0:02

I Heart Radio Presents Inside

0:05

the Studio, I'm your host, Joe Leading.

0:09

For this episode, we went on the road to

0:11

Winnipeg, where the temperatures are frigid

0:14

even in September, and it's apparently

0:17

illegal to serve a burger anything

0:19

other than well done. We

0:22

went in search of historic Paul Paul

0:25

McCartney, and he told us about how the fiftieth

0:27

anniversary of Sergeant Pepper's helped

0:29

inspire work on his new album, Egypt

0:32

Station, why he likes to walk

0:34

the streets of New York by himself, and

0:37

why the recording of the white album

0:39

itself now getting a box

0:41

set fiftieth anniversary release, may

0:44

not have been quite as bad as

0:46

Beatles legend has it. Eagypt

0:51

Station is McCartney's first studio album

0:53

in five years. It's

0:56

gotten rave reviews, though it

0:58

won't exactly change the truism that McCartney's

1:01

post Beatles music is

1:03

most undeniable when the cream

1:05

is skinned for best of collections your playlists,

1:14

but the comparison to his peers

1:16

is instructed. Bob

1:18

Dylan hit a late career stride producing

1:20

himself, starting in two thousand and one with Love

1:22

and Theft for his last three

1:25

albums, Dylan is stuck to covers

1:27

of tin pan Alley standards. The

1:30

Rolling Stones have relied on the same producer,

1:32

Don Was for the last twenty

1:34

four years, and their last album,

1:36

Blue and Lonesome, was a collection

1:38

of old school blues songs. McCartney,

1:42

who describes himself as still very

1:45

competitive in a recent GQ cover story,

1:47

beat them both to the covers thing. He

1:50

did fifties rock and roll with Run

1:53

Devil Run, which you should definitely

1:55

hear, and he did Standards in

1:57

two thousand and twelve with Kisses on the Bottom

2:00

Him, which you should definitely skip.

2:03

The producers for new in Egypt Station

2:05

include Paul Epworth, Mark Ronson,

2:08

Greg Kirsten and Ryan Tedder, guys

2:11

who have made some of the biggest hits of recent

2:14

years with Adele Bruno, Mars Beyonce,

2:17

that kind of thing. If Egypt

2:19

Station is McCartney's first ever solo album

2:21

to enter the charts at number one, that's

2:24

partly because the charts have changed in the

2:26

streaming era, and partly because

2:28

the dude is seriously trying.

2:36

Egypt Station has a fair number of what Paul

2:38

once called little love songs, except

2:41

some of them like for You are

2:43

sex songs,

2:49

and though he's not usually thought of as

2:51

making protests or political songs,

2:54

the album has a share of those two three

2:56

If you count the anti bullying song who Cares.

3:00

You might enjoy the swampy groove of

3:02

people Want Peace but think it's wishful

3:04

thinking, although you might also

3:06

think what's wrong with that? But

3:09

the song, despite repeated warning, sticks

3:12

a little harder. It uses

3:14

nautical themes what should we do with the

3:16

drunken sailor red sky in the morning

3:18

sailor's warning to paint Donald

3:20

Trump's presidency is an out of

3:22

control ship of state, and it

3:24

was inspired in part by Trump's climate

3:26

change denial. Yes,

3:36

it doesn't

3:38

seem like people have connected this with another

3:40

song you did motivated

3:42

by climbing change, big boys bickering.

3:45

Yeah, that was quite a few years ago. But at

3:47

the same thing, you've been doing your homework an

3:49

America I have. It's what they paid before.

3:53

It's an American president again refusing

3:55

to assign a climate accord. But in this case,

3:58

George H. W. Bush in you do

4:00

so this is an important issue? Well, you know the

4:03

thing is, I think everyone like

4:05

me who believes

4:07

in climate change and that's

4:10

a lot of people. We're

4:12

looking at these climates accords

4:16

and these these meetings. There was one

4:18

in Japan, there was one in

4:20

Copenhagen, and you know, as

4:22

these came up, we'd all be looking

4:24

at and going, this will be the one. We're going to do

4:26

something about it. Everyone's going to get

4:28

together, all the nations are going to agree that,

4:31

you know, we've got to figure it out. And

4:33

then it would fail. Oh,

4:36

I don't believe it. America and China

4:38

didn't sign it, and it was so disappointing,

4:41

you know that. Finally

4:44

when Paris arrived, it's like, yeah,

4:46

you can't believe it, you know, and

4:48

then Trump pulls out of it. It's like, oh,

4:52

you know, that was like really disappointing.

4:55

But you know, the thing is,

4:57

as far as I'm concerning, is a reality.

5:01

I don't think there's any doubt about

5:03

that. You know, we're getting this

5:06

freak weather. And you

5:08

could say, as some people

5:10

who deny climate change say, well,

5:12

you know, there's always been freak weather. It's always

5:15

been you know, maybe it's just more

5:17

of the same. But I don't

5:19

know. I believe scientists, you know, I don't think

5:22

they're study a bit harder than I do.

