Where do you want to go?
- The
BeatlesWashington, DC, February 11, 1964
- New
York, February 12, 1964
- Blokker,
The Netherlands, June 6, 1964
- Adelaide,
Australia, June 12, 1964
- Melbourne,
June 15, 1964
- San
Francisco, August 19, 1964
- GEORGE
MARTIN INTERVIEW
- JOHN
LENNON INTERVIEW
- Playboy
Interview: John Lennon and Yoko Ono
QUESTION: George, tell us about that first audition when the
Beatles came down from Liverpool and you met with them...was that in '61
or '62?
GEORGE MARTIN: '62. In about January. I met Brian Epstein and he
was tryin' to get the Beatles off the ground and get some record label
together. I didn't know then that he'd actually been to every record label
in the country, including EMI--my own company--but he hadn't seen the
little company, Parlaphone, which I ran. He'd been turned down by
everybody and was a desperate man, so he tried to joke on the fact he'd
been told about me 'cause I made comedy records. When the Beatles heard
about it, they kind of groaned, but then they perked their ears up a bit
when they had learned I'd made records of Peter Sellers. They were great
fan of his. Anyways, to cut a long story short, when I heard what Brian
had to offer on tape, it wasn't very good. In fact, it was awful. But I
said, I really wanted to find out more about them...there was something
about them that I wanted to investigate. I said, "The only way I can
really check 'em is to see them. Bring them down to the studio. Bring them
to London and I'll spend some time with them." So, they came down
later, a couple of months later, and I spent an evening, afternoon, and
evening with them in Abbey Roads Studios. I fell in love with them. I
thought they were wonderful people. I mean, they showed no signs of being
great song writers. The best they could offer me were pretty ordinary
songs. I thought. "Love Me Do" was the best. "P.S., I Love
You" was another one. "One After 909." They weren't great
songs, but they had tremendous charisma. They had great sense of fun and
you could tell they had star quality, you know, whether they were rock 'n'
roll artists, or actors, or politicians, they would've made it. They just
had that special something.
QUESTION: It was an interesting mix. Here were these rough, hewn
guys from Liverpool and you running a for EMI. What was it like in the
beginning? Did you get out from the very start, or was it a rather tenuous
period, or were they nervous around you?
GEORGE MARTIN: Oh, we hit it off, right away. I guess to them I was
a fairly important person, that and the fact that I'd actually made hit
records that they loved. They were prepared to like me. They were cheeky
devils. The only one who wasn't at that time, of course, was the guy who
left, which was Pete Best. He was very quiet, sat in the back and didn't
say much, and was replaced later on by Ringo, but he was part of the group
when I originally saw them.
QUESTION: I've read that Brian didn't feel Pete fit in well and
that you were the final straw that really ended it for Pete...that you
thought Ringo was a better drummer, or that Pete wasn't good enough. What
is the real story about how that all happened?
GEORGE MARTIN: Well, after that first test, I decided that the
drums, which are really the backbone of a good rock group, didn't give the
boys enough support. They needed a good solid beat and I said to Brian,
"Look, it doesn't matter what you do with the boys, but on record,
nobody need know. I'm gonna use a hot drummer," and I used the guy
who was the best session drummer of the period. Brian said, "Okay,
fine." Now it was pretty tough for him and I felt guilty because I
felt maybe, I was the catalyst that had changed his life, so I'm sorry
about that, Pete.
QUESTION: Is there anything you did to help spur their great song
writing? We saw this massive evolution in a very few years?
GEORGE MARTIN: They were geniuses. There's no doubt about that.
But, the curious thing is they weren't to begin with. I mean, they just
blossomed like an orchid in a hot house. They suddenly, once they had
their first success, they realized they had a way of writing songs that
would appeal to the public, and I would say, "That's marvelous,
that's great. Go and do another one like that, or better, or different,
give me something more." And they did.
QUESTION: Tell us a little bit about "Sergeant Pepper."
It stands today as probably, in many peoples' minds, the apex of the
Beatles work. How did it happen that this concept album, the first of its
kind, come together?
