I'd Rather Be an Ex=Beatle than an Ex-Nazi (George Interview 1975)

 

I'd Rather Be an Ex-Beatle Than an Ex-Nazi

By Ray Coleman

Melody Maker

September 6, 1975

Copied from the Sept/Oct 1975 issue of the Harrison Alliance

    George Harrison went to see the celebrated play John Paul George Ringo...and Bert in London last week. He left the theater at the interval. He could not stand the pain of seeing himself in the Beatle years being recanted so uncannily, and he questioned the fundamental need for the show. 

    The first ex-Beatle to view the play had been persuaded to go by his close friend Derek Taylor. "George found it hard work to watch, and I found it hard work sitting with him," Taylor said. "It was a genuine form of suffering for him."

     It was hardly surprising that George didn't enjoy it. After all, he was hardly in love with the story while it was happening.

    "All things must pass," wrote George Harrison as his epitaph to end that era, but the statement was too naive by half. Maybe that's how George wanted it at the time, but the spectre of The Beatles, which is how he viewed it, just won't go away. Some things not only fall to pass, but will stand forever, monuments to an important landmark which shaped the future. 

    The Beatles were like that. Even now, 12 years after they changed the world, there's still something extra special to be studied by today's youth, as well as remembered by the 30-pluses. Primarily because they came through as a force which stood for something, as opposed to product, which has been dished up for too long by the music industry, desperate to maintain that impetus. And with the recent trends toward nostalgia and reevaluation of pop's past glories, their breakthrough and their history show little sign of being forgotten. 

    It wasn't too much exactly what they achieved which brought them fame, although God only knows that was enough. It was a period in which they came upon us which allowed them to make such an impact. Consider this: when the Beatles arrived, Tamla Motown was virtually unheard of by the public. The Animals were making quite a stir with the first four-minute single. Bob Dylan was struggling through Greenwich Village. Cliff Richard was Britain's top solo singer, playing clean, wholesome, sad, religious, and Helen Shapiro was the nearest we got to a homegrown singer with funk. 

    The Beatles changed all that. It was as much through the chemistry of their four personalities as their music. The records were excellent, certainly, but the collective personalities of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr were especially electric. We'll wait forever for a parallel. And they have remained among the heaviest names in popular music since the Beatles split in 1966, with the final concert at San Francisco's Cow Palace.

     George was never an enthusiastic Beatle. He rated himself a musician first and a pop star last. He disliked the screaming of fans and resented their intrusion into his privacy. He was the first to get a house with electrically operated gates to keep out fans. He was always more concerned with stepping ahead in style and quality on the next album than he was with reaching number one in the charts with the new single.

     While handsome Paul had the unfailing commercial ear and whiplash John, the knife-edged wit and classic combination, which cinched the group's success -- brooding George was repeatedly grumbling that their music should be more adventurous, that they should spend more time in the studio, that fans, however young, shouldn't he made to follow their lead.

    Though he openly expressed disenchantment with autograph signing and all that was entailed by being a quarter of the biggest attraction in the world, he was regularly rumored to be on the verge of quitting the Beatles.

    Partly because of these rumors, partly because of the natural tension of such a massive set, but mainly because he trusts few people anyway, George became a recluse when the Beatles and Apple finally dissolved into separate components. John, Paul, and Ringo made their exorcising speeches, but George went into hibernation. His only contact with the world outside of his Henley-on-Thames mansion was among musicians. 

    He's been a mighty long time coming out of his shell, but now at last, George is ready to become more outward. Also. He works cynically. The Beatles split in 1966. In New York's Madison Square Garden in 1971, George was able to use his long established personal credibility as a musician, rather than as an ex-Beatle, to stage the magnificent Bangla Desh charity concert, wrenching a denim clad Bob Dylan out of hiding and assembling Eric Clapton, Ravi Shankar and many, many more. That was a remarkable act of faith in George by musicians and one of rock's finest events.

     Today, about five years on, and George is stepping out again, a new album, a nervous readiness to plan a tour, a general interest in things wider than his traditional favorite of Indian music and culture. Above all, a willingness to contemplate the past with the Beatles and since, and to place it in context. George Harrison is backed intact.

     This summer afternoon, he's sitting in a Chelsea room in his recording company headquarters, Dark Horse, mild-mannered and drinking one glass of beer. 