5:24

And they do have science on their side. They're

5:27

clever man, you know, but the science

5:30

does indicate that if you warm

5:32

up the planet, you're going to get these effects. So

5:35

yeah, I was in Japan actually,

5:37

and I saw in the newspaper. I

5:39

saw this phrase, despite repeated

5:41

warnings. I can't remember what it was about

5:43

now it's just about something else. But I thought, yeah,

5:46

that's a good phrase, despite repeated

5:48

warnings, and I made the song

5:50

up about that. And in the chorus, when you

5:52

say how can we stop them? Grab the keys, lock them

5:55

up? Are you thinking of those lacquer

5:57

up chants directed at Hillary Clinton

5:59

at the Trump I wasn't, actually, you know, but

6:03

like it kind of plays into it, don't you know. You're

6:05

writing a song, so it's

6:07

not always that logical. You're

6:09

just writing a song, so whatever it's, you

6:12

know, you you start off maybe

6:14

very logical, and then you give yourself

6:16

the freedom to roam, you know.

6:18

So I wasn't actually thinking that. I

6:21

was thinking what did we do with the drunken sailor, I must

6:23

admit, And I was hoping no one would

6:25

spot that rebated

6:37

my head. Well,

6:42

the captain wasn't this do

6:47

what was

6:51

now. Shortly after we were done talking, Paul

6:53

went on stage and played in nearly

6:56

three hour set thirty

6:58

nine songs, twenty three of them

7:00

Beatles songs, three from Egypt

7:02

Station and the rest drawn from the other

7:04

twenty four studio albums he's recorded

7:07

solo or with Wings, except for the one

7:09

song he recorded with Kanye West and

7:11

another one he recorded in Night

7:13

with the Quarryman, his band with John

7:16

Lennon and George Harrison before the Beatles.

7:30

Three hours songs,

7:33

even for a guy who's not seventy six years old,

7:35

that is a solid night's work. It's

7:38

roughly twice the number of songs played lately

7:40

by the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, both

7:42

still out on the road and long may they run.

7:45

And it's not even counting the one hour sound

7:47

check McCartney played earlier in the night

7:50

for those who bought v I P tickets.

7:52

So that's a grand total of about four hours

7:55

of playing guitar, bass, piano

7:58

and during his verse and of George Harrison's

8:01

Something Yuka Lately for

8:03

those keeping score at home, four

8:05

hours. That's about half of the marathon eight

8:07

hours sets the Beatles put in in Hamburg.

8:10

In n when McCartney was

8:12

just twenty years old. That's

8:14

pretty remarkable. The

8:17

rock stars of the sixties used to

8:19

represent an ideal of freedom for their audience,

8:22

the freedom to live however you wanted, outside

8:24

of society's rules, and

8:26

in their septagenarian years, these

8:29

guys represent a different kind of

8:31

freedom, the freedom to keep

8:33

on keeping on, to be able to do

8:35

in your seventies what you used to

8:37

do in your twenties.

8:46

And no one may be a better or more joyous

8:49

representation of that than Paul McCartney.

8:52

Score one for vegetarianism. McCartney's

8:55

work ethic may come from his dad, Jim, who

8:57

put in ten hour days as a cotton broker

8:59

in Liverpool and also played trumpet and

9:01

piano, leading a group called Jim Max

9:04

Jazz Band. It goes

9:06

without saying that Paul does not have to do any

9:08

of this. It's not just that

9:10

he changed the world with the Beatles, creating

9:13

the context that pretty much all of pop music

9:15

unfolds in today. And and by the way, I mean

9:17

that in the most literal sense. The

9:20

pension for micro hooks that defines

9:23

current modern pop is prefigured

9:26

by McCartney's prodigious gift for melody.

9:39

Take Band on the Run from

9:42

There must be four songs worth of hooks

9:45

packed into the first eighties seconds

9:48

guitar, synthesizer,

9:51

bass, vocal, And

9:54

that's just the intro. Well, really, it's just the first

9:56

intro, because then there's another intra section with

9:58

another set of guitars, sand based

10:00

and vocal hooks, only this time you could count the

10:02

drum part two, and

10:16

then there's a horn fanfare and

10:20

then the song

10:23

actually starts, so

10:25

in a different way than his peers, McCartney

10:28

has an eternal relevance. But

10:30

the other thing that makes how hard he works so striking

10:33

is that McCartney has long been touted

10:35

as one of the most wealthy figures

10:37

in the music industry, with a net

10:40

worth estimated at one point two

10:42

billion according to Forbes.

10:44

He added another fifty four million dollars

10:47

to that pile last year when he was finishing up

10:49

the seventies seven dates of his One on

10:51

One tour, making him the thirteenth

10:53

highest earning artist in the music business,

10:56

on a list topped by Diddy, Beyonce

10:59

and Drake. There's

11:01

that eternal relevance again, As

11:04

you're about to find out, Paul McCartney

11:06

has a pretty optimistic view of the world,

11:08

and you can hear it just in the way he pronounces the word

11:10

Winnipeg. At one point

11:13

he told us that the Beatles never argued

11:15

about music. If they had an argument, it was

11:17

about other stuff. And then later

11:19

he told us about an argument that they had about

11:23

music. Does

11:25

he contradict himself? Maybe

11:29

he was also there. I think

11:31

he knows better than you and I so

11:34

let me get out of the way, because I've always

11:36

wanted to say this, ladies and

11:38

gentlemen, Paul McCartney,

11:45

Paul McCartney, welcome to inside the studio

11:48

like Joe or a very

11:50

special edition of Backstage

11:52

at the Paul McCartney Show. Okay, and

11:54

here we are in the Winnipeg.

