RINGO STARR AND ALL STARRS GLAD TO ‘GET BACK’ AND ‘PLAY FOR AN AUDIENCE’ AT CASINO RAMA TONIGHT
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
RAMA — Ringo Starr is getting back to where he’s always belonged.
The legendary Beatles drummer returns to Casino Rama tonight at 9 p.m. for a sold-out show — and a second concert Saturday night — as his All Starr band begins a month-long tour that includes a gig at Massey Hall Sept. 28 with tickets on sale June 3.
“Two-and-half years off” due to COVID “has been a really difficult,” he said at a presser yesterday afternoon at the casino.
“Because I love to play — as you can tell. I put together the All Starrs 32 years ago. And I was in a couple of bands before that,” he said with a laugh.
“And for me that’s what it’s all about — playing and having an audience.
“It’s the first time, really, anyone has had to go through this. And I was so crazy. In 2019 we played a tour — then we were getting ready for a tour in May (2020) and in March it was all gone. I’ve missed four tours” — spring and fall.
“I love to play with great musicians and I have them right here,” Starr said sweeping his hands to both sides of him while motioning to Colin Hay, Steve Lukather, Edgar Winter, Hamish Stewart, Warren Ham and Greg Bissonette. All of them All Starr band mates off-and-on for more than a decade.
During the forced hiatus, which Starr said he hated, he released two EPs, Zoom In and Change The World, (featuring collaborations from the All Starrs). As well he as two books including the limited-edition retrospective hardcover book titled “RINGO ROCKS: 30 YEARS OF THE ALL STARRS 1989-2019.” He also release the limited-edition retrospective “LIFTED: FAB IMAGES AND MEMORIES OF MY LIFE WITH THE BEATLES FROM ACROSS THE UNIVERSE.”
Starr said he’s always painted. “And like I say, like a real person where it’s paint and a brush in your hand.”
But during the pandemic — and as far back as the ’90s — with so much down time on tours in hotels between concerts and gigs he began experimenting with digital art and “someone said you can have your own virtual art gallery.”
And he’s now done that on the metaverse.
“It’s not even there, it’s just on your computer. You’re walking around. How cool is that. And to take that up a step some of them are for sale,” with proceeds going to his Lotus Foundation, which he shares with his wife Barbara Bach, to help those in need.
“So that’s sort of the end of the bus ride. Painting, making EPs and going to the gym, that’s how I survived two-and-a-half years.”
Starr said he’s also been on about 20 other people’s albums while off the road, contributing drum tracks as he exchanges digital files at his studio with other artists who have “different styles and attitudes.
“Overall, musically, I’ve been compensated a lot.”
He remembers being “down” because come tour days “I couldn’t get out.” He still carries a mask.
“That’s what we have to do to help each other.”
Hay said “There’s a lot of different elements to what we do. We try and come up with songs. We write songs. Then we go into the studio and record them. But if you don’t get a chance to go out and play them live, there’s always something really missing. So when you have an audience there’s an energy that happens that creates this circle. And that’s a particular kind of high you can’t get from anything else. So when you don’t have that for a couple of years, you really miss it.”
Winter said “playing live is the lifeblood of what we do. … You give love and they love you right back.”
He said he’d “pretty much not touched his horn” the last three years, except for a tribute album to “my brother Johnny.”
“If it wasn’t for (Starr) I wouldn’t’ be able to be on the road. I’m just so happy to be back and do what I love to do and see everyone out there rockin’ and having a great a time. So get ready to rock and roll.”
For Ham “It’s been like suspended animation. With the way the music industry has changed so much in the last two-and-a-half years, getting out and playing live is one of the main ways that musicians not only connect with the audience, but actually make a living.”
Over the years Starr said now his audiences have become younger: “You see less of me.”
He also said he “loved” last year’s 50-year Get Back retrospective on the Beatles. “I thought Peter Jackson did a great job.
“I was a bit stunned at first. I thought that it would be a two-hour show,” he laughed. “It’s six hours. But easy to watch. Even if you weren’t in the band, it’ an easy documentary to watch. You can watch two hours, have tea, watch another two hours, and have dinner. It was just so great. I’m go good with everything.”
Starr said he “remembered quite a lot” about making the Get Back album.
He said it was unlike other Beatles records in which “we went through the same cycle.” The difference with Get Back was “we had no songs to start with. John (Lennon) and Paul (McCartney) would have a couple of songs to get the ball rolling. But there we didn’t.”
Starr said “the only thing I was gasping and quite desperate for” was watching “to find out how in the early getting it together” they strayed from “straight rock.
“I wanted to know how did I get to that shuffle thing, just playing that snare drum. And I thought — ’cause I had no I idea why I changed to that or what that moment was — I’ll see it on film. But the cameras were off when we did that.”