GEORGE MARTIN: Pepper wasn't really a concept album because if you
look at all the songs, they don't really have a great deal of connection
with each other. We made it appear whole by editing it closely and by
tying it up with the idea that the band, themselves, were another band.
Another alter ego if you like, that they were Pepper and that Billy Sheers
was Ringo, whatever, and we were giving a performance. To heighten that
effect, I used sound effects of audiences and laughter and so on, which
gave the impression it was a show but in truth, the songs didn't have a
great deal to do with each other. But they did have this element in
common, that it was the first record that we were able to really spend
time over. For the first time, we didn't have the Beatles coming into the
studio, "You've got two days with them, at the most. Make the best of
it, 'cause they're on tour," in Hamburg or San Francisco, or
wherever. It wasn't a rush, rush, rush. It always had been up to that time
and the Beatles had got very fed up with the pace of their lives. So this
was the first time they were able to relax and say, "Hey, we can do
what we want to do," and although life was very hard on them,
suddenly, they were able to spend the time in the studios that they really
wanted to spend.
QUESTION: Brian Wilson told us how proud he was that "Pet
Sounds" was Paul's favorite album. What impact did a song, let's say,
like "Good Vibrations," or "Pet Sounds" have?
GEORGE MARTIN: I think "Pet Sounds" was one of the most
influential albums we'd heard. It was a wonderful album, and we admired
everything about it. Everything that the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson did
seemed to be thoughtless. You know, "Good Vibrations" was one
from the combination of voices. A song like "God Only Knows"
was, I think, marvelous stuff, and I know that Paul and the others admired
it too. They wanted to be able to write music as good as that or better
than that. It was their yardstick. It was a competitive thing. And I
learned later that Brian felt that what we were doing was a competitive
thing, too. So, it was jolly good.
QUESTION: Talking about other influences, was Bob Dylan an
influence on the Beatles, and if so, in what way?
GEORGE MARTIN: I think Bob Dylan was an influence more on John,
than anybody. I've just been working with Bob Dylan and I said, "You
know, John admired what you did enormously and you were a tremendous
influence on him." He said, "Oh, so people tell me." But, I
think that similarly, Dylan Thomas, the Welsh author, was a great
influence on Bob Dylan, and I think that the kind of words that Dylan
Thomas would construct came down through Bob Dylan into John Lennon. But
I'm sure John Lennon, in turn, has influenced other people.
QUESTION: Were the Beatles influenced at all by the American
contemporary artists who preceded them, for example, the artists of
Motown, Smokey Robinson, The Miracles, The Temptations, the Phil Specter
Sound, or some of the other things that were coming out of America in the
early 60s?
GEORGE MARTIN: I think one of the things that motivated the boys in
the very early days was the American rock 'n' roll of the '50s that they'd
heard. Liverpool was a kind of place where, I guess they heard things
before we did in London. Not just because it was a sea port, but because
there was an American Air Force base there, and Liverpool people would
meet up with American serving men who would bring in all the latest
records. The Beatles became quite experts on obscure records we'd heard
of, and they were mostly Motown or black rock 'n' roll, the early Coffin
and King numbers. Those kind of things. The real building stuff and of
course, it was very, very good stuff. You only had to listen to the first
album we made together to realize how influential that was.
QUESTION: What about the turning point in 1966? The whole furor in
America, the Maureen Cleve article and the Christ comment John made. What
impact did that have on the group? How did it affect their lives
individually, or the group as a whole?
GEORGE MARTIN: Pressure was coming from all sources. There were
death threats. They were man handled in the Philippines by an unruly
crowd, they were virtually booed out of the Philippines because they
didn't turn up at a reception for the President's wife. But nobody else
knew that George Harrison was in fear of his life 'cause he actually had
some poison pen letters saying, "You'll die in the next five
days," and the assassination of Kennedy wasn't so far away. It was
pretty hair raising stuff. That together with the mass adulation wherever
they went. They couldn't escape. That made them want to retreat and of
course, they didn't have any lives of their own either. It's all very well
to have this great deal of fame, but when you can't escape it and you're
always with three other guys, you want to say, "Hey, wait a minute.