11:57

In Winnipeg a few

11:59

months ago, I'm walking up Park Avenue and

12:01

I pass a guy coming down the street who

12:03

looks remarkably like Paul McCartney

12:06

Park Avenue in eighty nine street. I think,

12:09

can't be Paul McCartney. No one with him, no one around

12:12

did a double take. It was Paul McCartney.

12:14

It couldn't have been him, but

12:16

it was. You were just walking down the street by yourself and

12:18

I walked down streets. Therefore

12:21

walking down I've heard that, you

12:24

know, I like to get out and about and people say, oh

12:26

no, you're gonna have acreuse

12:28

of security behind you and stuff. But I'd

12:31

like to just get out, you know, just so as you feel

12:33

like yourself instead of like a

12:36

rock star. Are there times

12:38

you do like to feel like a rock star? You

12:40

know, when I do the show, that's good, but

12:43

then you know you need to balance it,

12:45

so you get off the stage and

12:48

maybe you know, like you said, you're walking somewhere.

12:51

So I like to just get out like I always did

12:54

when I was a kid. So you

12:56

know, it's just keeps me sane,

12:59

and it's it's the same feeling as when

13:01

I was okay just walking

13:03

around, only differences. I

13:05

get recognized. Everyone reaches

13:07

in their pocket immediately, you

13:12

know, but no, I got, you

13:14

know, quite a lot of freedom much and I I

13:17

value it. And then you know, if I'm out at

13:19

a restaurant and stuff with my wife, so

13:21

I'm like, come over to grab a father, I

13:23

say not not just now. You know, it's

13:26

a private moment and most people are

13:28

very cool, understand it. So I

13:30

like to keep that, you know, a

13:33

private bit of my life, and

13:35

then I like the other bit even more

13:37

because it's like, wow, this is

13:39

cool, the other bit being in public,

13:41

being on stage. Yeah, you have to

13:44

like it. You are playing

13:46

these three hour shows. We

13:48

just saw a one hour sound

13:50

check, and that's something that people don't actually

13:52

know that many concerts are preceded by

13:55

this one hour sound check. I think you

13:57

have no set list for that. Many of those songs aren't

13:59

in the set, right. Yeah. No, we always

14:01

do that, I mean because it's good

14:03

because we need to check the instruments

14:05

we're going to use, just to make

14:07

sure they're all plugged in, they all work, and

14:10

I mean there was a little moment there. Normally

14:12

doesn't screw up too much, but our keyboard

14:14

players moog didn't work. So

14:17

that's good. That's what the sound checks for, instead

14:20

of just doing all the numbers from the show, which

14:22

kind of spoils the show for us because when we get

14:24

a bit bored doing the numbers again, we

14:26

just use the same instruments we're

14:28

going to use, but we switched the numbers.

14:31

About we do any ill

14:33

thing, you know, so we'll do kind

14:35

of like skillful things,

14:37

folk things, early rock and

14:39

roll things, like a little solely

14:42

Things Midnight Special tonight,

14:44

which was kind of amazing, and we

14:46

always do Midnight Specially, Yeah, what we often

14:48

do. You know, You've got certain songs

14:51

that go way back before

14:54

I started even playing, you know. I

14:56

think that's like a big Bill Brunsi song. So

14:58

he's an old blues sing and

15:00

they're just songs you learn along the way and

15:03

you like them. So if you get an opportunity

15:06

or something like this where there's a sound

15:08

check, all you really need to do

15:11

is just make sure everything's working.

15:14

Then you can indulge yourself and play

15:16

something like that, you know, and it's nice. Keeps

15:18

it all fresh, you know. Talking about

15:20

the songs, you do know, there's

15:23

something I wanted to ask you about in the set list now,

15:25

is in spite of all the danger, the

15:27

first song recorded by the Quarryman in

15:30

nineteen Oh

15:33

my god, so it's now sixty years

15:35

old and

15:38

that can't be true. That's before my time. I

15:42

will say, for those just listening at home,

15:44

he could pull that off, because it does look

15:46

like he's not old enough to have written really,

15:49

but thank you. But that said, the amazing

15:51

thing that I realized is that, you know, you're performing

15:54

songs from your your newest record, Egypt

15:56

Station, and the very first thing you

15:58

ever recorded, So the

16:00

audience tonight will hear sixty years

16:03

parmacurns. It's right, Yeah,

16:06

yeah, it is crazy, you know. It's um.

