Interview for Apple Music

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As part of the promotional campaign for his forthcoming album “The Boys Of Dungeon Lane“, Paul McCartney sat down with Zane Lowe for an interview with Apple Music. The conversation was recorded at the Los Angeles studio of producer Andrew Watt, who produced the album. McCartney and Lowe sat together at a table displaying photographs from Paul’s early life, a selection of which they discussed during the interview.

Zane Lowe had previously interviewed Paul McCartney in 2009, 2013, and 2020.

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Zane: There’s a great lyric on Days We Left Behind where you open the song and you say, “looking back at white and black, reminds of my past”. It’s really beautiful and honest and reflective, and it’s not something I feel like I’ve heard you say many times before that explicitly, like I’m really going over and thinking about those times.

Paul: Yeah, you know, you get to a stage where you sort of remember your youth and stuff. I mean, all through your life you do, but now I go back up to Liverpool and I go to Dungeon Lane. I sometimes will do a tour for people — I’m like the tour bus. You get my grandkids in the back. Oh, this is where we did that. And this is where I used to go. Dungeon Lane was funny because it was where I used to kind of escape the housing estate and go down to the shore. Which was kind of nice. Until the one day where I got mugged down there. There were a couple of local boys.

Zane: You haven’t lived until someone tries to take something off you by force.

Paul: That’s right. They did. They took my watch.

Zane: Did you try and charm your way out of it?

Paul: Tried, but these boys were not playing.

Zane: It’s funny — I looked at it on the map. It didn’t escape me that Dungeon Lane now sits right at the very end of Liverpool John Lennon Airport. And I wondered whether that’s ever crossed your mind — that where it started for you is right next to the kind of thing that happens to some of the most important people in human history. They name something like an airport after John F. Kennedy — it’s like John Lennon. It’s kind of interesting.

Paul: He would have liked that. We used to go out to the airport quite a bit and just bike out there and hang out and look at the airplanes — that was a big thrill in those days. So we were quite often there, but it was just Liverpool Airport, Liverpool Speke Airport, I think, or something like that.

Zane: When we think back to the way people are when they’re around and the energy they carry with themselves — I always got the feeling, being a fan of John as well, that as much as he may have privately liked it, he also could have quite easily gone, I don’t know about all that. You know what I mean?

Paul: Well, yeah, but I think in this instance he would have liked it, because people who are very bold and very upfront can often be quite sensitive inside — that’s why they’re putting the shield up. And John, I think, with his life, with his father leaving home when he was a kid, and his mom dying when he was young — that was a bond that we had together because mine did too. But I remember John saying to me once, “How am I going to be remembered after I die?” And I was saying, “Don’t worry, it’s going to be okay. You’ve done enough stuff by this point to be remembered with a lot of respect and love.” So he would have loved an airport named after him. That would answer his question. How about I go into the future — you’re an airport, man.

Zane: There are some lovely photos here, and I love that you’ve been leaning into that within the art as well. The collage you’ve created is beautiful. I know you did that — picking and choosing and putting it all together for the artwork. What jumps out?

Paul: I mean, this is because of Days We Left Behind — we started to look at memories from the past. So that was me and my mom and dad and my brother Mike. It is pretty amazing to go back and just think, did I wear those little shoes and those little socks?

Zane: You didn’t have much choice. It’s not like you were able to tell your parents, “You know what, I’m not going to wear those little shoes.” How old are you there? Three or four? It’s funny — we look at photos now and obviously we take so many of them and probably don’t even look at 90%.

Paul: Well, that’s the thing about phones now, isn’t it? I often say to people, when are we going to look at these? Because at least when it was in a snapshot album, you probably didn’t look at it that much either, but at least if you wanted to…

Zane: it was calling to you. But it does make these even more precious when you do look at them like this and you realize that this photo took a lot of effort. I mean, you’ve got a dog there, half the crowd probably didn’t even want to have the photo taken.

Paul: Yeah. I used to go hitchhiking quite a bit because in those days you could, and there was no sort of danger involved. And I think it must have been my suggestion to George and then later to John that we go hitchhiking, because I can’t think of either of them saying to me we should go here. Sounds like my kind of stupid idea. But yeah, so me and George had a couple of nice trips. This one was going to Wales, and those people were with — he, the guy — we met him in the pub.