    "How's he looking now,?" People have asked me since the interview, as if I'd been to view something they'd ceased to believe existed. They're either expecting him to have faded away -- in itself, a commentary on his seclusion from any media during the past few years -- or to have become so obsessed about things Indian that Westerners no longer have any point of contact. Well, George Harrison, mid-75 version is slimmer than I've ever seen him, but then I've never seen a stout vegetarian. ( "I won't allow meat in my house, he says.) His complexion is sallow, he wears small earrings, a la early Keith Richards. He appears laconic, relaxed, and even poses for pictures -- something I've never seen him do in 12 years of Beatling.

     He'd not long returned from Los Angeles, where he's seen Bob Marley and the Wailers three times at the Roxy theater. "Best thing I've seen in 10 years. Marley reminds me so much of Dylan in the early days, playing guitar as if he's so new to it. And his rhythm, you know, it's just so simple, yet so beautiful. I could watch the Wailers all night."  In Los Angeles, George had also seen the Stones and Carlos Santana, and had been to shows with Ringo; earlier this year he'd seen plenty of John in the same city. He also had attended Paul McCartney's star-packed party aboard the Queen Mary. So relations between the four were fine he avowed.

     "After all we went through it all together, and we were all very young when the Beatles happened, but we still got plenty in common, even though we're different people -- naturally, we're about 10 years older!"

     George enjoyed American trips. "California unwinds me to the point where I can get things I'm thinking of into perspective, while New York, well, some of my best songs were written there. It's great in that it gives you 360-degree vision, New York, 

    The New Harrison album, Extra Texture (Read All About It) -- out next week-- is historic because it marks the end of Apple as a label. The album comes out under the banner Apple/ Capitol/ EMI, and Harrison feels a twinge of sentiment about the winding up of Apple as a recording force.

    "Our incidental and perhaps sentimental point for us is that it looks like it could be the last Apple record forever, unless somebody else forms a company called Apple," he said. "Paul's already done a deal for his future, which put him on Capitol for the world. Good luck, Paul. It doesn't look like Ringo or John will be doing another album this year. So I look like being the last one on Apple. Funny, the first Apple record was the music from Wonderwall, which I wrote -- quite a coincidence."

Regrets, he'd had a few:

     "Yeah, I feel a bit of sentiment about it, because Apple did a few good things. You know, we were always bugged by business, though, right from the start. And business, as opposed to the artistic side, is always a problem for everybody. 

    Me, I  was never really interested in Apple shops or anything else. During the whole Apple period, I was always mainly interested in working in the studio, recording. John, Paul, and Ringo would have some great ideas, but at that time, I couldn't be bothered to follow through. I suppose my attitude didn't help. 

    "The business became an incredible headache. Everything that could go wrong for us with Apple went wrong, and yet it was a great boon for some people -- the Badfingers and the Billy Prestons of the world. It was crazy in the end, Apple, but it did give some good people an outlet. That's why I'm here now with Dark Horse Records. Apple didn't shake my faith that much. Good musicians are worth encouraging."

     George, for all his denials of interest, has a fairly shrewd business brain and was by far the most money-conscious Beatle, often quizzing Brian Epstein about where the cash was going. 

     Will Dark Horse then learn from Apple's disaster areas and become a thriving, long, life company? "Oh, yeah, definitely. There's still areas of business I can't be bothered with, and there's no way I could get bothered with some aspects of running the company without losing sight of what I was originally supposed to be-- a musician. All four Beatles were diverted from being musicians for such a long time through all the business problems of Apple, but now what all four of us are doing independently has gained from those experiences. 

    "We all make mistakes. Apple was a very big one, perhaps, but that's what life's all about. You learn from your experiences."

     So what's the fundamental aim of Dark Horse -- to champion new talent as well as make money? "Yes", he says quickly. "That's what all record companies are about. New talent is the strength of any label." But he was quick to add that John and Paul's New York Press Conference in 1968, launching Apple and saying 'The door was open for all new worthwhile talent', had catastrophic results. He wanted to stress that while Dark Horse was looking for talent, its attitude wasn't so philanthropic as Apple had been. 

