David Bailey

John wasn’t really a friend. He was just someone I used to see at the Ad Lib [club] all the time. I remember John smoking a joint with me at the top of the Ad Lib and saying, “Shit. I’ve arrived. I’m on the roof of the Ad Lib smoking a joint with David Bailey!”

I didn’t like the Beatles – I liked John. The Beatles were a boy band. I thought they were square as houses. And then -suddenly The White Album and all those records came along and you sort of thought, ah, they are more interesting than I thought… but all that rubbish about Paul McCartney thinking he made the Sixties. It was nothing to do with the Sixties! London made the Beatles! It was happening in London, it wasn’t happening in Liverpool.

John was a f***er. Paul was always the nicest guy in the world. George, he always seemed full of angst. Ringo always seemed Mr Nice Guy. But John was a bit poky; I liked him. 

I told John to close his eyes because I could feel this tension between him and Paul. I did them [together] afterwards; I got them looking different ways because there was such a tension. Although I’ve never seen it like those two guys – Oasis. I was doing their first Rolling Stone cover and I did it in ten minutes because I thought they were going to kill each other.

I saw Paul recently and he introduced me to his new woman. He said, “This is Bailey. The first thing he ever said to me was so rude. He said, ‘Michelle, my belle’ – are you f***ing joking, Paul?” When I said that to him he actually told me to piss off, which isn’t a very Paul McCartney thing to do.

I’d like to say for the record that it wasn’t Ringo who came up with [the title] “Eight Days A Week”; it was me. John Lennon was in the Ad Lib one night and he asked me how hard I worked. And I said, “How hard do I work? I’ll tell you, John, I work eight days a week.”

I’m a bit concerned about my work looking like the Sixties. Damien [Hirst] always says the worst insult is, “I like your early stuff.” Because they don’t know what else to say. But you have to live with that. I have to live with John Lennon.

David Bailey – Interview with GQ magazine, March 2014