16:09

I've been enjoying playing for

16:11

that long and when

16:14

I do that song in spite of

16:16

all the danger, which was just the first

16:18

little demo we ever did with the Beatles,

16:20

before we got a record contract or

16:22

anything. So I

16:24

always imagine us all going to this little

16:27

studio in Liverpool, all paying

16:29

a pound each for five

16:32

pound demo and doing

16:35

this little song, you know, and it's it's

16:37

so ancient that it's

16:39

great for me because it's like what it is,

16:42

it's like reaching back into your childhood.

16:44

So it'd be like somebody maybe listening

16:46

to this thinking of when they

16:48

were on the beach when they were one, and

16:51

it's what a great memory, you know, So

16:53

it makes it special for me just thinking

16:56

that, Wow, you know, it goes back really

16:59

before we ever went down to Ivy Road,

17:02

before we got a record country, before you've been too

17:04

Hamburg, right, I mean we've been to Hamburg. Yeah,

17:06

So it's a great memory for me and I

17:08

like doing it because we get

17:10

the audience involved on that one, you know, and

17:13

so we have fun with it. So it

17:15

is nice to be able to say this is the very

17:17

first thing we ever did, first

17:20

record I was ever involved with,

17:23

and then we come right up to date and

17:25

were saying, now this is like the most recent

17:28

somehow it seems to fit together, you know. You

17:30

know. So that's twice now that you've mentioned

17:33

drawing on those childhood feelings. First when

17:35

we were talking about walking around by yourself, and

17:37

now when we're talking about playing that song in spite

17:39

of all the danger. Is that a wild

17:42

spring for you going back to that time or

17:44

holding onto that energy. Yeah, you

17:46

know. It's funny. In the Beatles,

17:48

even when we were like maybe

17:50

twenty four years old

17:52

or something in the height of the Beatles, we

17:55

often would we were trying to work out

17:58

something on a song or what

18:00

we're going to do with the recording, we'd

18:02

often say, what would we have done when we

18:04

were seventeen, And we check

18:06

back to our seventeen year old

18:08

selves, who we thought like, we're like the coolest

18:11

opinion in the world. Well, we would

18:13

have said, yeah, do it, yeah, do

18:15

it man, or no way

18:17

that that's no good, you know, so you

18:20

always refer to that period. You

18:22

know, it's your formative period, so

18:24

when you get a lot of your ideas, and

18:27

in my case, if you're writing songs,

18:30

those memories are very rich wells

18:33

of inspiration. So you

18:35

know, I can just think I remember

18:38

walking along the road with our guitars

18:40

on our backs, me and John

18:43

just before we were famous,

18:45

you know, and me writing let us to people,

18:48

dear sir, we are a rock combo,

18:51

and you know we would love to play at your

18:53

place, you know, So all that sort of

18:55

stuff. It's kind of like magic for me, I

18:58

think also because of how far I've

19:00

come. So you've got that

19:03

very early innocent period.

19:05

And then we get famous

19:07

with the Beatles. What before that? We

19:09

go to Hamburg, as you say, and then we get famous

19:12

with the Beatles, and then we get the American

19:14

fame, and then we make records

19:16

and we we go through our various

19:19

phases. So it's a long, long,

19:21

long journey. And then right

19:24

now, you know, here I am, you know,

19:26

making a new album in Egypt station and

19:29

long behold it goes to number one in America.

19:31

You know, you can imagine, you know where partying

19:35

that night was a party, We'll see. I wanted

19:37

to ask you about that. Egypt Station enters

19:40

the charts at number one, so I guess that if

19:42

you're keeping score at home, that's your first

19:44

record to debut at number one since

19:46

the Beatles, since the Beatles, and the

19:49

first number one and I believe thirty six

19:51

years. So what was the party?

19:53

What was the well, you know, the great thing was

19:56

after the show. Sometimes if

19:58

the guys don't have to load out,

20:01

if they're all in a place and we're going to play

20:03

the place tomorrow, which was that occasion,

20:06

I'll say, okay, let's all get together, have a little

20:08

drink, I have something to eat, and we get the

20:10

crowd in so we'll get to hang with each other,

20:12

because it's a bit like a family, your tour family,

20:15

you know. So we all get together and

20:17

then our DJ who comes with us on the

20:19

tour, he'll DJ some nice

20:21

dance music and stuff. So we

20:23

were going to have that little party anyway.

20:26

And then suddenly that afternoon, right

20:28

after sound check, on my phone, I get the

20:30

message Bank congratulations

20:33

request count in the morning and I'm just

20:35

about to go to the dressingroomhich I stopped. Oh

20:38

wait a minute, hey guys, I announced

20:40

to everyone every number one. You know,

20:43

So that party that evening, that

20:45

was special because we had a real great

20:47

reason to celebrate. We were going to celebrate

20:49

anyway, just having a party, but

20:53

it became really special. We

20:55

danced the night away. Baby. I

20:57

was talking to someone at you label

21:00

in Los Angeles Capital and

21:03

the people, well, they said

21:06

back at you. They said, we're amazed

21:09

at how hard this

21:11

guy works, seventy six years old, three

21:13

hour concerts. But also he's out

21:16

there doing things, taking advantage

21:18

of opportunities we bring him.