    "Remember, the basic thought behind Apple in those days was that we resented marvelous musicians or singers having to go to the very big established record companies and go down on their knees. That's what we, the Beatles, had to do with EMI, and so we said the first thing we'd do when we got a bit of money would be to try to beat this part of the system at least, So many really good musicians had told us they couldn't get a break making any records, and it got us furious.  But our open-door policy proved impossible to run. We were flooded with every person imaginable who could play an instrument or sing a note! We had to clamp down on that because Apple just became a lunatic asylum.

"So Dark Horse will be run pretty tightly.  I don't want to be a Kinney or an RCA or anything like that. I don't have 1000s of artists. In one way, it's similar to the ideas behind Apple in that most artists we've got at the moment have come into my life without me looking for them. That's the funny thing. The friendship thing comes in quite strongly for me, and it works both ways round. 

    "For instance, Jim Keltner didn't want to tell me about his band because he didn't like the idea of using his friendship to get his band a gig. So I got to sign Keltner's band from meaning the piano player, which is mighty crazy when you consider the friendship between Keltner and me, and the fact that all those albums ago, I was putting 'Jim Keltner Fan Club' on my album sleeve. He was hesitant about coming to see me for a gig!

     "There's a certain amount of talent that circulates around, and okay, it's commercial, some of it, but I'm not signing anything, just thought it's being commercial. Basically, those people who join Dark Horse are important to me. Maybe in some ways, a little more than music, because I wouldn't like to get involved with somebody who's just a fantastic singer or something, but I personally don't like. Some record companies have a bunch of artists whom they really don't like as people, then it creates all this bad feeling. But I must have decent and friendly relationship with the artist."

     Five acts are due to issue albums on Dark Horse in the next month. Splinter who have already scored some success have a new album produced by George's friend, the noted American leader, Tom Scott. Java, a California-based quartet whose album is produced by Stuart Levine, who worked with Minnie Riperton and the Crusaders; a new American band called Attitudes, featuring Jim Keltner on drums, guitar ace Danny Kootch, who has played regularly on James Taylor records and concerts. Paul Stallsworth, bass and vocals, and pianist David Foster. Henry McCullough, former cohort of Paul McCartney and Wings, who has now formed his own band, Stairsteps; a group of four black musicians from New York whose debut album is produced by Bob Margouleff, synthesizer programmer on Stevie Wonder records.

     Harrison is unlikely to veer towards today's fashion and music when seeking to add names to his roster. Unlike his contemporaries, who felt they had to make the scene with statements about the state of pop in the embryonic '60s, George was merely a staunch Tamela Motown supporter who later went Indian, and that was just about that. "I'm still basically in favor of the thing I liked in the old days, Smokey Robinson, Stevie, wonder, those sorts of things. No, I've never even been interested in Black Sabbath. Heavy metal? Oh, that's what they call it? Oh no. 

    In some ways, I feel I'm out of touch, particularly with what's going on in America. There's still a chance of picking up something fresh and interesting, possibly because the industry is much bigger, making it less likely for these groups to form cliques. England does tend to get very clicky as far as I can see. To tell you the truth, I still never heard the Bay City Rollers."

     He did add that he would like to hear them, just to form his own opinion. "But I must say, I'm not all that keen on the Slades and the Muds. I think out of the English people I've heard so far, the best one probably is not so commercial, though, is Peter Skellers. He reminds me of Harry Nilsson, full of potential. In fact, I just played one of his new tracks, "Make Love, Not War".

 Do you ever play Beatles albums, George? 

    "No, I haven't played one for years."

    How do you remember them when you look back?

     "The Beatles? Oh, I think the Beatles were, or are, (long pause), very good. One of the points everyone should remember about the Beatles is that we did work hard, you know, and we made a point of trying to broaden our own experiences on our own, to overcome as many limitations as we could. And there were quite a few restrictions in those days, like four-track recordings and all that sort of thing. And we used to play in those huge places with 30-watt amplifiers. I think the Beatles generally were very, very good. On reflection, the music was okay, and we kept improving. But then, you know, the days were different. The musicians around today have so much more to listen to. They're bound to end up sounding different because they're exposed to so much, not so much innocence around now. Probably trying to come through and make its mark. 

(60s musicians talk of groups. 70s musicians refer to bands.) 

Individually, though, how do John, Paul, George, and Ringo stand up to comparison with the Beatles?

