. Lord Goodman, who shall not be nameless, was one of the people advising us at that time. I don't think it was good advice, and he ended up advising the Labour government. So he told us the wrong things; he probably told them the wrong things.
Were you really on one percent royalty at the beginning?
To tell you the truth, I don't remember. I don't really know what percent. Those days I just signed the contract. It was too long and boring to really read. It would have taken way too much time, plus I couldn't understand it.
You said something very revealing when I just changing the tapes, which is that you are still a bit shy to say you own "Stormy Weather."
You've got to do something with money. You've got to invest it in something. I love songs, and the opportunity came up to do all that, and so I'm now a publisher and a businessman, which to me is something I don't like to talk about too much. Maybe I'm not grown up enough.
What originally happened was, Lee Eastman said to me, "if you were to invest in stuff, what kind o STONE: Actually, yes.
I'm sure Gerry bought just as many copies as we did.
Have you ever wondered why someone like him hasn't really survived in terms of the charts?
Not really. I mean, Gerry's thing was great, he was very good, but he didn't have as natural of a thing going as we did. We had at least two writers, and George turned out to be a writer, and even Ringo. So we potentially had four writers, and they had just Gerry, who wasn't as prolific as John and I. He wrote a couple that were good, but he had to rely mainly on other writers for his big hits. We were very keen on getting our own stuff in. Because... we sort of arrived at the end of an era; most of the groups around about then were just doing impressions of Roy Orbison or the Shadows or Cliff Richard. And we liked Bo Diddley more and Chuck Berry and things like that. So we'd do stuff that was slightly more obscure. "If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody," by James Ray. And we'd do covers of those kinds of things. And we were writing a couple of not very good tunes. We had one we used to do called "Like Dreamers Do," which was pretty bad. But it used to go down quite well, so we latched onto this idea -- it gave us a special identity. Because you wouldn't hear these songs anywhere else, just when you came to see us. So it started to work, so we went a bit more in that direction of trying to get our own thing going rather than have it laid on us by a producer. So George wasn't too happy in the beg inning, and "Love Me Do," wasn't a very big hit, but it was our first one. The second one was a Number One. So it worked out.
Gerry did have three Number Ones in a row with his first three records. Were you ever afraid that they might beat you to the brass ring?
Oh, yeah. And Dave Clark was the other big threat. There were a couple of moments when we were worried, but our philosophy then was that something would happen.
Since so few British artists had made the American charts in a big way, did you think that you might do it, or any of those groups might do it?
We thought of this; we said, 'We're only going to America." It was a bit of a big statement, but we did decide among ourselves that we'd only go to America if we had a Number One. We'd walk in a bit cocky. We were playing in Paris when the news came through -- telegram -- "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was Number One in the States. Wow! So we were able to go to the States without begging.
When we arrived, there was this big thing at the airport, all the millions of DJs; it was on all the stations, and we'd arrived. So it worked out. It was a great way to do it. And then there was a terrifying interview. I never used to think I was good at press conferences because I'm one of those people who -- I don't think I'm good at it; I'm probably all right. But John was always much better with a snappy remark. Then, Ringo was good at that, too. It turned out we all managed to get a quick remark in there, and we did well at that press conference. And because we were just so keen on America and R&B and all the great New York stations, we used to just ring them up all the time. "Hello Murray... Yeah, why don't you come around and interview us?" We were in it totally; it was magic for us; we'd just arrived in America, Land of promise. We had a great time with it all -- meeting the Ronettes and Phil Spector and people like that. What more could you ask?
Last question for today. You've had many chances to leave England, and yet you choose to remain here. Is there a reason, other than that it's your home, why you enjoy living here?
No, there isn't any other reason; I just live here. There are all sorts of reasons, really. I've been a lot of places on tours and I enjoy them all for visits, but after a while I don't feel at home. England's not the greatest of places all the time. But I don't want money to dictate where and how I live. I live here and try to pay the taxes and avoid as much as possible going to buy guns and sandbags and vaguely try and keep it all straight and be reasonable about it all.