21:20

If we bring them to a twenty three year old artists,

21:22

they might complain. I was like, yeah, let's

21:25

do it what I always

21:27

do. Promoting a record used to be quite

21:29

boring because they would trot

21:31

out the same old things. You gotta

21:33

go there, you gotta do thirty six

21:35

interviews. We're gonna

21:38

take you to some place central in Europe

21:40

where all the European territories can come in

21:42

and it how

21:44

it was that was Cologne. They always

21:47

say you're going to Cologne and said why Cologne? So

21:49

well, it's in the middle of Europe, and we'll bring the Italians,

21:51

the French and Swiss and everybody

21:54

in and so I kind of did

21:56

it, thinking well, I've got to promote the record,

21:58

but it was a deadly ball. It

22:00

was really like, oh no, not

22:03

that again. So I kind of rebelled

22:05

one day and the meeting, I said, look,

22:07

you know, let's make it something that we're

22:10

excited about. Because if we're

22:12

excited, we actually have a good time. So

22:14

let's cook up some ideas that are

22:16

like fun and they're different,

22:19

and it's not going to Cologne and

22:21

with endless interviews. So we

22:23

had some great little things. We had playbacks

22:26

at the studio in l A. We were working

22:28

at Henson and we had these little

22:31

playbacks for my heart. These

22:33

are great little sessions. We just cranked

22:35

it up, played the album for them.

22:37

So that was easy. That wasn't like the

22:39

cancer to Debbey Road that you did.

22:41

And we did

22:44

a CAVN. We went back to my old school

22:47

and the little concert there, so you

22:49

know, it made it fun, it made

22:51

it interesting, and each little

22:53

thing was different, and so it

22:55

was Yeah, capital were happy, but

22:58

I was happy with the ideas we were

23:00

cooking up together. You know, as long as I have a

23:02

good idea, is that we're exciting everyone.

23:05

We had a blest. You worked

23:07

with Greg Kirstin and Ryan

23:09

Tedter on this record, and Ryan,

23:11

you did the single for you or

23:14

some might hear it the way I do, MM,

23:17

which would be a nought of your word, and we can

23:19

say it for you. There we go. So

23:22

give you. If you give someone a present, you

23:24

don't say this is for you, You go, this

23:27

is for you, for you, okay,

23:29

if you h okay. So this is

23:31

my story and I'm sticking to it, okay.

23:34

And yet I was immediately reminded

23:36

of something I grew up reading

23:38

a Grill Marcus essay in the Old Rolling Stone

23:40

Illustrated History of Rock and Roll about the Beatles,

23:43

where he recalls hearing I saw

23:45

her standing there on the radio immediately

23:47

in the days after the first appearance on The Ed

23:49

Sullivan Show. He writes, Paul's

23:52

one two three fuck opening.

23:54

How in the world did they expect to get away

23:56

with that? And the thing is is, after

23:59

I read that, I never heard it another

24:01

way. I always heard it, but I'll never

24:03

hear another way. Now. It

24:05

wasn't that, But I like it. O.

24:08

Man. You know, you know, it's a kind of nice

24:10

thing when people kind of misinterpret

24:12

what you've done, or they put extra meaning on

24:14

it. I mean, I did the song Hi Hi Hi,

24:17

which we'll do tonight, and there's

24:19

a line in it which I was just kind

24:21

of writing, just like surrealist lyrics.

24:25

I was like, so I wrote,

24:27

I wrote lie on the bed

24:29

and get ready for my polygone.

24:34

It doesn't mean anything was a polygon, you know,

24:37

but people thought it was getting ready

24:39

for my body gun. I

24:41

thought, you know what, that is better if

24:44

you ever sung it that way. Okay,

24:46

So you know, sometimes the misinterpretation

24:48

is actually better than the real

24:51

lyric. You know. Tell

24:53

me you've said that the songs

24:56

you you worked on with Greg you brought into

24:58

the studio, but when you worked with Ryan Tedder,

25:01

he wanted to make it up in the studio. Yeah, tell

25:03

me a little bit about putting that song

25:05

for you together. As you say. When

25:07

I was working with Greg, which was most

25:09

of the time, I had a lot of songs

25:11

I wanted to record, so I came in and

25:13

we worked on them together. But they were ready

25:16

written. And then there was a period there

25:18

where Great couldn't work. But

25:21

I had a couple of weeks off, so I

25:23

took one of the weeks as a holiday.

25:26

Uh. And then the other week

25:28

my manager said, you want to keep the momentum

25:31

going. You know, you're on a bit of a role here

25:33

and if you want to keep it going, you know, I can

25:35

suggest other people you might work

25:38

with, you know. So he sent me a few suggestions and

25:40

I liked what I was hearing that Ryan

25:42

was doing. I didn't know much

25:45

about him. I phoned him up and

25:47

we had a great conversation. So I said, well, come

25:49

to my studio in England and

25:52

we'll just figure it out. We'll just think

25:54

of something, you know. So I said, I've

25:56

got a couple of songs we could do these.

