Interview for WEHM • Monday, September 2, 2013

Interview

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From Wikipedia:

WEHM (92.9 FM) is an adult album alternative formatted radio station licensed to Manorville, New York and serving Suffolk County, New York. WEHM’s programming is simulcast on WEHN (96.9 FM) East Hampton, New York, the station which originally had been home to WEHM when it was located on 96.7 FM. WEHN’s signal covers the eastern Long Island and southeastern Connecticut areas. […]

Interviewer: That’s brand new Paul McCartney “New” from the “New” album which comes out in October and we’ve been celebrating all weekend long. Congratulations to our latest winner of a Paul McCartney limited edition swag bag which features so much cool stuff, a limited edition vinyl in there. They got the “Good Evening New York City” DVD collection from Citi Field. Being a Mets fan that is amazing and so much good stuff. And then it qualifies for the grand prize, the trip for two to Vegas. Tomorrow morning we announced the grand prize winner and that’s our last qualifiers. We get ready to wrap up the Labor Day weekend. And this is a huge surprise and an amazing way to do it. And an honor to speak with Sir Paul McCartney. Paul, thanks for calling in.

Paul McCartney: Hey, Harry, it’s great, man. We’ve been listening to your station while we’ve been out here on vacation. And I thought, seeing it was a Paul McCartney Week-end, I can just call you up and say thanks.

Interviewer: That’s really amazing. Lauren, Anthony, myself, you have no idea how much that means to us to hear you say that. For people who don’t know you’re out here right? You’re in Amaganza?

Paul McCartney: Yeah, I come out here regularly, pretty much each year. My family, even though we live in England, we kind of always come out here, it’s a tradition for us. And we listen to the station and I was in with in the car the other day driving a bunch of the kids in our family. And we suddenly heard it, there is this competition. So we’re all HiiiYa

Interviewer: That’s the coolest thing to hear. Congratulations on “New”. We love the song. The listeners love it. It’s been so much fun too, because the first note of the song hit and the phones just explode. And

Paul McCartney: Oh, that’s so cool. Thank you. Oh, yeah, I was thinking of phoning in trying to win a trip to Las Vegas myself, but I’m going anyway.

Interviewer: It’s funny you say that! Because every time I’ve answered the phone, I’ve kind of listened for an accent to see if I recognize. Thank you very much. We’re looking forward to it, it comes out in October. And you really put together an amazing list of producers for this, including Mark Ronson who did the single “New”. How’d you get together with Mark?

Paul McCartney: I knew him a little bit anyway, he actually DJed at me and Nancy’s wedding. And so we knew him from that. And he was playing some great music. And we were dancing till three in the morning, you know? So I knew him through that. Then when I was coming to make the new record, I just thought I would ring him up to see if he fancies doing it. And he did. So we got together through that

Interviewer: You have a few different producers. Was that the original plan? Or were you looking to kind of just work with one and see what happened? You’ve got Paul Epworth, who’s done great stuff with Adele, Giles Martin, Ethan Johns. How did this all come together with different producers?

Paul McCartney: I didn’t know who I should choose to produce, who I should ask to work with me. So I singled out four people that I really like the work. As you say, Mark, because I knew all the great stuff he’s done. Paul Epworth, as you say who’s done Adele’s great work. Ethan Johns who’s done the Kings of Leon. And then Giles Martin, the son of our old Beatles producer, George, who had actually done the Beatles Love show, that is part of your prize. They did the record and the soundtrack for that. So I rang each one of them. And the plan was to just go and do maybe one track and just see who I thought was the best to work with. Once I’d done the one track, I thought, you know what, they’re all great. So I did a few tracks with each one of them. Each one had a slightly different approach. But I loved what their approach was. So I ended up doing kind of two or three tracks with each one, which is turned out to be the album.

Interviewer: Was it interesting, because you had worked with, for two of them, their parents as well? Was it interesting kind of seeing their fathers come through them a little bit?

Paul McCartney: Yeah, that’s a great thing. It’s kind of exciting, you know, because a lot of the guys now are at least the age of the sons of the guys I used to work with, you know, and as you say, Ethan Jones is a son of my friend, Glyn Johns, who did work on the Beatles, Let It Be, and there are a lot of great records he made. And George Martin, of course, was the Beatles producer. And so his son Giles was someone I’d seen grow up, you know, but they’re now working as full time grown up professionals kind of thing. So it’s nice, the link between us is great. And you know, I must say when I get in the studio, we’re just musicians. So it doesn’t matter. You know, the age of anyone either can be 17 or 70. As long as they’re good musicians, it doesn’t matter to me.

Interviewer: What’s interesting, you mentioned that and I guess… First thank you because you were a big part of the Sandy Relief concert and being out here on Long Island, we’ve of course been hurt by the storm. But you got together with Dave Grohl and other members of Nirvana and being curious, how did that come together? And is it true that “Cut Me Some Slack” came together pretty fast, right? Just a couple of jams.