So me and George when we went to Wales like that, we had our guitars. And because we’re from Liverpool, we’re like big city dudes

Zane: Rolling into Wales with your guitar…

Paul: “Do you know this one?” And we played a little bit in the pub. I was thinking it was really great for the group because you really got to know each other on a hitchhiking trip. The way we did it, we never knew where we were going to stay. It’s a bit of a feature of my life — I’ll just go, “Hey, we’ll find somewhere.” So about 5:00 every evening, we’d say, “We better find somewhere now,” and go around looking for bed and breakfasts.

Zane: That’s how you got to know that family — through the son.

Paul: Yeah. And we were saying, “We’re still looking for somewhere to stay.” He said, “Yeah, well, my mom — you could come and stay with us.” And it was very nice. Suddenly you were just in a family.

Zane: What’s really amazing as well is that we’re looking at this photo — you’ve brought this photo up in relation to this beautiful music you’ve made, and it’s a wonderful exercise to reflect and make a great record out of that. But this photo has probably been looked at by the people who were there, and they’d be going, “Oh my god, I can’t believe that’s Paul, I can’t believe that’s George.” You think about all the memories you’ve created for other people — going and crashing on their couch when you were just kids.

Paul: I like that, and it’s true. Having kind of done what we did with the Beatles, you do get people just off the street. I was in a supermarket yesterday getting something, and I came out and there’s a lady there saying, “Thank you.” I said, “What?” Just, “Thank you.” And it’s like, wow. You do think, like you say, how many people’s lives you touch with your music and with the stuff you do. If you could have said to me when I was there, “When you grow up, it’s going to touch a lot of people’s lives in a good way.”

Zane: I always love how you put people at ease. And that seems like an obvious thing to say — most human beings would probably try to put each other at ease — but it’s not easy for other people to relate to someone who’s had the impact you had on that lady in the supermarket. She chose to do it in a very simple and lovely way, just to thank you and move on. But you’ve had to find a way, after a very intense period of time, to live the rest of your life being very recognized — coming out of a cannon, really. I’ve never asked you how that was, or how you developed a way to remain relatable and enjoy your life without being under the spotlight.

Paul: I think that’s the thing. I remember once in the early days of the Beatles, we were kind of recognized most places, but me and Ringo went on holiday with our girlfriends to Greece and nobody knew us. So it was like, “This is great. We must come back here more often — even when we get really famous, we can always come to Greece and they’re never going to know us.” But of course, that didn’t work. Once I realized, “Oh, I’m going to be famous all my life if I’m lucky,” I thought, “Okay, big decision time.” You either stop and think, “That was lovely, I had a great time with the music,” and do something more anonymous — or you carry on. So if you carry on, you better get some sort of strategy. You’re signed up now. And I was very lucky with my Liverpool family — they are the kind of people who put people at ease. So I kind of learned it just by being one of that family.

The thing nowadays, of course, is photographs. I’ll meet someone and I go, “I know what they’re reaching for.” The camera is coming out, but I’ve got a thing now. I say, “I’m sorry, I don’t do pictures. I hope you understand, but I’m having a private evening,” or whatever I’m doing with my wife or I’m with my kids. And you’d be surprised — people get it. I say, “But I’ll chat.”

And Nancy will say to me, “You spend more time — you could have just taken the picture”

Zane: [laugh] She’s like, “Maybe take a picture.”

Paul: But I actually spend a lot of time explaining…

Zane: … something that would take two seconds to take. But I think it’s a really strong boundary. Because the human experience is what got you into this in the first place — the sharing of stories through music. The photo just becomes a souvenir. What does it mean sometimes?

Paul: I get it, because I see someone famous and I want to take a picture — I want a reminder. But my line is, I say to them: you know, down in Saint-Tropez there’s a guy on the harbour front and he’s got a monkey, and you can get your picture taken with the monkey. I said, the minute I start doing that — you get your camera out — I feel like that monkey, because I’m not me anymore, I’m the monkey. And I say it’s kind of important to me to be just me, not the guy who’s posing.

Zane: I’m just loving it because it’s like — I think I’ve got the story that’s going to make everybody understand. There’s a monkey in Saint-Tropez…

Paul: That’s it. I like to feel like me, and the minute you are him — the celebrity. But people are normally very cool. They say, “Oh, I get it.”