25:59

He said, no, no, let's just make it up

26:01

because we didn't have long We just had the seven

26:03

days. It might have even been five

26:06

days, and so we just

26:08

made them up and we ended up making

26:10

up three tracks. When

26:12

you say make them up, were you writing side by side?

26:15

Were you trying just had ideas,

26:17

you know, just throwing ideas out. He'd

26:19

sort of say, what about yeah do John Dodd?

26:22

I go yeah. So I

26:24

go out on the mic and go yeah do. And

26:27

they think, oh God, put us stick some words in. Hey

26:30

you want uanu and I eventually

26:32

put some words to it, and then we

26:34

put a beat to it, and I put some guitar

26:37

on or bass on or whatever, and

26:39

him and his co producers zac, you

26:42

know, they just got grooving with the sounds,

26:44

and I'd get sort of thinking of what I was going

26:47

to do on the vocal. They throw ideas

26:49

out and he said, what about that? He said, well,

26:51

let me try it, you know. So some

26:53

of the things didn't work. We can

26:56

those. It was funny because because of

26:58

this method of work, the

27:00

trouble was often that yeah

27:03

dad u dado becomes yeah, I love

27:05

you baby, and it's like, this

27:07

is a bit boring. So I said to Ryan

27:10

in the middle of the week, I said, hey, you know, man,

27:12

I said, I'm known for doing

27:14

songs like eleanor Rigby

27:17

or you know, Living Let Die, which

27:19

you've got a little bit of meaning to them,

27:22

you know. So I said, I'm not sure I can do

27:24

this. Hey, I love your baby. Said

27:26

well, I'll tell you what. So we decided what we

27:28

would do because we'd carry on

27:31

like that and then I'd revisit

27:33

it and come up with what I thought

27:35

were better lyrics. So that was how

27:37

how we did it. And made a lot of it up

27:39

as we went along and thought that was good. But the bits

27:42

I thought were a bit corny. I just

27:44

rewrote and then went in

27:46

and fix the vocal with these new words.

27:48

You know. A week or sore ago, I was in Los

27:50

Angeles. I saw a band, Lake Street Dive,

27:53

terrifically talented band and the will turn and

27:56

they do in their set let me roll it, and

28:00

it's it's great. And afterwards I was

28:02

talking to them, that's terrific, and they looked

28:04

at me and they shrugged, Yeah, it's

28:06

a Paul McCartney song. But

28:09

then they started talking about for You,

28:11

and he's got a song out now, and

28:14

the thing is it's so

28:16

on trend, like it's

28:19

got these the drum track and these

28:21

little drops in it. So they were like amazed

28:24

at that classic McCartney

28:26

melotticism up against

28:29

the sort of modern touches

28:31

that Bryan Tyder brought to it. YEA, well that's that's

28:33

what it was. Yeah, Ryan brought that to

28:35

it, and say Zach is co producers,

28:38

a young guy called Zack, and the

28:40

two of them took care

28:42

of that side of things. What's

28:44

about this you know list? So they would take

28:46

a little bit of my vocal and speed it up and drop

28:49

it back in and do these little crazy

28:51

things. And you know the idea was if

28:53

I didn't like it, I go, oh, no,

28:56

way man. But most of the time I

28:58

go, oh, that's cool. I like that. There

29:00

were three tracks. Only one has been

29:02

released from that week, but the others

29:04

are pretty good too. And then when you were working

29:07

with Greg that's over a longer period, and

29:10

you've said that one thing that charged

29:12

those sessions was seeing this

29:15

documentary Howard Goodall did

29:18

about the rerelease the fiftieth anniversary

29:20

set of Sergeant Pepper's that

29:23

you actually had this experience of learning wait,

29:25

wait, that's how we did it. Yeah, yeah,

29:27

you know. I mean I wasn't

29:30

really gonna watch this because you know, it's

29:32

like I thought, well, I kind of know everything

29:34

he didn't tell me. I know about this. But

29:37

then he started in on Penny

29:39

Lane. He hooked me in because he

29:41

started to say, oh, now Paul

29:43

wants to go higher, but he actually modulates

29:46

down a key. I'm going, did

29:48

I, oh, wow, that's good.

29:51

I'm getting impressed by this young twenty

29:53

four year olds work. You know. Now

29:55

I'm intrigued. And he got to this pit where

29:57

he sort of said, and the penny lane piano.

30:00

I thought, yeah, okay, I know I played it. I

30:02

know how that went. And he said,

30:04

it's not just one piano. And I'm

30:07

sitting there going, yeah it is. What

30:10

do you mean it's not just one? And he saw he starts

30:12

going back to the multi tracks and he goes,

30:14

well, there's this one piano. I said, yeah,

30:16

that's it, and he goes and then they got

30:18

this little spiky piano

30:21

and then he plays and there's this very

30:23

trebling, little ding ding ding

30:25

piano playing along with it, and he

30:27

goes on. Then there's this harmonium,

30:30

and it turned out I'd

30:32

forgotten, but we'd put all these

30:34

layers into this piano that

30:37

eventually sounds like one very

30:39

groovy piano, so much

30:41

so that I believed it myself. So

30:44

I went in the next day with Greg and I said,

30:46

why wait a minute. You know, so

30:48

this is a really great idea. So

30:50

we started messing with like harpsichords

30:53

and piano and mixing them and getting

30:55

them very exact so you couldn't

30:57

tell it was two pianos, but it was like a

31:00

hybrid. That's a kind of interesting

31:02

way to work, and you've been working

31:04

for almost a year at

31:07

that point, So were you going back

31:09

and adding a retexturing tracks

31:11

the truth we've been doing a bit of that anyway,

31:14

because the rerelease of Sergeant Pepper.