Paul McCartney: Dave was making a movie about the Sound City desk, which is a kind of desk a lot of great records have been made on. And he bought it and put it in his studio. So I knew him just casually as a friend. And he said “Hey, I’m gonna do this thing, would you come along and just jam?” I said “Yeah, sure. So what do you want to do?” “well, you know, we’ll just do one of the old songs like Long Tall Sally or something, old rock and roll song”. And I said, “Well, okay, I’ll come along”. So when I got there, I had a new guitar that I’d actually been given by Johnny Depp. I know I’m dropping a lot of names here. But so I got into the studio and Dave said, “Okay, let’s just make something up”. So, I started playing this guitar, which has got a really great sound on it. And we made up a riff, Dave got on the drums and put a beat behind it. And then Chris, who was the Nirvana bass player, started playing some great bass to it, and Pat Smear started playing some guitar. So we had this little jam going, and I started shouting over “Mama”. And, you know, I started making up some words. And then after that, we recorded one, and then said “Okay, guys, should we put a structure on this? Or are we just leaving it as a jam?” And the other guys said “structure would be good”. So we organized it a little bit, but the riff first came back in the middle, and we suddenly had a record. I think the whole thing was about four hours from me showing up in the studio to us actually having a finished track. So that was really exciting. And then we got to do it on the 12/12/12 concert. And on Saturday Night Live. It was a great cause.

Interviewer: you really seems that you’ve been re-energized over the past few years. I mean, obviously, the song “New” kind of signals that you’re having so much fun and really is contagious. So question for you, when you got involved with the festivals, what does inspire you with Coachella and Bonnaroo? It’s a whole younger audience that is discovering you, but it’s a little bit different, or …

Paul McCartney: You know how it started, I was always kind of looking at doing the Glastonbury Festival, which one of the old original festivals in England. But I’d always thought “maybe, I don’t know, maybe not”. And then I met a guy who’d been to Glastonbury, he said, “Oh, it’s great, I was going around the campfires late at night, and everyone sitting around the fire singing Beatles songs”. So I suddenly thought, “Wait a minute, I can do that”. So then, I got an offer to do Glastonbury. And I did it that year. So I realized that all the young folks who were showing up to these things, were into the kind of music I was playing, and my band is playing great. So then we accepted Coachella. And then this year, we’ve done Bonnaroo and Outside Lands, which is up in San Francisco. And it’s just great because everyone’s there for having a good time. So we can feed into that because that’s what we’re there for, too. So yeah, the festivals have been really great.

Interviewer: A little bit off subject. And I know it’s something that you’re really passionate about, I’ve been going to the gym, eating better over the past few months. And one of the things researching just to get healthy, again, I came across is Meat Free Mondays. And I know you’re actively involved in that, because I found the website and for someone who is not used to doing that, you have a ton of recipes up there. And it’s really cool. Thank you, because you helped out with my diet.

Paul McCartney: Yeah, you know, it’s a really great idea. I’ve been vegetarian for a long time, and people say “where’d you get your energy from?” I could easily have something to do with it. But what happened was a big report came out about the environment. And they said that the meat industry, the fact that there’s so many billions of cattle all over the world, it’s actually quite harmful for the environment. So we started up this campaign where we suggest to people that maybe they just don’t eat meat on a Monday or they can choose any day they like. Monday is normally a good day, because everyone’s had a bit of a blowout over the weekend, they feel a bit guilty. So, you know, we just thought that it was a good idea. And a lot of people have picked it up. And like you say, we give recipes. People are thinking, “Well, what am I going to eat, pastas or pizza”. So there’s all sorts of great things, and we give sort of lovely dishes. And the idea is that if enough people pick this up, it actually really will make a difference to the environment. And let’s face it, young people are gonna inherit it, and it would be great if they can herit a world that’s not kind of going down the chute.

Interviewer: I think it was amazing to me when I was looking over it. I just have a shot at what good, just by doing one day a week, can do for the environment and I didn’t realize that

Paul McCartney: I was the same when I was a kid. I was brought up just traditionally like everyone else. I never really thought about what I was eating. I just took whatever was on my plate. But you know, I got to a certain stage where I just thought, let me think about this. So that’s what’s happened. Anyway, listen, I’ve got to run now. Gonna get out there for a sail. I still got some time. I’m still on holiday. And I’m just gonna run but listen, thanks very much for having this chat.

Interviewer: Enjoy. Thank you so much. Lauren, the program director, is such a huge fan and she was disappointed she couldn’t speak to you. So she sends you her regards. She’s gonna kill me for asking you for this… Did you wish her a happy birthday? It’s tomorrow and she’s gonna kill me for that, but…

Paul McCartney: Hey, Lauren, happy birthday to you. And Happy birthday to you. Have a great one. Thank

Interviewer: Thank you all so much. And we really appreciate We can’t wait for the new album and thanks for calling.