He said in another original documentary “I’m a bit chatty.
“I didn’t ever like it. It was so narrow. It was on one point of an argument. There was always all these down parts. And I kept saying we were laughing. We were having fun. We played great. And we did all this in a month.”
Starr said if he could, in earlier era, he’d liked to have revisited with a camera his first group with Eddy Clayton.
He said the Beatles also once tried to track down footage of them on stage in their early days, but couldn’t find much.
Now he said at concerts “everyone’s got their cameras up in front of them” recording every song.
“Sir Ringo” told MuskokaTODAY.com he’d like to see more clubs — like the Empress pub in his Liverpool hometown, which has his face on a mural two storeys high on an outer wall for all his fans and old friends to see — offer more opportunities for upcoming bands to play before a live audience.
And just with a new doctorate from Berklee University in Boston, Dr. Starr told us how he agrees schools should offer more courses on rock music and how he continues to offer drummers tips on sticks.
“I’ve did a master class. And it said everything I feel about it. Just play is my advice. I tell people, all new drummers, if you can’t just do this (keep the beat) play piano. And if you do start playing, call up your pals and play with them. Play in the kitchen, play in the garage. That’s all I ever say. And if you love it, like I did, just get on with it.
“You go to Berklee and I can’t read — but he can,” he said pointing to others in the band. “I can’t read music, it’s always a jam for me. You just got to learn the basics of the instrument. And I believe make it yours like Edgar who makes every instrument his. He plays them all.”
Starr said he continues to be inspired to play.
“I was inspired at 13, and that has never left me — the dream and the joy. It’s still there. I love to play.
“My mother had this great line …. She said ‘You know what, son? I always feel like you’re happiest when you’re playing.’ And deep inside I am.”
The rock star, who started playing in pubs and in church basements at weddings, said: “It’s very difficult for bands to start now, because most of the venues have gone, you know, the clubs and whatever. It’s hard.
“Dave Stewart (English musician) and I had a dream a while back, several years ago. We had written a movie script and we wanted all the proceeds … we were just going to buy clubs in any towns anywhere so kids would have a chance to get up on a stage and have an audience love them or boo them or whatever. But you gotta get that.”
Starr also had a few choice words for the top acts still performing.
“I’m also disgusted with the big bands that make the opening band pay to play. Where’s the help. There’s no help. They’re making plenty. They could help. Let somebody come on. Anyway, don’t get me started.”
On the Beatles, which Starr in recent years has begun to talk more openly about after shying away from “that other band,” he said the break up of the Fab Four was inevitable despite how “well we played together and got on with each other.”
“We made great records …. That’s just how it was.
“It came to a point eight years later — that just blows me away what we did in those eight years — it was time to leave.
“I do believe though if John, God rest his soul, were still with us. He’d be like Paul, he’s on the road, I’m on the road, he’d be on the road. Whether we’d all be together, I don’t know. And George, too. That’s where we came from — clubs and pubs.
“I think the playing is important and (for) that band (that) was the best move.”
“The Beatles ruled,” said Lukather. “It just blows my mind that I’m here.”
Said Hay: “I think (the Beatles were) blueprint for everything that came after. There’s been a lot of incredible musicians and bands. But there was just something about the Beatles. There was the Beatles and then there was everybody else.”
Starr says making music is all he’s ever wanted to do.
“I think I was inspired at 13. And that has never left me. The dream and the joy. And then I started playing. I only ever wanted to be drummer from 13. And then I got a kit of drums and I was in a couple of really good bands.
“It’s still there. I love to play.”
He said “My mother had this great line, we were in all these Liverpool bands down home. She said ‘You know son, you’re only happiest when your playing.’ And deep inside I am. I just love it. And I’m still drumming.
“And to play with these guys — the other guys, too — it’s just great. The continuation is great.
“People say ‘What about retirement?’ I’m a musician, I don’t have to retire,” said the 81-year-old octogenarian. “As long as I can pick up those sticks I’ve got a gig. That’s how it is. I just love it. And I think that’s just how it is, we’re all players.”
Said Winter: “You’ll never hear me doing a farewell tour. I’m going down kicking and screaming.”
“I think we’re all really glad we’re doing it again,” said Starr.
“I think you got that message. That’s what we do,” he said summing up before he and the All Starrs all flashed Starr’s trademark “peace and love” sign as the band walked off stage.
To hear the press conference, click on the link here.
EMAIL: news@muskokatoday.com
28 years of ‘Local Online Journalism’
Twitter: @muskokatoday, Facebook: mclairmont1
Leave comments at end of story
SUBSCRIBE for $25 by e-transferring to news@muskokatoday.com
Or go online to https://muskokatoday.com/subscriptions
