Interview for RAVE Magazine

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Once upon a time there were poor beatles… who became fantastically rich beatles. fabulously famous beatles. big-headed beatles? well, fairy tales are not all phoney. was this one? rave asked longtime beatle friend, dawn james, to find out — and tell you…

There was an electrifying current of excitement running through the audience. Arc lights blazed on sections of them: those standing and screaming and waving. Cruel, harsh lights blazed on to a wide stage below. Newsreel and TV cameras focussed. Distant cries down the street from fans who couldn’t get in echoed the feelings of those who had and were making their presence felt.

The four Beatles bounced on to the stage and a tingle ran down my spine. All the glory and the glamour of pop idolatry centres round these four slight young men. A girl next to me was screaming — a young married couple in front watched spellbound. Someone said, “They make you feel choked with a weird emotion, don’t they?“

I fought back strange tears. Strange, because I had only just left the Beatles when they went on stage. We had talked for over an hour and I know them well. I know they are normal, pleasant, sometimes tired, sometimes cross. They talk of normal things, they sit about on chairs, drinking Coke and cups of tea.

But after an absence, they always strike me again as being just the same as they always were, and it surprises me, because you don’t expect they will be.

One is inclined to gasp and think, “They are normal blokes, they are not big time at all!” And it seems like a minor miracle.

“I am sorry to be so incoherent,” Paul said, “but I am so scared. We haven’t done a live show for ages and, honest, it’s terrifying!“

“Don’t you realise how great you are and you will be fine?” I asked as he smoked rapidly.

“No. Yes. It’s being us that is so difficult. So much is expected.“

John came over, pulled one of his dreadful faces and said the audience were cool. Lots of people trailed in and out of the dressing room. There was no guard on the door and there was no feeling of not being wanted in there.

“We don’t shut ourselves in,” George said. “We like talking to people.“

Still, after so long and so many people? “But George, you amaze me. You are all always the same.“

“That’s a soft remark. We can’t change because we know we aren’t that secure. Every time we get a record released it has to go to No. 1. If it doesn’t, we’ll be slipping. Standards are cruelly high at the top. Hey, do you like our new suits?” George asked, as though it really mattered. They were wearing light beige old-style military jackets, black trousers.

“I look magnificent in mine,” Ringo offered, standing to his full height and thrusting out his chest.

John took a swipe at him.

“The things we laugh at get dafter,” George said thoughtfully. “But so does John, and we usually laugh at him, so it follows.”

“Oh, hell,” said Paul. “We’re on in a minute. They aren’t really a cool audience, are they, John?”

Another fairy tale bites the dust. The Beatles may be raving rich but they are also still the way they started out : sincere, sensitive to success and the people they meet. This is the way the four Boys answered individually five RAVE questions on the subject…

HOW IMPORTANT TO YOU IS IT THAT YOU SHOULD HAVE CHILDREN TO BENEFIT FROM WHAT YOU HAVE ACHIEVED?

GEORGE: It is not at all important to me. I would like to have children because it is nice to be a dad, so I am told, but they wouldn’t really benefit from what I have achieved because I don’t believe in that sort of thing. They will not be given any money by me until they have proved they are people without it.

JOHN: I’ve got a kid. He has benefitted by the place he lives in, I suppose, but that’s all. He won’t give a damn that I have been a Beatle when he grows up, because the impact will have gone by then. It will be like saying Cardinal Wolsey was great—so he’s dead.

PAUL: I want to have kids just because I like kids. I don’t consider what I can hand down. Being a parent with money helps parents because they don’t have to scrape and save, but I am sure the kid doesn’t think about it. If you are born rich or poor it makes no odds, because you don’t know any difference.

RINGO: I am having a kid and I think of it as a kid I will love. What I have achieved doesn’t come into it.

ARE YOU CONCEITED?

GEORGE: I suppose basically we are, but so is everyone. If you go up on stage, you must feel that you have an ability. But you don’t necessarily feel you are the greatest or show what you do feel at all. I can play a guitar well enough to stand up and want to do so, but I wouldn’t dream of going around telling people I am a great guitarist. Conceit really is showing what you might feel a little. I suppose I am more sure of myself than I was before, but I don’t reckon myself too much. No, I’m not really conceited.

JOHN: I am aware of my abilities and my failings. I analyse things too much to be really conceited. Anyone analysing me needs to see a doc., I can tell you.

PAUL: No, I hope I’m not conceited. I think I’m too much of a realist to allow myself to get that way. I know John and I can write quite good songs, but I know a lot of much greater song writers than us. So what have I to get conceited about? There’s always someone more talented and better looking and happier and healthier than me.

RINGO: I’m more conceited than I was, but I’m not so much so that I forget people I’ve known for years, or make scenes in public places, thinking it won’t matter because I am me.

DO YOU STILL HEAR THE APPLAUSE? DOES THE AUDIENCE STILL HAVE SOMETHING TO GIVE YOU?

GEORGE: Oh, yes, we need them. The louder the noise, the better we are. Surely nobody in the entertainment business can be deaf to applause. If they are, they stop entertaining.

JOHN: Stinking row! Who needs it? Excuse me, I’m shaking—just going on stage.

PAUL: I need to hear my audience. Our second and third numbers are always better than our first. I get panic-stricken if there isn’t any noise. I’m shaking now, because I’m going on in a minute.

RINGO: Once you are deaf to your public, you might as well retire because you’ll give them nothing.

WHAT DO YOU RATE THE ENGLISH GROUPS’ SUCCESS IN AMERICA? ARE YOU EVER PROFESSIONALLY JEALOUS?

GEORGE: No. We have a great hold in America, anyway, and we like to see British artists coming up. We’ve never been jealous of anyone.

JOHN: I can do the Freddie dance now. Watch!

PAUL: Good luck to the British groups. We’re all the same blood, aren’t we? I personally am not jealous of anyone, not even when people say a particular group is getting more popular than us—so? No need for jealousy. Just more hard work.

RINGO: I think we opened up the way in America for English artists and it pleases me to see the lads riding high in the charts.

DO YOU ALWAYS EXPECT SUCCESS?

GEORGE: Hope for it, not expect it.

JOHN: No.

PAUL: Never. It comes as a good stimulator.

RINGO: To expect success in pop is madness. We certainly don’t because success for us is ‘more’ than for other groups—like records having to go straight in at No. 1. That’s tough, even for us.