Where's the girlfriend? Where's my children? What kind of family life is
this?" It doesn't exist.
QUESTION: Do you think the Christ comment was a factor in the
balance between John and Paul at all? Yoko had thought it was.
GEORGE MARTIN: I think John's remark about Jesus Christ, obviously,
was a stupid thing to do. I don't think he meant it the way it was
interpreted. He didn't mean to say, "Hey, we're bigger than
Jesus." What he meant to say was, "Jesus, or rather
Christianity, didn't seem to be as popular as the Beatles," and that
was true. I mean, it's still true today. Unfortunately, not enough people
go to church in this country. Christianity is at a pretty low ebb. In
Ireland, where I used to have a studio, about 95 percent of the people go
to church. They're very, very religious people and I think it's a good
thing. I think religion, if it's approached properly, has a humanizing
effect on people.
QUESTION: How do you view that last year or two, '69 and '70? Even
though there was great music coming out, there was this turn in terms of
the individuals.
GEORGE MARTIN: Once Brian Epstein died, things changed quite a bit
and the Beatles tended to go off in their own directions. "The White
Album" is a result of that. They brought me a whole host of songs,
all of which they wanted to record, and that was really, what happened
with "The White Album." It was a marvelous album, but it was up
and down. There were some great ones, and there were some not so great
ones. "Let It Be" was probably the most miserable time anybody
ever had between us and the Beatles. Between the Beatles themselves. They
didn't like each other very much and it was an unsatisfactory album from
the point of view of collaboration. Everyone was pulling apart and no one
was really organized. Some great songs, but not the best of albums and I
thought it was the end. I was quite surprised when Paul rang up and said,
"We'd like to come back and really produce an album," which was
eventually called "Abbey Road."
That was my favorite album to be honest. I think it's a great album and we
knew it was the end. It was a coming together for the last time.
Are you the Beatles?
No. I'm not the Beatles. I'm me. Paul
isn't the Beatles. Brian Epstein wasn't the Beatles, neither is Dick James
[Beatles' music publisher]. The Beatles are the Beatles. Separately, they
are separate. George was a separate, individual singer with his own group
as well, before he came in with us. Nobody is the Beatles. How could they
be? We all had our roles to play.
Let's reapproach that. The Beatles
were always talked about - and the Beatles talked about themselves - as
being four parts of the same person. What's happened to those four parts?
They remembered that they were four
individuals. You see, we believed the Beatles myth, too. I don't know
whether the others still believe it. We were four guys. . . . I met Paul
and said, ``You want to join me band?'' Then George joined, and then Ringo
joined. We were just a band that made it very, very big, that's all. Our
best work was never recorded.
Why?
Because we were performers - in spite of
what Mick [Jagger] says about us - in Liverpool, Hamburg and other dance
halls. What we generated was fantastic when we played straight rock, and
there was nobody to touch us in Britain. As soon as we made it, we made
it, but the edges were knocked off. You know, Brian put us in suits and
all that, and we made it very, very big. But we sold out, you know. The
music was dead before we even went on the theater tour of Britain. We were
feeling shit already, because we had to reduce an hour or two hours'
playing, which we were glad about in one way, to twenty minutes, and we
would go on and repeat the same twenty minutes every night. The Beatles'
music died then, as musicians. That's why we never improved as musicians;
we killed ourselves then to make it. And that was the end of it.
I would like to ask a question about
Paul and go through that. When we went and saw `Let It Be' in San
Francisco, what was your feeling?
I felt sad, you know. Also, I felt . . .
that film was set up by Paul for Paul. That is one of the main reasons the
Beatles ended. I can't speak for George, but I pretty damn well know we
got fed up of being sidemen for Paul. After Brian died, that's what
happened, that's what began to happen to us. The camera work was set up to
show Paul and not anybody else. And that's how I felt about it.
How would you trace the breakup of the
Beatles?
After Brian died, we collapsed. Paul took
over and supposedly led us. But what is leading us, when we went round in
circles? We broke up then. That was the disintegration.
When did you first feel that the
Beatles had broken up? When did that idea first hit you?
