Paul McCartney Breakout Interview (1983)

 Paul McCartney Interview

By Neil Tilly

Breakout Liverpool Music and Arts Fanzine

August/September 1983

    AIR studios, partly owned by George Martin, is situated in the middle of London's Oxford Street, 50 yards from Oxford Circus Tube. It is on the fourth floor, high above the masses, where Paul McCartney is recording his new LP. It was in the restroom that we were to meet. The room looked more like an airport reception lounge containing a coffee bar, pool table, video games, and scores of exotic plants.

     So here I was waiting to meet Paul McCartney, a legend who, with The Beatles, changed the face of modern music like no one has ever done since. He entered, wearing jeans and a short-sleeve shirt, looking a little tired after recording. Paul McCartney has never been idle. As well as working on a new album, he has recently been turning his hand to a spot of acting for a yet-to-be-released film called Give My Regards to Broad Street. I asked him how the film was coming along. 

Paul:  Great. We just finished the main bit. We started in November last year and worked on and off until a couple of months ago. It was a big change for me. I did A Hard Day's Night and Help! and enjoyed the setup of films. It's like a fantasy world, but a lot of hard work is involved. 

Q: Do you intend to make more films? 

Paul: If this one works out. I think it's working out. I feel good about it. And I didn't even mind getting up early, which traditionally musicians don't like. It was great actually seeing the dawn again. I still prefer music, though.

 Q:  Do you ever think your music will dry up? 

Paul:  I always think about that from time to time. It's like asking an athlete or a footballer about his sport, and he'll say he'll go on till he stops enjoying it. It's a cliche, but it's true. I don't actually think it will dry up. I always wonder if it will, but I don't think it will. I will probably be trying to write songs on my deathbed. 

Q:  Is it as much fun now as it was in '64?

 Paul:  No. It could be because it was a new thrill then.  That's why I like filming because it's a new experience.

     I've seen music come from four-track to 48-track and more, and it's made it not as much fun. I don't mean that it's hell on wheels or lousy, I just mean that it's not as much fun as four lads traveling down from Liverpool, about to shake the world, as they say, up in Mathew Street. 

    But you can't possibly get that back. I don't think you could recapture four lads coming down from Liverpool, seeing the music scene, having a bit of success, then more success, and doing so well. I'm now 41 and have four kids, so it's a whole different thing. It's not so much of a novelty now as I know what I'm doing. It's like the thrill of going to Butlins for the first time. It's not as much fun going back there as an entertainment manager, but I still love it. 

    Yesterday, I had a shout up because the pace we work at is so slow. Before you can even get a 48-track tape up, the engineer has to spend at least an hour to find where he is. In the early days, we only used to work with four-track, and we would record an album in a day. I think the record industry is overproduced, but it's like looking back at old money and saying 'a pint used to cost three pence.' That's the past. You can't recall all that. The true answer is that it could not be as exciting as the first Beatle buzz, because that had never been seen before. 

    People of England didn't know an English act could do that well in America, because, you know, all the great English stars like Cliff and the people before him, the Frankie Vaughns and all those, and the comedians like Arthur Askey, and going right back, hardly any of them made it in America. They were always second best. And for us to actually go and take over was something you can't repeat, but I don't want to give the impression I'm having a lousy time. Now, it's just different with four kids, this whole other way of working. Now, it's interesting on another level. 

Q: A lot of people compare Breakout with Merseybeat magazine. What to remember of that?

Paul: Well, we were there when Bill Harry started Merseybeat, and for us, it was just great to have anything, in truth, anything that was going to put our picture in it and mention us, and actually, we could put ads in it and have laughs. So for that, Merseybeat for us was great. And I'd say for the groups of today, having something like Breakout is great. Breakout is more professional. Well, actually, the cover is, but inside, it isn't. They didn't look typed like all the fanzines look now, but I think it would be great. 