     His answer was slow and deliberate. "I suppose to look at each one of us individually now. Even if we were rated as big solo artists, each one of us may not be as heavy as the Beatles were collectively, but at the same time, no less heavy than any heavies who are around. We probably didn't even realize ourselves how heavy we were. I mean, it's only now, when you study the documentaries, that you realize how big it all was. At the time, we were going through it, and we were cut out from so much."

     But he stressed that he liked what the Beatles stood for, today, even if at the time, he had reservations about the life they led, being buffeted from hotel room to concert hall to airplane. "The Beatles did put out great songs, good music, good innovative stuff, all the way. We knew our next album would sell a lot just because it said 'Beatles' on the front. But it didn't stop us trying. The albums went up in levels of improvement.  Musically,  even though I haven't much desire to relive it, it stands up pretty well. I should imagine. The Fab Four fan club -- Great!"

     Did he feel competitive towards the other three, and that each was trying to prove a solo point?

     "No, I don't think so. I'm always pleased when the other three do something good. We were always a little bit attached to each other. We all naturally watch what the others are up to --  and not very easy. now John's got himself locked into the States.

     Does the label of an ex-Beatle hanging around his neck for the rest of his life worry him, as he was the least enthusiastic Beatle and always sought stature apart from the fame?

     "I didn't like it, no. That was the point when we all split up, when we grew older and realized the restrictions from every point of view -- as people and as musicians. The only thing I have against being an ex anything is that it doesn't give me much thought to the present. That's all. I mean, I'd rather be an ex-Beatle than an ex Nazi! But more than anything, I'd rather just be here now, not so much as an ex.

     Was it, then, the teenagers' adulation, which finally drove the Beatles apart, for it was certainly George Harrison's pet hate.

     "It was nice at first, but the mania seemed to get out of proportion. That wasn't what I was looking for. Some people like that sort of thing. I like to be successful and popular. But then there comes a point when it's unhealthy that people think you're something you're not, and the next thing is that these fans get out on a trip and limit what you may be, in their eyes. You know, it's just a concept they create, a concept of what you are, and then they start the bit that says, 'Aw, they're not what they used to be.'

    "Well, I used to say this, and I say it again now, we might not have been what we used to be. What those fans mean is we're not what THEIR concept thought we were. People put you into a pigeon hole, and you've got to fight your way out of it for their good as well as your own. All I ever wanted from that scene was to remain an individual, and of course, being a Beatle placed a severe restriction on individuality in the eyes of those screaming fans."

     It came as some surprise then when George, last year, went on the road in America. His concert tour there brought him a very mixed reception, and it was as different from Beatlemania as he could have wanted. Not every show was a sellout. He lost his voice. George, being George, concentrated on songs from his new hard-to-take album, rather than the Beatles songs the crowd demanded. There were reports of sloppy stagecraft and a buck stopping firmly with Harrison, whose show it was.  America remains the world capital of Beatlemania to this day, and not even the national hobby of Lennon-baiting can extinguish the love of the All-American Beatles fan. They're the most devoted breed of all. And for George to fall foul on a tour there would be a serious blow to both him and those loyal millions. 

    What happened then, George? How come your vocals on your new album are so strong and positive, but your voice packed up on that crucial tour?

    " It's very simple. Right before the tour, I'd been working day and night, doing so many things, like organizing the Ravi Shankar Music Festival at the Albert Hall and trying to finish my last album. Then I flew straight from that to Los Angeles and started rehearsing for the tour. And really, during one period of time I'd never sang so much. I just wore my throat out. There simply wasn't enough time, and the schedule I'd given myself was too tight to allow for a rest. Between the album and the Ravi Shankar thing and the tour of the States, the only solution was to rest. You can gargle and not speak and all that. But rest was the only answer, and there was no way you can rest in the middle of a seven week tour.

     "At the same time, I quite liked it. You know, some nights are always easier than other nights, and I suffered on some of them more others. I might have been the odd one out, but I quite liked my voice. It sounded like Louis Armstrong a bit. But anyway, tiredness, that's what caused it. My voice got better toward the end of the tour. It was the start that was weak.

    " And anyway, my vocals were only just a small part of what was going on, which was so amazing. Great musicians! So the voice thing, okay, I was up front. I remember I had to make all the announcements as well and put the show together, which means a load of talking as well as singing. But everybody goes on about me and my voice that wasn't there. That was a minor problem. I was wiped out, tired, and it wasn't there. Never had a chance to sleep properly. So it took a long time to come back.