I don't remember, you know. I was in my
own pain. I wasn't noticing really. I just did it like a job.
What was your feeling when Brian died?
The feeling that anybody has when
somebody close to them dies. There is a sort of little hysterical, sort of
hee, hee, I'm glad it's not me or something in it, the funny feeling when
somebody close to you dies. I don't know whether you've had it, but I've
had a lot of people die around me. And the other feeling is: ``What the
fuck? What can I do?'' I knew that we were in trouble then. I didn't
really have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than
play music, and I was scared. I thought, ``We've fuckin' had it.''
When did your songwriting partnership
with Paul end?
That ended . . . I don't know, around
1962 or something, I don't know. If you give me the albums, I can tell you
exactly who wrote what and which line. We sometimes wrote together. All
our best work - apart from the early days, like ``I Want to Hold Your
Hand'' - we wrote apart always. ``One After 909,'' on Let It Be, I wrote
when I was seventeen or eighteen. We always wrote separately, but we wrote
together because we enjoyed it a lot sometimes, and also because they
would say, ``Well, you're going to make an album; get together and knock
off a few songs'' just like a job.
How would you characterize George's,
Paul's and Ringo's reaction to Yoko?
It's the same. You can quote Paul, it's
probably in the papers; he said it many times that at first he hated Yoko,
and then he got to like her. But it's too late for me. I'm for Yoko. Why
should she take that kind of shit from those people? They were writing
about her looking miserable in the film Let It Be, but you sit through
sixty sessions with the most bigheaded, uptight people on earth and see
what it's fuckin' like and be insulted. And George, shit, insulted her
right to her face in the Apple office at the beginning, just being
``straightforward,'' you know, that game of ``I'm going to be upfront,
because this is what we've heard,'' and Dylan and a few people said she'd
got a lousy name in New York. That's what George said to her! And we both
sat through it. I didn't hit him; I don't know why. Ringo was all right,
but the other two really gave it to us. I'll never forgive them, I don't
care what fuckin' shit about Hare Krishna and God and Paul with his
``Well, I've changed me mind.'' I can't forgive 'em for that, really.
Although I can't help still loving them either.
What do you think of the Stones today?
I think it's a lot of hype. I like
``Honky Tonk Women,'' but I think Mick's a joke with all that fag dancing;
I always did. I enjoy it; I'll probably go and see his films and all like
everybody else, but really, I think it's a joke.
Do you see him much now?
No, I never do see him. We saw a bit of
each other when Allen [Klein, Beatles' late-period manager] was first
coming in - I think Mick got jealous. I was always very respectful of Mick
and the Stones, but he said a lot of sort of tarty things about the
Beatles, which I am hurt by because, you know, I can knock the Beatles,
but don't let Mick Jagger knock them. I would like to just list what we
did and what the Stones did two months after on every fuckin' album. Every
fuckin' thing we did, Mick does exactly the same - he imitates us. And I
would like one of you fuckin' underground people to point it out. You
know, Satanic Majesties is Pepper; ``We Love You,'' it's the most fuckin'
bullshit, that's ``All You Need Is Love.'' I resent the implication that
the Stones are like revolutionaries and that the Beatles weren't. If the
Stones were or are, the Beatles really were, too. But they are not in the
same class, musicwise or powerwise, never were. I never said anything, I
always admired them, because I like their funky music, and I like their
style. I like rock & roll and the direction they took after they got
over trying to imitate us. He's obviously so upset by how big the Beatles
are compared with him, he never got over it. Now he's in his old age, and
he is beginning to knock us, you know, and he keeps knocking. I resent it,
because even his second fuckin' record, we wrote it for him. Mick said,
``Peace made money.'' We didn't make any money from peace.
Do you think you're a genius?
Yes, if there is such a thing as one, I
am one. When did you realize that what you were doing transcended --
People like me are aware of their so-called genius at ten, eight, nine. .
. . I always wondered, ``Why has nobody discovered me?'' In school, didn't
they see that I'm cleverer than anybody in this school? That the teachers
are stupid, too? That all they had was information that I didn't need? I
got fuckin' lost in being at high school. I used to say to me auntie,
``You throw my fuckin' poetry out, and you'll regret it when I'm famous,
'' and she threw the bastard stuff out. I never forgave her for not
treating me like a fuckin' genius or whatever I was, when I was a child.
