He knows his fellow Beatle’s presence means certain questions get asked when he talks about the record, but Ringo doesn’t mind, or doesn’t appear to, anymore. Of the 10 new songs on his new album, McCartney shows up on two - the rocking opener “We’re on the Road Again” and “Show Me the Way,” a ballad for Ringo’s wife Barbara. Those friends this time around included the usual Ringo suspects - fellow musicians like Peter Frampton, Joe Walsh, Steve Lukather, Richard Page, Stewart and even fellow Beatle Paul McCartney. Corral a load of friends at his home studio and give everybody a chance to write and play. Like when he gets the itch to record a new album? No need to sweat it. Which, of course, when you’re an ex-Beatle, is easy to do. Music, performing, answering the interminable questions about those years of his life everybody wants to know about, whatever it is - the trick is apparently to not take things too seriously. Which is how he approaches most things, really. You know, just sometimes I’m sitting there and I’ll take a picture of something and just put it on! Or some line - I read a line, or I think of something to say and just put it on Twitter and send it out.” Some fun went down … So I point that out. Like, what a great night we had in Houston or Cincinnati or wherever. It started, like, thanking people for coming to the gig. Sometime in the afternoon, when I’ve been up for a while. “Twitter, that’s the one I do myself,” he explains. Whether he’s tweeting a photo of crowd, thanking fans for attending a show, anything at all - random lyrics, distinctive images that caught his attention, Ringo’s tweets are stuffed with emojis and his familiar three-word message. What about his use of Twitter? Since he runs his own account, it’s another opportunity to repeat his mantra. I direct it to the place I want it to be. “What usually happens is - it doesn’t matter what people are doing. I’d like to say I do this, I do that, and we get a song, but it depends on who’s got the line,” Starr says. “I was making this new record this year, and I decided to use that song. Then came the opportunity to play a string of dates last year, so Ringo shelved the Nashville idea. Starr says they tried to knock together a few songs before they arrived “So Wrong for So Long,” which features a warm pedal steel guitar and is set to a relaxed country shuffle, is one of those songs. Talking about that song reminds him how he and Stewart had planned to head to Nashville last summer to do some recording. The best to talk about is ‘So Wrong for So Long.’ Somebody said that to me in 2008, and I just thought, ‘that’s a great line,’ and finally turned it into a record, into a track.” “I usually have a whole list of lines, and then we sort of just think what we’re gonna do. “What usually happens is with the writers I write with, one of us will have a line,” he says. And how does a drummer write a song, anyway? 15 release, the drummer doesn’t pretend to be anything but the reliably uncomplicated showman he’s been since he first started working with his own material. On his 19th solo album Give More Love, set for a Sept. Take, for example, asking him about his songwriting process, the first tentative fruits of which materialized toward the end of The Beatles’ run, when John Lennon and Paul McCartney had already taken their craft to stratospheric musical heights. To his three-word flower-child mantra, the catchphrase that’s as much a part of his persona as his trademark dark shades, two-finger peace salute and performing “With a Little Help From My Friends.” But overall, my general demeanor is peace and love and joy.”Ībout that last part - no matter what the entry point is during a conversation with Ringo, that’s where he inevitably steers things. I promise you this, though - I’m not this happy-go-lucky every day. I’m still doing what was my dream at 13, and that’s playing. Ringo Starr may get old, but as far as he’s concerned, being Ringo never does. Ringo Starr's New Album Has a Little Help From His Friends, Including Paul McCartney
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