Zane: You’ve given us so much. And I think it’s harder for newer pop stars to get away with it, which they have every right to as well, because there’s a sense of, “I’m currently in the process of helping you build your dream as a fan.” Whereas you’ve given us so much incredible music, and also you’ve been through a lot in the face of success. You’ve lost people, and it’s come at a cost. And I think people know that and respect the fact that you keep showing up and wanting to give us music and giving us this gift. So thank you for that.

Paul: Yeah, I say to people — my pleasure. Because it really was. It sounds a bit glib, “my pleasure,” but doing that music, being that guy — was a pleasure. Is a pleasure.

Zane: I can hear it on this new record. There’s freedom in this music. I understand now that you took your time and made the songs when you had the songs — it doesn’t sound forced because it wasn’t.

Paul: Yeah, that’s true. I remember meeting up with the girl H.E.R. — she’s terrific. She was rehearsing nearby where we were rehearsing. So we had a few cups of tea together and conversations.

Zane: She’s amazing.

Paul: Yeah, she is amazing. And she was saying, “Can you decide what goes on your record?” I said, “Yeah — doesn’t everyone?” She said these days the label, her manager, people will tell her, “I don’t think that song’s quite right.” So you’re guided more than you want to be. I remember thinking, I feel sorry for that. I am free — I’m very lucky. But I would always fight for that. There doesn’t seem much point otherwise.

Zane: I’m sure there were times when things were really successful — a lot of money, a lot of industry, a lot of pressure on you delivering music — where you probably had to fight a lot harder for that freedom than you do having achieved it.

Paul: Yeah. And you know, the good thing was there was four of us. We had the union. I remember we went to the Philippines — we’d been traveling and hadn’t had a day off, and suddenly we had a day off. It was in Manila, and so I immediately went out, went down to the market, bought a little painting — real tourist stuff, but it was great not having to be on stage. And I got back to the hotel and everyone said, “Oh, panic — why, what’s wrong?” He said, “Look on the telly.” And on the television they’re saying, “And the Beatles will soon be showing up at the palace. Here’s Imelda Marcos, the first lady, and her blue ladies — they’re all waiting. Any minute now, the Beatles will be there.” And we’re going, “Well, we’re not going. This is really embarrassing.” And Brian Epstein, our manager, was saying, “You’ve got to go.” We said, “Nope, we’re not going.” And as a unit of four, we just said, “We’re not going.” So we just hung out and partied and had our day off.

But it didn’t go down well. Almost got beat up in the airport the next day — taxi drivers and everybody. But we said no. I think when you start off in your career, you pretty much want to say yes to everything. Once or twice though, we realized we had to be ourselves and say no.

Early days of recording, we were looking for a hit, and George Martin, our producer, said, “I’ve got this song that a couple of London writers had written. It’s a hit — you guys should do it.” We said, “What is it?” And it was a song called “How Do You Do It.” And it was like, “It’s not us, George.” He said, “But it’s a hit.” And we said, “No, we don’t want to do it.” He said, “Well, I’ll tell you what” — because he’s a very smart boy, old George — he said, “Do it. Record it, and then if you don’t like it, fair enough, I’ll give it to someone else.” So we did, and we recorded it and didn’t like it. We said, “It’s just not us. We’re trying to be a little bit more rock and roller, a bit more soul.” So he gave it to Gerry and the Pacemakers and it was a massive hit, but we were glad we didn’t want that kind of a hit.

Zane: That’s one of those rare moments where you’re both right, if you think about it. That’s a win-win. You guys did okay without that song.

Paul: We did all right.

Zane: You did all right… This album — it’s such a wonderful collection of thoughts, but there are real emotional times. We started talking about Days We Left Behind — I want to rewind one song to talk a little bit about Lost Horizon, which I know was a song that had been sitting in the can and you just didn’t realize it, and someone reminded you. That’s right. A friend who’s no longer with us, I believe, brought it up and said, “Hey, you got this song.”

Paul: Yeah. It’s Eddie Klein, who was just a tech guy at Abbey Road, and he came to build my studio when I got my own studio. So Eddie was the man. We were working on something in the studio and he was actually changing things from an old format to a newer format — he was changing DATs.