31:17

I was inspired by how

31:19

experimental we were and

31:22

the inspiration that we'd had

31:24

for Sergeant Pepper, and I thought, yeah,

31:27

you know, that's a kind of good way to go, is

31:30

to just not make the same old

31:32

record, just try and think outside

31:34

the box and think, you know, what can we do now that

31:36

that's crazy? And at the

31:38

same time it comes out just

31:41

like a song. You know, it's still

31:43

in the end, isn't isn't some crazy mess.

31:46

It's actually Penny Lane, you

31:48

know, your day in the Life. It's it's a proper

31:51

song. But the approach was

31:53

very experimental, So we've been doing

31:55

a bit of that with Greg. But

31:57

once I saw that program about it, then

32:00

started to pick apart some of the stuff we've

32:02

done, made pianos consisting

32:04

of a few things instead

32:07

of just the piano. Were there any particular

32:09

tracks that you remember that you began to to rewire

32:12

this way. I think the track that's

32:15

the opening track, the opening song.

32:18

I don't know yeah. I think we cooked

32:21

the piano a bit there, and

32:23

also we kind

32:25

of de tuned it because what

32:28

was anice was I played it in a certain

32:30

key and song along with it,

32:32

but I was finding the vocals a little bit

32:34

too high and I was just

32:36

going to struggle with it. But Greg,

32:39

a good producer, says, why don't

32:41

we just take it down a bit? You know, it

32:43

would be easier to sing. And

32:45

what was cool about it was the piano I had already

32:48

played now got

32:50

a little bit darker, and it actually

32:53

is a bit one of his sounds. I

32:55

think I heard it on the Adele

32:57

Hello. I listened to that, and

33:00

I thought, this is one of Greg's

33:02

tricks, you know. But it happened

33:04

anyway to us, and I liked the sound of the piano

33:07

we were experimenting as well. And the thing

33:09

is, you know, it keeps it really interesting

33:12

to you go in each day and instead

33:14

of thinking, oh I gotta do this song, I'll

33:16

but do it good. There'd be

33:18

a bit of that, but mainly it'll be whatever, don't

33:20

do it good. We'll mess around, you

33:23

know, we'll get something that excites

33:25

us. We'll put a crazy sound

33:27

on it. And I got yeah, I can

33:29

see to that, and it's often

33:31

that when we did a lot of that in the Beatles.

33:33

I mean, John was particularly fond of

33:36

putting an echo when

33:38

he was doing the vocal so he would do

33:41

what we called the bog echo in Liverpool.

33:43

Bog means the toilet. You know, I'm

33:45

going to bog and the toilet traditionally

33:47

has got a good acoustic so we would

33:50

call this little delay on the

33:52

vocal sound the bog echo. It

33:55

just gives you a little bit different feeling

33:58

than when you're just hearing your own voice,

34:00

plane and straightforward.

34:03

It's like your eldest days,

34:21

somebody with a crazy sound on his voice.

34:23

Jean Vincent, Yeah, you know whatever.

34:26

The sounds like your old rock idols.

34:28

So it inspires you a little bit. You know. It's

34:31

interesting you you mentioned the darker

34:33

sound that Greg brought to that to the piano,

34:36

and then you talk about John's experimentation,

34:38

because John was sometimes the one

34:40

bringing in the darker energy,

34:43

the slight darkness of you

34:46

know, like it's getting better all the time. It couldn't couldn't

34:48

get much worse like that. That's the famous

34:50

example of a little addition that that

34:53

just adds a different shadow.

34:55

Yeah, that's true. I mean we all brought

34:58

that. You know, this is the thing well has.

35:00

You know, over time things become

35:03

legendary, so you'll

35:05

get John was the dark one, Paul

35:07

was a cute one, and that's not

35:09

true because we each

35:11

had a bit of

35:14

that or the other. So George

35:16

could be very much the one who would bring that

35:18

in. But you know what I'm talking about it. I always use

35:21

that example of the song getting better. I

35:23

go, it's getting better all the time, and John goes

35:25

couldn't get much worse. So you

35:27

know, that's a good example of how he would do

35:29

that. But often

35:32

it could be George who do it just

35:34

as much as John would.