It was obvious to me. Why didn't they put me in art school? Why didn't
they train me? Why would they keep forcing me to be a fuckin' cowboy like
the rest of them? I was different, I was always different. Why didn't
anybody notice me? A couple of teachers would notice me, encourage me to
be something or other, to draw or to paint - express myself. But most of
the time they were trying to beat me into being a fuckin' dentist or a
teacher. And then the fuckin' fans tried to beat me into being a fuckin'
Beatle or an Engelbert Humperdinck, and the critics tried to beat me into
being Paul McCartney.
How did you first get involved in LSD?
A dentist in London laid it on George, me
and the wives, without telling us, at a dinner party at his house. He was
a friend of George's and our dentist at the time, and he just put it in
our coffee or something.
When you came down, what did you
think?
I was pretty stoned for a month or two.
The second time we had it was in L.A. We were on tour in one of those
houses, Doris Day's house or wherever it was we used to stay, and the
three of us took it, Ringo, George and I. Maybe Neil [Aspinall] and a
couple of the Byrds - what's his name, the one in the Stills and Nash
thing? - Crosby and the other guy who used to do the lead. McGuinn. I
think they came, I'm not sure, on a few trips. Peter Fonda came, and that
was another thing. He kept saying [in a whisper], ``I know what it's like
to be dead.'' It was a sad song, an acidy song, I suppose. ``When I was a
little boy'' . . . you see, a lot of early childhood was coming out,
anyway. So LSD started for you in 1964. How long did it go on?
It went on for years, I must have had a
thousand trips. Literally a thousand, or a couple of hundred? A thousand -
I used to just eat it all the time.
The other Beatles didn't get into LSD
as much as you did?
George did. In L.A. the second time we
took it, Paul felt very out of it because we are all a bit slightly cruel,
sort of ``we're taking it, and you're not.'' But we kept seeing him, you
know. We couldn't eat our food; I just couldn't manage it, just picking it
up with our hands. There were all these people serving us in the house,
and we were knocking food on the floor and all of that. It was a long time
before Paul took it. I think George was pretty heavy on it; we are
probably the most cracked. Paul is a bit more stable than George and I.
And straight?
I don't know about straight. Stable. I
think LSD profoundly shocked him and Ringo. I think maybe they regret it.
Did you have many bad trips?
I had many. Jesus Christ, I stopped
taking it because of that. I just couldn't stand it.
You got too afraid to take it?
It got like that, but then I stopped it
for I don't know how long, and then I started taking it again just before
I met Yoko. I got the message that I should destroy my ego, and I did, you
know. I was slowly putting myself together round about Maharishi time. Bit
by bit over a two-year period, I had destroyed me ego. I didn't believe I
could do anything. I just was nothing. I was shit. Then Derek [Taylor,
Apple press officer] tripped me out at his house after he got back from
L.A. He sort of said, ``You're all right,'' and pointed out which songs I
had written: ``You wrote this,'' and ``You said this,'' and ``You are
intelligent, don't be frightened.'' The next week I went to Derek's with
Yoko, and we tripped again, and she made me realize that I was me and that
it's all right. That was it; I started fighting again, being a loudmouth
again and saying, ``I can do this. Fuck it. This is what I want,'' you
know. ``I want it, and don't put me down.'' I did this, so that's where I
am now. At some point, right between `Help!' and `Hard Day's Night,' you
got into drugs and got into doing drug songs. A Hard Day's Night, I was on
pills. That's drugs, that's bigger drugs than pot. I started on pills when
I was fifteen, no, since I was seventeen, since I became a musician. The
only way to survive in Hamburg to play eight hours a night, was to take
pills. The waiters gave you them - the pills and drink. I was a fucking
dropped-down drunk in art school. Help! was where we turned on to pot, and
we dropped drink, simple as that. I've always needed a drug to survive.
The others, too, but I always had more, more pills, more of everything
because I'm more crazy probably.