    If I was just a young group in Liverpool, or not even a group, just a poet, or anyone just vaguely sensitive, or however you class people who like these sorts of things. I think it's great having this kind of stuff. as for comparing it with  Merseybeat. It's like comparing a brown shoe with a black sandal. There's probably a world of difference in your attitude. Really, we used to think it was kind of funny Merseybeat, really, because it used to have articles like, 'Take a Look up North', because no one looked up north. And they used to tell us off for swearing on stage and drinking and eating cheese rolls on stage. And you thought, you know, 'What's wrong with that?' I mean, we're hungry, you know, and the fans don't mind. That's what they've come for: lunchtime sessions. So we used to have a Coke on the piano. It was only Coke, wasn't even booze, but they used to say this was 'highly unprofessional' chewing on stage, so it was a little bit granddaddy 

Q:  We were kind of amused by it, really. It wasn't serious.

Paul: But actually that was one of my pleasanter memories, that is that all the fanzines then weren't serious, not like they are now, I pick up papers now, and there's kind of you know, it's like, it's all a bit like Rodin's 'The Thinker.'  Like everyone is thinking very deeply about it. We weren't. We were just having a bit more fun. I don't see music as that serious. I think it occasionally gets very serious, with something like 'Give Peace a Chance,' 'Stopping Vietnam.' That's bloody serious, and good luck to it. And if it gets serious, great. But when you're just singing something like Flock of Seagulls, stuff, it's just songs. It's just 'Love you baby' really, in a way, I think it's just best to look at it for what it is. Instead of getting serious.

     I remember having a joke on the sax player once in Germany. My girlfriend at the time, sent me this Yevtushenko, the Russian poet, poems. And it was all a bit heavy, you know. And we weren't really into it. We used to pose a little bit with all that stuff-- pipes on the top deck of the buses, and think we were Dylan Thomas students and all that. So she sent me Yevtushenko and we were sitting in the dressing room, and the sax player came in, and we didn't really know him very well. He was from Hamburg, so we were all kidding that we were really into this. And I was going 'and the flesh that creeps...' I can't remember the poem. It was all dead serious. He tiptoed in, and he thought we were like for real, having a poetry reading. And he thought we were like that. Anyway, we were actually taking the piss. So he crept in, he unpacked his sax very quietly, and he crept out, and we just peeped ourselves laughing, because that was it. We were really sending up that attitude, and I still prefer to send up that attitude, although I realize that, obviously, at times you just can't be flippant all the time. 

    But I think that just being deadly serious about everything is dulling. There's a famous case of some fella in America who had some terminal disease, he discovered that vitamin C and a lot of laughter was a cure. He brought films into his bedroom, like Laurel and Hardy, and he got cured. I mean, I don't know how true it is, but I tend to believe that sort of thing; a laugh is really good for you. And I think that some papers these days get a little bit serious. 

Q: What do you think of the redevelopment of the Cavern site? 

Paul:  Rubbish. They should have never pulled it down. It was the most manic move. And the one man who did it, and it will have been one man too. That's how these things all happen, one burk on the council ---and I didn't know who he was. I mean, it would be interesting to see what the vote was, three to seven or something, just these three people. But somebody must have said it would really be a great idea to have an underground railroad coming this way. 'It doesn't matter about the Cavern.' I think there was a bit of an attitude going round at the time, which is easy to foster, which was, well, 'the Beatles left us. They hate Liverpool anyway, or they deserted us.' We used to get it out of that.

     I don't care if someone's got to live somewhere else. It doesn't mean he hates Liverpool, not for me. Anyway, there were millions of fellows before us who went to live in Shrewsbury or joined the army and went to Aldershot. We never used to go, 'Oh, he deserted us.' So I think a lot of the people at the time, maybe the council, were thinking, 'well, sod it. Who needs the cavern anyway?'

     And what's happened is that you get all these tourists turning up saying, 'Where is it that the Beatles were?' So you get the Cavern Mecca people and stuff trying to keep a little bit of that going. I just think it was a stupid move to close it down. They could have easily kept it. They would have certainly used it for this Garden Festival. They could have stuck a big thing up and said, 'Come on' and charge 50 pence a go, or something --  Like everywhere else in the world, Disneyland, Graceland.... Instead, now they're having to go round all our old houses and do that trick, whereas it could have been much easier to leave it all in Matthew Street, and they could have had 'Eric's.'