Zane: I know what a DAT is, Paul. Don’t worry about it. I know what a tape is.

Paul: Not everyone does, clearly…

Zane: Poor DAT, it was not long for this world. The DAT wasn’t a sticky format.

Paul: Anyway, Eddie just saw it and listened to it and said, “Do you remember that Lost Horizon?” And I said, “Uh, what?” He said, “Oh, there’s a song of yours, Lost Horizon. It’s pretty good — let’s just play it.” What I liked about it was that it was finished from A to Z. All there — lyrics, tune, bridge.

Zane: Is that rare for you — to have a song completed, structured, and finished and not do something with it?

Paul: Yeah. I just forgot it. It’s on a cassette and I’d just been doing other stuff on the cassette, so I forgot that one. It just got in a crack somewhere. So I was very happy when he said that. I think it’s good. And if Eddie thought it was good, it was good. Yeah, he was a great guy.

Zane: So when you pick up a guitar and go to an instrument and you have something you want to say and begin to write — is the ambition and intention always to finish the song? Is it important to you that it’s not just a verse and a chorus you’ll come back to?

Paul: The trouble is nowadays with phones — you always had to finish a thing because there was nowhere to put it. You had to put it in your mind. So you had to finish it. Now I’ve got — I must have over a couple of thousand sketches on my phone, because I’ll put it down and think, “Oh yeah, okay, I’ll come back to that. I’ve saved it. It’s okay.”

Zane: But that started with the modern age. Before that, you’d prefer to just finish it. What I’m asking is — it’s not like we’re sitting on a whole lot of songs pre-phone that are unfinished in some capacity.

Paul: I have that now, because of the luxury of a phone — if you don’t have long but you’ve got an idea, you’ll put it down. There are certain ones in that list of sketches that I will finish — I know, “Oh, that is a good one, so I will finish that.” And there are certain ones that I think, “It’s a piano melody. If I ever get asked to do a film score, that can be the theme,” whatever. I like just putting them down in case.

Zane: Do people not ask you to do film scores?

Paul: No, not really.

Zane: That’s about to change, I’d imagine.

Paul: Inundated with film scores.

Zane: Extended play time. You know, as Brian Eno says — it’s playtime.

Paul: It’s funny, I saw your Brian Eno thing and he says this thing about playtime. I go, that’s — he’s nicked it. He must have heard me say it, because I’m always saying that. People say, “Oh, you’re a workaholic.” I say, “We don’t work music, we play it.” So I’m a playeraholic.

Zane: This is the beef nobody expected. Not on a bingo card. Was it emotional at any moment during the writing of Days We Left Behind? Let me give you an example — there’s a moment in Get Back where you’re sitting at the piano writing The Long and Winding Road, trying to figure it out, and there are three people sitting there reading the sports pages wondering if Fulham beat Blackburn. And I’m like, this is bonkers, because you’re writing one of the most heartbreaking, beautiful songs about life and your man’s just reading the funny pages in the background. You can understand why, in hindsight years later …

Paul: It looks funny…

Zane: It looks hilarious.

Paul: But the thing is, it had to be like that, didn’t it? What else would there have been — the most sort of… I know, sitting around me going, “That’s great, Paul.” The good thing about the Beatles — we took the piss out of each other. At the beginning of the recording of Let It Be, I’m about to do the take and John’s going, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” or something, and I’m going, “Thank you. I’m trying to get into this.” Totally trying to put me off.

Zane: That was the dynamic in the Beatles. But it was interesting to see you process and figure out how to make the best possible song and complete your emotion and your feeling and your thought. I’ve spoken to so many artists who have told me about the emotion they feel when they strike a chord or hit a note or write a lyric that really unlocks something. And I got emotional listening to Days We Left Behind. What about you when you’re writing it — how does it feel when you are writing something like that?

Paul: Yeah, I enjoyed writing that one. I pretty much enjoy writing all of them because it’s like playing a game — it’s a fun thing to do. “Oh, that will go with that. Oh, I can rhyme that with that. Oh, yeah, that’s good.” You’re always figuring out fun little things. With that one, I started off with a little piano riff that’s at the beginning — we played it on guitar in the end, but it was just this little piano riff, and I thought, “That’s nice. That’s an intro. Good notes.” And then I got into this idea of looking back — photos — and it kind of should have been “looking back at black and white,” but I switched it to “white and black,” and that fell into place. I thought, “Well, that’s nice.” So I was now committed to “reminders of my past.”

