Interview for WXRT Chicago • Thursday, August 29, 2013

Interview

The interview below has been reproduced from this page . This interview remains the property of the respective copyright owner, and no implication of ownership by us is intended or should be inferred. Any copyright owner who wants something removed should contact us and we will do so immediately.

From Wikipedia:

WXRT, also known as XRT and 93-XRT is an adult album alternative (AAA) radio station in Chicago, Illinois. For many years, their slogan has been “Chicago’s Finest Rock”. “Chicago’s Home For Music Lovers” has been used as its slogan since fall 2017.

From paulmccartney.com, September 17, 2013:

With the announcement [of the “New” single] came a fairly impromptu radio interview schedule for Paul, who was actually still on his holiday in the US. From my desk in London I called into Paul at the Hamptons and spent an hour or so patching him through to some radio stations in the UK and US. Paul was happy to chat away whilst, unbeknownst to the DJs, still enjoying his morning breakfast cereal. ‘I’m living on the edge!’, he joked whilst waiting to join a US morning show!

These interviews gave Paul the chance to finally start really talking about the album publicly. He discussed working with the various producers, the style of the album and why his job still excites him so much.

Stuart Bell, Paul McCartney’s publicist

From WXRT, August 29, 2013:

Sir Paul McCartney is back with something “New” from his new album, New.

Who else but XRT’s Terri Hemmert debuted the song on the airwaves (and stream) of XRT at 11:30 this morning. But even Terri was taken aback when she received a call from Sir Paul himself today, to lend insight and provide some real excitement to the day’s events!

What better way to celebrate XRT’s New Music Thursday than by hearing New music from Paul?!

About the new single, “NEW”:

Paul McCartney: It’s a new single and it’s going to be the title of the new album too, and everything’s new baby. I love what I do, I love music and it’s always great to get a chance to get into the studio, especially when you’ve got a bunch of new songs… I was very lucky because I work with some cool producers and I had a lot of fun doing it.

About having four producers for the new album:

Paul McCartney: It was like a sort of play and make some music with a couple of producers who I love their work, and I’ll just see which one I get along with personally best and maybe I’ll settle on that guy. But actually I got along with them all, and we really just made something slightly different with each producer so I thought, this is crazy, I can’t chose, I’m having so much fun with each one, so I ended up using four producers in the end.

About Mark Ronson:

Paul McCartney: Mark I knew a little bit personally and he had deejayed at me and Nancy’s wedding, so I kind of knew him, you know we were dancing ’til 3 in the morning to his music. So I knew I liked his music taste and he’s a good guy, and then the chance to work with him came along so we grabbed it. We did “New” and a couple of other tracks.

About Giles Martin:

Paul McCartney: That was really one of the things… Me and Ringo and George actually had talked originally to George Martin and Giles Martin, who was going to help him on the LOVE project, and we said don’t worry about being too sacred with things. This is our chance, a good excuse really because for Cirque du Soleil they’re going to be flying through the air to our music, so to add something new to it. This is our chance for you to sort of mash it up and go crazy and I think in the end Giles did a lot of the work, and obviously checked it through with his dad and all, but he was the guy in the studio all the time, and we thought he did a really good job. So I had an opportunity to work with him on a couple of other cases, the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, he covered the sound there. And I did some music for a video game, the people that did Halo the video game, are making a new game called Destiny and they wanted some help on the music so I was very happy to do that, and I pulled Giles in on that.

About playing the new tracks live:

Paul McCartney: The next thing we do is, I get with the band and we learn the whole album so I’m really looking forward to that. And then we’re going to see what we’ll do with it. I’ve never done that; played a whole album [live]. A lot of people say that to me: ‘Why don’t you just play one of your albums straight through?’ But I’ve got too much other stuff that I’d like to play. I’m really excited to see how they’ll sound live.

About his recent concerts and playing festivals:

Paul McCartney: It was really good at Bonnaroo and Outside Lands as well to have that younger crowd and say “hey guys we’re a band, we’re just going to play for you and if you like it, great”. And we had a ball at both those places. The first festival I did years ago was Glastonbury in England, and I’d heard about it, obviously I was kind of there when it started in the 60s, so I knew about it, and as time went on I thought this is kind of a young person’s festival and maybe I shouldn’t play it. But then I met a friend who’d been there and he said it was brilliant. He said, ‘Late at night, I’d be wondering around all the tents and the campfires, and there’s all these people sitting around the campfire playing Beatles songs.’ So I thought, well I can do that! So I got back in to it.

About being relevant to young audiences:

Paul McCartney: l never expected to be appreciated by younger audiences. I automatically expected it to be like it always was: people in my audience, kind of my age. But what you find now is people my age are bringing their kids, and then those people are bringing their kids, and we’ve got a few generations going now. And it’s brilliant. I really do love that because I’m a family guy and I love the age groups and freshness that kids bring to stuff. I love their attitude and if I can please them with something I do, then it really is gratifying. […] I’m on holiday here in the East Coast and yesterday I was in the street doing a bit of shopping, and these young girls come up to me and they say, ‘Oh, we’re your biggest fans,’ and I’m standing there incredulously. I love it when you can appeal to not just one generation.

About his influence:

Paul McCartney: Imagine that! We just started the band just to play and earn a bit of money, and maybe get a car if we were lucky. But the fact that it’s had this other effect, I get so many people coming up to me in the streets saying ‘Hey man, your music’s really changed my life”. And what’s also great is I get a lot of cool musicians saying that, like Tom Petty, or Dave Grohl, so it’s great. It’s really stuff that I didn’t expect. But for me the main thing is that I love music so much, and I love making it and writing it and working with guys and gals on it, and I’d do it for nothing. I’d do it if I didn’t get paid. People always say ‘Why don’t you retire or something?’ And I say look if I retired, I’d still be doing exactly what I do! I would write songs. I wouldn’t just stop tomorrow so I might as well not retire. As Willie Nelson said famously to one of my friends recently, when he was asked the same question, “Retire from what?’ I’d do this for nothing!”

Last updated on February 5, 2021