     "Also, in the old days, when I used to tour with The Beatles, I never used to sing that much. The whole show we did went for 30 minutes!" ( George was talking here of the package shows which placed the Beatles on the top of a bill comprising four or five acts. By the time The Beatles came on stage, the crowd's roar was so deafening that it mattered not whether they sang or played a note. It was this non-importance attached to music which displeased George),

    " 30 minutes in the old days, and if we were pushed, we could get that down to 18 minutes by going fast. So not one of us sang solidly at all. No chance of voices cracking up on a Beatles tour. It was the  fans who risked that.

     "But you know, on this tour of the States, I did two shows a night for three hours a time, doing lead vocals most of the time, apart from Billy Preston's few tunes and the Tom Scott tunes and the Indian section, then all the talking, I'll know better next time to to be fit."

     Next time will probably be next year. George firmly denied rumors that he would tour Britain in the foreseeable future. Still, he spoke of his plan to revisit Los Angeles when his Dark Horse label gets properly rolling there. He may tour with some of the artists in his company, particularly Attitudes and Stairsteps, to do an American Dark Horse tour. A British tour was not on the horizon. The environment was wrong, and the hassles would be mountainous. Interesting to reflect on the coming Wings tour of Britain: Paul McCartney always a crowd pleaser, aims straight at the core, while George's thinking has always been less immediate commercial, more concerned with the finer points of musicianship.

     The Dark Horse --was the song and label title, autobiographical? I'm a dark horse running on a dark race course...

     "Well, yeah, the song came to me just early one morning when I was sitting by the fire in Henley, and I thought 'I'd write a song', and I just thought of Dark Horse in relation to Liverpool, which was running through my mind at that moment. When I was a kid there, I always remember them saying, 'You'll never believe that Mrs. Jones, she's running around with Mr. Badger. You know, she's a dark horse.' I thought, 'Hmm, dark horse and your sing that line for a song, but you can't say that. It's silly'

    . The next day, I woke up and I wrote all the lyrics while having breakfast at tea time, which is always a good situation for writing a song, I find. I went straight from writing it to the studio and recorded it straight away, although I later re-recorded it over as a live version, which was the one on the album. But now the lyrics seem to make more sense; the best line of the song, which is the most important, is 'running on a dark race course'.

     "So while the first line is very English and might be taken as an admission to something, the second line means the whole situation is pretty shady. In America, I found out that a dark horse is one who, particularly in horse racing, they never thought stood a chance or never stood any notice of. Read what you like into songs. People make a hobby of it. 

    "Then, when I started to reassemble my business life, a business manager of mine asked me for a name for my publishing company. And I said, 'I can't think of anything. You do it.' And he said, 'How about one of your songs?' So I said, 'Okay, Dark Horse.' So then I got carried along with the whole thing. Started looking everywhere for horses for the logo. I found the logo on a tin of paint in India. The problem was that it was going the wrong way and was white. But basically, the horse itself was good. I bought the tin of paint back, cleaned it up, got an artist to redesign it so it would run around the record going this way. I made it dark. His belt buckle bears a dark horse insignia."

     It was George who fed the other three Beatles with propaganda about the famous Maharishi and transcendental meditation, a phase most trendy rock musicians went through in 1967.  Yes, Harrison still meditates occasionally. "In retrospect, that was probably one of the greatest experiences I've ever had. There was a program on TV the other night about meditation, and it's funny for me, having meditated a lot, and now watching them all see the meditators trying to prove scientifically that meditation is of value. They get involved in doing all these experiments and testing people. But I can tell you and them all that's a waste of time because it's only through experiencing it that you can realize what it does, and it is such value.

    On the other hand, Maharishi was always put down for propagating what was basically a spiritual thing, but there's so much being propagated, that's damaging to life, that I am glad there are good people around like him and others who try to give something which is a practical value to the individual."

     George said he prayed. But as for considering himself heavily religious, "maybe compared to the average pop star I am, but compared to what I should be, I am a heathen."

     There again, he wouldn't willingly be compared with an average pop star. "I just want to keep on improving as a musician, writing better and better songs, running a good little record label that encourages musicians, and Bob's your uncle. Beatles were an important point in all of our lives, but it was yesterday."