So that’s great. Then you go, okay, what am I thinking of? Smoky bars, cheap guitars… My first guitar was a Rosetti Lucky 7 that I bought in Liverpool. And when I got it to Hamburg, it broke — it was so crappy that it just broke. So anyway, cheap guitars. And then, “see the boys of Dungeon Lane” — that was me going back to this place where we lived. Me and George lived in this area called Speke, and that’s where I met George. So there are lots of lovely memories about these places, and the Dungeon Lane thing — as I say, I used to go down there. I had a bird book. There’s a thing in England called the Observer’s Book of Birds — it’s a little handbook, you stick it in your pocket. So I would go around and see, “Oh, that bird, it nests in places like this.” And so I would do that down Dungeon Lane.

And I was walking along one day and these two kind of big Liverpool scallies said, “What you doing? What you looking at?” And we had a little encounter. He said, “Give us that watch.” I halfheartedly tried to resist, but they were big and there were two of them. So yeah, I ended up giving them.

Zane: Not too far away from this guy, right? [showing a photo]

Paul: A bit younger than this guy. That was me and John going to Paris on a hitchhiking trip. And so that was the start — we started in the center of Liverpool.

These all found their way into — and the guys that nicked my watch — unfortunately for them, I knew them. I knew where one of them lived. So I kind of went to the cops and said “I got my watch…” — they nicked him and I got my watch back.

Zane: Do you ever see him again?

Paul: No. I hope not. He wasn’t anyone I really knew — he just lived in the next road, Old Bridge Road. And I lived in Ardwick Road. So when I say “the boys of Dungeon Lane,” I’m thinking of those two boys. Whereas then it splits out and spreads — “see the boys of Dungeon Lane,” well, it could be anyone from that area. And then the next line is, “some of them will feel the pain, but some were meant for more.” The guys who nicked my watch — I hope they feel the pain. And I hope we were meant for more.

Zane: The fight is so important, isn’t it, to achieving your dreams at a young age — taking that ambition to prove something, whether it’s the kids who tried to take your stuff or whatever. That juice is crucial. It sounds like all four of you in your own way had that fight.

Paul: Yeah, that was very important for us. Because if we didn’t like a song, we were trying not to do it — we had quite a good vision of who we wanted to be. And the personalities were pretty strong individually. I’m still like that. I think Ringo’s still like that. Don’t mess with Ringo.

Yeah. Why? People say, “Why is he…?” Because he’s Ringo. He’s just himself. And again, you know, he had a lot of problems when he was a kid — he was very ill when he was very young, three I think, and his mom was told he might not live. So he had all of that stuff, didn’t go to school much because of all of that. So again, he’s built a sort of shield. I think we all get shields. People who’ve had a harder time than I did — I had a pretty good time up until my mom died when I was 14. But yeah, Ringo is still very much his own man, which is a great thing if you can keep that alive.

Zane: It sounds to me like you experienced that — even though you’ve known him most of his life, and he’s one of the only people alive who could even share what you’ve had. But the story I heard you tell about the making of the song the two of you do a duet on — having to say, “No, I want you to sing these lines” — that was kind of cute really.

Paul: Well, we’d sort of written it here in this room, actually, with him in mind. It had all started because Andrew — Andrew Watt, who I was working with, whose studio we’re in, by the way — Ringo knew that I’d worked with Andrew, and we’d done one track which is the opening track of the album, called As You Lie There. So he went over to see Andrew. Then I was working with Andrew and I said, “You remember that Ringo came over and did some drumming, didn’t he?” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “Let’s hear it.” So we got it up and I said, “Oh, it’s good — nice drumming because it’s Ringo.” So I said, “We should write a song around that.”