How do you think LSD affected your
conception of the music? In general?
It was only another mirror. It wasn't a
miracle. It was more of a visual thing and a therapy, looking at yourself
a bit. It did all that. You know, I don't quite remember. But it didn't
write the music. I write the music in the circumstances in which I'm in,
whether it's on acid or in the water.
What was your experience with heroin?
It just was not too much fun. I never
injected it or anything. We sniffed a little when we were in real pain. We
got such a hard time from everyone, and I've had so much thrown at me and
at Yoko, especially at Yoko. We took H because of what the Beatles and
others were doing to us. But we got out of it.
I read a little interview with you,
done when you went to the Rock & Roll Revival over a year ago in
Toronto. You said you were throwing up before you went onstage.
Yes. I just threw up for hours until I
went on.
Would you still be that nervous if you
appeared in public?
Always that nervous, but what with one
thing and another, it just had to come out some way. I don't think I'll do
much appearing, it's not worth the strain; I don't want to perform too
much for people.
What are your personal tastes?
Sounds like ``Wop Bop A Loo Bop.'' I like
rock & roll; I don't like much else.
Why rock & roll?
That's the music that inspired me to play
music. There is nothing conceptually better than rock & roll. No
group, be it Beatles, Dylan or Stones, have ever improved on ``Whole Lot
of Shaking,'' for my money. Or maybe I'm like our parents: That's my
period, and I dig it, and I'll never leave it.
What do you think rock & roll will
become in the future?
Whatever we make it. If we want to go
bullshitting off into intellectualism with rock & roll, then we are
going to get bullshitting rock intellectualism. If we want real rock &
roll, it's up to all of us to create it and stop being hyped by the
revolutionary image and long hair. We've got to get over that bit. That's
what cutting hair is about. Let's own up now and see who's who, who is
doing something about what, and who is making music, and who is laying
down bullshit. Rock & roll will be whatever we make it.
Why do you think it means so much to
people?
Because the best stuff is primitive
enough and has no bullshit. It gets through to you; it got through to me,
the only thing to get through to me of all the things that were happening
when I was fifteen. Rock & roll then was real; everything else was
unreal. The thing about rock & roll, good rock & roll - whatever
good means and all that shit - is that it's real, and realism gets through
to you despite yourself. You recognize something in it which is true, like
all true art. Whatever art is, readers. Okay. If it's real, it's simple
usually, and if it's simple, it's true. Something like that.
How do you rate yourself as a
guitarist?
Well, it depends on what kind of
guitarist. I'm okay; I'm not technically good, but I can make it fucking
howl and move. I was rhythm guitarist. It's an important job. I can make a
band drive.
How do you rate George?
He's pretty good [laughs]. I prefer
myself. I have to be honest, you know. I'm really very embarrassed about
my guitar playing, in one way, because it's very poor; I can never move,
but I can make a guitar speak. I think there's a guy called Ritchie
Valens, no, Richie Havens. Does he play very strange guitar? He's a black
guy that was in a concert and sang ``Strawberry Fields'' or something. He
plays, like, one chord all the time. He plays a pretty funky guitar. But
he doesn't seem to be able to play in the real terms at all. I'm like
that. Yoko has made me feel cocky about my guitar. You see, one part of me
says, ``Yes, of course I can play,'' because I can make a rock move, you
know? But the other part of me says, ``Well, I wish I could just do like
B.B. King.'' If you would put me with B.B. King, I would feel real silly.
I'm an artist, and if you give me a tuba, I'll bring you something out of
it.
You're going back to London. What's a
rough picture of your immediate future, say, the next three months?
I'd like to just vanish just a bit. It
wore me out, New York. I love it. I'm just sort of fascinated by it, like
a fucking monster.
Do you have a rough picture of the
next few years?
Oh no, I couldn't think of the next few
years; it's abysmal thinking of how many years there are to go, millions
of them. I just play it by the week. I don't think much ahead of a week.
Do you have a picture of ``when I'm
sixty-four''?
No, no. I hope we're a nice old couple
living off the coast of Ireland or something like that - looking at our
scrapbook of madness.
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