35:37

And I think you know I would sometimes

35:40

take John's songs and darken

35:42

them. I mean, Come Together was

35:45

a very jolly little song when John

35:47

brought it in and it was like, no,

35:50

we're not going to do that. Seventeen

35:53

year old you seventeen

35:56

year old, Yeah,

35:58

we would have swamped it out, man. So

36:01

that's the point in case where John's

36:03

thing was, and

36:07

then I would We

36:12

had those kind of influences on each

36:14

other. But the story sticks

36:17

that John was the dark one. I was the light

36:19

one. George was the mystic one, you

36:21

know, and to some degree that's true,

36:24

but we each had aspects

36:28

of all those kind of forces.

36:31

And Ringo too, you know, he would come in

36:33

sort of put some drumming

36:35

on it. That would be like whoa, I

36:37

mean, I had the song get Back

36:40

and I'm just going to get back, get

36:43

Back and he comes up with and

36:47

that drum makes that record, you

36:50

know, so say, yeah, we're all four corners

36:52

of a square. The Beatles. It

36:55

was a very democratic group, so

36:57

we all brought ideas in. Maybe

37:00

John and I wrote most of the songs, but

37:03

George wrote some of the

37:05

best songs, you know, like

37:08

something you know, some of

37:10

those songs he wrote. So

37:13

sticking with this idea of it

37:15

comes the legends

37:17

that stick and what we might be missing.

37:20

Will soon hear the fiftieth anniversary

37:22

box set of the White album. Yeah,

37:25

what surprises are in store for us. So the

37:27

legend, of course is that this is where things get difficult.

37:31

There's a lot of tension during these sessions that have

37:33

spread over I think five months or so,

37:35

and sometimes the

37:38

group is recording as individuals rather than as

37:40

a group. Is the legend they're

37:42

true? Or do you remember those sessions differently. You

37:44

know. The thing is, because it was towards

37:47

the end of the Beatles all the forces

37:49

that were later going to break the Beatles up,

37:52

which is mainly business, to tell you

37:54

the truth, there was a lot of arguing

37:56

about business

37:58

and we didn't like that. We'd always

38:00

traditionally just left that to someone else.

38:03

But it got a bit dangerous to do that, and

38:05

that someone else, it was a different

38:07

someone else actually was about to nicke

38:10

it all. So that got

38:12

This is a period after Brian Epstein's

38:14

death and the start of Applecord referring

38:18

to called Alan Klein.

38:21

You know, it got dangerous. It was an idea

38:23

that he was maybe going to

38:25

take over and take over all

38:28

the money and all the stuff that we'd ever

38:30

done, and that made it a difficult

38:32

period. But you know, the great thing was when

38:35

we got in the studio it

38:37

all changed because we were just these

38:40

four guys again and it wasn't

38:42

to do with business. It was now to do with music,

38:45

and so sometimes we did record

38:47

separately. I would do Blackbird,

38:50

but only because it's a solo song I

38:53

did yesterday, and I said to him me, okay,

38:55

guys, what are you gonna do on this, and

38:57

they also, well, we can't. It's

39:00

the solo song. You know. It

39:02

wasn't because we were arguing some of

39:04

the great songs like She's So Heavy,

39:07

John's I mean, we all

39:09

got right in there. There's no we

39:11

were at peace. When we were playing

39:13

music in the studio. It

39:16

was always a thrill from the

39:18

word go when the Beatles were formed

39:21

to the word stop.

39:24

You know, we always got in the studio

39:27

and even if we were arguing, that

39:29

kind of got superseded by the music.

39:32

And you know, we argued like families argue.

39:34

I mean, in the early days, it was always John and

39:37

George arguing about who

39:39

would have his amp loudest.

39:42

They degree, okay, look, you know we gotta

39:45

yeah, let's put it at seven. Okay,

39:47

and they put it at seven, And then you will

39:49

be playing and you just see George kind

39:51

of back towards his up and go nine.

39:56

And then Johnathan noticed, so he quietly

39:58

sneak towards his ten,

40:02

you know, and then that would go, hey, well

40:04

what are you doing? You know, that might cause a

40:06

bit of an argument, but other

40:08

than that, you know that when we played music,

40:11

it came good, but

40:24

we're not going to keep you any longer. It is almost

40:26

time to I'm in a mispronounsis, but they're

40:28

going mak chow Mick show.

40:31

Yeah all, that's what they used

40:33

to say in Germany. I

40:35

remember the guy's name, Billy. He

40:38

was the chefts for like

40:40

the manager of the

40:42

little club. We first played him

40:44

and he used to come, okay, chat.

40:48

We tried to. We weren't very good at

40:50

MAC and show. Make show in German. Come

40:52

on, make a show in German. But

40:54

sometimes there's people in the audience hold that

40:57

signal, so

41:00

it's still you know, there we are,

41:02

and that is it. I do have to go. Thank

41:05

you so much, have to go on MAC show. Thanks very much

41:07

for chatting nice one.

41:15

Inside the Studio is an I Heart Radio original

41:17

podcast. This episode was written

41:19

and hosted by me Joe Levy.

41:22

We'd like to give a big thank you to Paul

41:24

McCartney and Capitol Records.

41:27

You can follow Inside the Studio on I Heart Radio,

41:30

or you can subscribe wherever you listen to

41:32

podcasts.