We had some time. So we did it, and I wrote the words about where we both came from. I came from a place in Speke; he came from a place called the Dingle. And it was poor living, looking back on it now. I would have to say that nobody had any money and the houses were pretty rough. But we didn’t know any better and it was cool. We had friends, we had mates, we had uncles and aunties and all that stuff. So you were on that level and you enjoyed it. I knew that Ringo had been through that like I had been through it. So the song sort of says, “It might have been a bit rough where we lived, but it was home to us.”

So we did it. I put the vocal on it as a guide vocal for Ringo, then we sent it over to him and I said, “Would you sing on this?” — thinking he’d just replace my vocal. But he didn’t get the idea. He sang on it a little bit — just the chorus, harmonies, just a tiny bit.

So I rang him back up and said, “Didn’t you like it? Didn’t you want to sing the whole thing?” He said, “I didn’t think you wanted me to. You know what I mean?”

Zane: This is hilarious — these are two guys who’ve known each other their whole lives, still circling one another trying to figure out how to get it done.

Paul: It’s life, baby. That’s how people do it. Anyway, I said, “No, no, no — I’d love you to sing the whole thing.” So he did, very nicely. And then it suddenly became obvious that I could take a line, he could take a line. So we have the first Paul and Ringo duet.

Zane: Which speaks to his reticence to some degree, because it’s never happened before.

Paul: There was never a John and Ringo track, never a George and Ringo track.

Zane: I know you probably don’t think too much about the what-ifs. But when you think about the lack of interactivity you had as friends and as creatives once you were no longer a band — are you any closer to understanding why that was?

Paul: No, I mean, I think we knew we’d finished and we’d all said, “It’s full circle — this is great.” John was off with his life with Yoko, which was — you couldn’t say, “Would you mind coming back and we’ll do a bit more Beatles?” I wouldn’t have put that to him. I could see what he was doing — it was a different life. And I was too, with Linda. We would say, “Would you play drums on this for me? Would you play bass on this for me? Would you sing on this?” Would you do bits and pieces?” So it was great to get round to it in the end.

On this, you’ve got to figure out — who’s me first, Ringo second? But I’m really glad we did it. Once it became a duet, I thought, “That’s a great thing.” Suddenly, after all that time we’ve known each other, suddenly we’ve got a track together.

Zane: I love the song, and I love the feel and the sound of it. And I know there’s some original equipment being used on that — it wasn’t just about going through wonderful photos and memories, it was also “Hey, I’ve got some…”

Paul: Yeah, that’s right. When we’re talking like this it starts to sound like it’s just a total nostalgia album — but it’s not at all. There are a few tracks that go back; I talk about my parents in one of the tracks. But there are a lot of love songs and things that aren’t looking back. Now, with “We Two”, we were in my home studio in Sussex. Andrew had come over to do some work with me there, and I was showing them around. I’ve got quite a nice selection of stuff there, amongst which is the big Studer machine — the four-track Studer machine, which is what we made all the early Beatles on. Well, the first Beatles thing was not even that grand, just a little two-track. So we had this four-track, and I still have one and I keep it up. My engineers love it, and occasionally we’ll use it. Andrew said, “Could we use it?” I said, “Yeah, sure — let’s think of something to do on it.” So we put together this song “We Two” and recorded it on that. And the thing we loved most about it was the snare drum sound.

Zane: That’s great. Yeah, it’s meaty.

Paul: Yeah. I’d talked to engineers in the past and said, “Why is it that?” He said, “Well, it’s because it’s fat tape.” I said, “It’s that simple?” I thought it’d be something more complicated. No — if you get thin tape, you get thin sound. Anyway, so we did it. We had a lot of fun doing that. That snare drum is a good snare drum sound.

Zane: It’s an amazing snare drum sound. I love the guitar line on that song — I love how it brings just a dark wistfulness to it. Floats up and down and in and out. You can hear the two of you laying everything down, printing everything, committing to everything. It just feels committed in a really lovely way.

Paul: And with the four-track, you’ve got to wipe things because there’s only four tracks and you may want to do eight things. You take two tracks where you’ve got, let’s say, drums and bass, and you reduce them to one track, which frees up those tracks. So you can keep recording…

Zane: But you’re on the hook for those things — you can’t change anything.

Paul: But that’s actually a great thing. I say to young bands nowadays, don’t rely too much on the gadgetry — just play it all, learn it all, write it all, because it’s better.

Zane: But you love the gadgetry too.

Paul: Yeah, I do. But I think what happens is a lot of people rely on it. So you get records that sound like they’ve been made by gadgets. I don’t like that. But I do like to use — I like odd things. I like tape loops. I like to work with tape loops. And again, Brian Eno in your interview with him starts talking about tape loops. I’m thinking, “Brian, you’re nicking all my ideas.” Tomorrow Never Knows — before you were born.

Zane: This is a serious celebrity death match we’ve got on our hands right here.

Paul: No, it’s — I was watching the interview just because I like Brian and his music. Anyway, I love messing with tape loops because it’s sort of freeing. I hate it when making music starts to feel like work. Has to, occasionally. You can’t always just feel good. Sometimes you’re slogging away on a part. “God, I wish I’d never written this thing.” But that’s not the normal thing — normally it’s nice.

Zane: That’s where you need Andrew Watt — people to come in and be like, “Don’t let it go. It’s there. It’s waiting for you.”

Paul: Andrew is very enthusiastic. He’s good to work with like that. He’ll keep things going.

Zane: How does music — stepping away from the themes of the record for a second — just talk about you as a music fan. One of the things I really love is that, much like your friend Elton and others, you remain really into music as an experience — not just the music you make. You love going and seeing shows. How curious are you still, to this day, about what people are making?

Paul: I think, like a lot of people, if you hear of someone and they’re going to play live, and you’re there in a room with all these people and there’s the artist — say Bruce Springsteen or somebody — and he’s playing, it’s like, “Oh, he’s really doing it.” There’s something special about that for me. So I like going to quite a few concerts and seeing who’s doing what.

Zane: Has anybody releasing music now really impressed you — that you’re a fan of, that you’re drawn to listen to?

Paul: Yeah. I’ll go to festivals and I’ll see — like Bono’s son Eli and his band. I think they’re good. So I like to check them out and see what’s going on. But it could be anyone — I don’t really keep a list. I like watching people make music. I also like checking out other kinds of music. I’ve recently just got into a lot of African music — Senegal and stuff like that. It’s like, “Wow, that really is where the blues came from.” That’s fascinating.

Zane: I went to Mali once with some musicians and we went into a bar on the side of the road and we were there till 2:00 in the morning sitting on beer crates watching this band play. There was a kid on the drums who had literally been playing for like 6 hours. And we all walked away going, “No one in this group is ever going to be as good as what we just saw.” It was super sobering.

Paul: Yeah, my best experience of that was Fela Kuti live. That was insane — at his place, the African Shrine. And I wasn’t going to get wasted, because it was very much the thing to do with Fela. I was with Ginger Baker too. And I was trying to resist — the guys were coming up with joints, you know, and I was saying, “Okay, I’m good, I’m good, thank you.” I was doing very well. And then this pivotal moment came — the guy went up to Ginger, and Ginger takes a smoke, great, he’s smoking away. Fela comes over to him, claps an arm around him, and says, “Ginger Baker — the only man I know who never refuses a smoke.” So I go. I said, “Yeah, okay, I’ll have one.” And I got wrecked. Wrecked, paranoid, the whole thing. And I was in a state until his band came on. And then they just hit this riff that I still remember. And it was incredible. And I just wept. That was an experience you could never forget. I still know the riff. The band kicked in and it was like, whoa.

Zane: The album ends beautifully. There are two songs — starting with Salesman Saint — and I know, just to reiterate, this is a beautiful modern-sounding record, but there are some really key moments of reflection. It’s lovely hearing you pay tribute to the environment your parents were in as they were trying to honor their responsibility as parents. These were dangerous and difficult times to be a parent.

Paul: When I think about — in my case, World War II — this war that was really going on: my dad was a fireman in Liverpool and they were sending firebombs down on century homes, and my mom was a nurse. So they were going through it, fearing for their lives every day, pretty much. And I can’t imagine what that’s like. I don’t think our generation can. So I occasionally will think, “Wow, wait a minute — how could you keep positive with all that going on?” A lot of people didn’t, of course, but my mom and dad did. So I always give them credit in my own mind for finding their way through that.

And so I was writing a song in a minory kind of key, and that became the subject of the song.

Zane: I love the Glenn Miller horns. It blows my mind how the different time signatures reveal themselves over time. It feels to me at first like you’ve made the horns fit into the more four-on-the-floor type thing, but then at the end I realize — no, they’re dancing with each other. Where did you record those horns —

Paul: In Abbey Road. They really came off. You’ve got to get the arrangement right, and this guy Ben Foster is a really good arranger. I said, “I want it to sound like it’s coming off the radio, 1940s.” And as you say, the song’s in three, but when you put four against it — that’s very African. You hear African music doing that a lot. So I’m fascinated by that — wait a minute, three-four against four-four? That’s great. Shouldn’t make sense, but that’s what happens in the song.

Zane: My last question about the more reflective sides of the record, as we draw to the end of this chat. Your mother was not alive to see you go on to achieve wonderful things with the Beatles — the transition into Wings, the first half of your life figuring out what you want to do and how far you want to take this thing. But your father was alive and he did see it occur. Just to come off the back of the song — how did he absorb that experience? How did he see it? How did he feel about who you were becoming and what you were achieving?

Paul: Well, I think he loved it. He had been a musician in the 1920s — the roaring 20s — and he’d been looking for fame himself. So when we got it, he loved it. We’d be in a restaurant and he’d be checking out the people, and he’d say, “They’ve got you.” I’d be like, “Dad, dad…” He liked it. He liked that I’d achieved what he had tried to achieve. So I think he enjoyed it, which was good.

Zane: Where does it go from here? I mean, you’re always touring, there’s always an opportunity — you’re looking for places to go and play some shows and keep the band moving. We got to experience that. Thank you for that at Apple. That was wonderful.

Paul: That was really great. Because I’d never been to Cupertino. I didn’t know what that was when I got my first iPhone — which Steve Jobs had given me, because we had a bit of a friendship. I didn’t know him too well, but he gave me the iPhone and I kept seeing Cupertino because it was the home base of it. Anyway, to show up there and do the concert for all the tech bros.

Zane: It’s so funny — we’re the most un-tech-bro company in the world. But it’s brilliant.

Paul: You think you are. I played to you. Believe me, you’re tech bros. And it was good. It was a different audience to what we’re used to.

Zane: Yeah, of course. It was really appreciated by everybody in attendance and it was a moment they’ll never forget. For sure.

Paul: Yeah. Tim Cook was very pleased. He showed me around the Donut. It is — yeah, it’s amazing.

Zane: So this album is a beautiful, beautiful body of work. Where are you now, creatively?

Paul: Well, I mean, I’m always at the same place — heading to the future. I’m always listening to music. At the moment because I’m putting this album out, I’m not desperate to write, but I know that once the album’s out, I’ll see a guitar. I am writing stuff, but it’s not — I don’t feel the pressure that I’ve got to make another album. This one will do for a while.

Zane: I mean, there’s a guitar there if you fancy.

Paul: Yeah, one chord is all it takes. That’s strung for the left — left-handed. That’s what happened with Andrew. I said to him, “I wish I could show you something on guitar.” And he said, “Well, I’ve got a guitar.” I said, “No, I’m left-handed.” And being Andrew, he said, “I’ve got a left-handed one.”

Zane: He strung that one left-handed for me today.

Paul: So I said, “Sometimes I just take the weirdest chord — just take any old chord.” And I’d never played this chord before. I still actually don’t know what it’s called. So I said, “There you go, that’s sort of crazy.” And then just change that one note — so it’s like a three-chord sequence. And we were off. Once you got that far, you can’t stop. So we just kept working.

Zane: Can’t wait for you to play your next chord.

Paul: I probably don’t know the next chord. I know certain things, but once you record them, you don’t necessarily retain them. So that’s like the opening to Days We Left Behind. So yeah, we will — I’ll learn how it goes. Listen to it. But that’s fun. I mean, I’m very lucky because I write stuff, and that’s good fun. And when you’ve written something that you like, it’s a great feeling. I record, which can be great — putting all the stuff together. So that’s two areas that I love. And then you go and play it live. So that’s like three different jobs, really, in the one world of music. So I feel very lucky to have those, because if one of them gets a bit boring, you can switch to the other one.

Zane: Brian Eno said something very similar to me in an interview I did with him. Almost identical.

Paul: He’s taking all my lines. This guy.

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