     I don't know. I don't know all the entire politics of it all, but it just seems to me stupid. And the final irony seems to me that now they don't need it. There's a car park now wherever the underground was going to be. Now they're trying to excavate it, and it'll cost them much more.--typical bureaucratic crap, you know, where they fill in a thing, and now they're excavating it, spending millions. Now, they found a pothole in the Cavern, and they've got a little boat in the water. So I heard, and there's a bank or some big building society putting money in, and they're going to recreate it downstairs. I think it's stupid myself. I'd rather just see all that stuff go, I mean, I don't want to go down the Garden Festival because it's happening, so it's best to get behind it.

     And I suppose, because otherwise it's just a waste of money. But the things do annoy me, you know, because I just think surely you could spend the money better, and somewhere like Liverpool, where you've got so many people who need a break. Instead of all those statues they put up, I'd rather see them put up one plaque. 'This is where they're from', or something. They could stick a plaque up on the Victoria one. That's where we always used to be, you know, up in the city center. I always said that, you know, first they want to put statues up, then they don't come up, then they don't want the people to pay for it. I think it's stupid. I think they're much better things they could do, but you have to have a touch of class and a touch of genius to know all this see -- and they haven't got it. Those counselors, whoever it was who filled the Cavern in, are just not bright, just not smart, I tell you.

     Since we came down from Liverpool and seen all this business stuff going on, I've met so many people in high places who are not smart. It's terrifying, actually, stuff. They're not how you think they are, you know? Well, maybe people nowadays know. I think they know better. Now, we used to have an image that the President of America was a wonderful man-- that was at the time of JFK and stuff. There was a little bit more reason. And then Nixon comes in and blows the whole thing sky high. And no one can believe Reagan. They'll have Frankie Avalon on next. You just can't believe it anymore.

Q: There has been some talk recently about you and Ringo playing together in the summer. Is there any truth to that?

 Paul: No, that's just paper talk. I read that just the other day. It's not true. I suppose it could happen, but we haven't thought about it. The newspapers just made it up. 

Q: Knowing now what you know about your life, would you wish to have changed anything? 

Paul: Generally no, but yes, specific things. If I had known John was going to die, I would not have been as standoffish as I was. You know, people are in relationships. If someone tells you to piss off, you say, 'Well, piss off yourself.' Then you just don't realize that there may be pain. And it's very hard to say Jesus' thing, you know, --- turning the other cheek.

     Okay, you can tell me to 'piss off', but I still think you're great. If I knew John was going to die, I would have made a lot more effort to try and get behind his mask and try and get a better relationship with him. As it was, I think I did have a pretty good relationship with him. When he started slagging me off, I was not prepared to say, 'well, you're quite right', because I'm human. Nobody would sit there and be called  Englebert Humperdinck and say, 'Okay, fine. I think you're right.'

     I just turned around and said, 'piss off'. Had I known it was going to be that final, that quick, I would not have said that. It was only after John had got killed that I realized at the age of three, his dad had left him, but I never knew how much it must have hurt. You take things on their face value and sympathize, but you don't really get into it. John's life was tough and weak. 

    He was not the big 'working-class hero' he liked to make out to be. He was the least working-class member of The Beatles. Actually, he was the poshest because his family almost owned Woolton at one time. All that doesn't really matter, but he did have a rather tough upbringing. His mum used to live with a fellow he was not that wild on, and his mum got knocked down outside his house. And before that, his uncle died. He had a lot of personal tragedies, and then he got married and got a divorce, and he did not know how to relate to his son. So after he died, I could see and say, No wonder what we used to argue. When you live and relate to people day after day, you don't look into all of that until something as final as death happens. 

    That's my regret, really, where I see now what I could have said, 'listen' and put my arm around him. He might have told me to piss off as well. It still goes on. That's the terrifying thing. George and I had a barney last time we talked. It's incredible. After all we have gone through together--- it's madness, really. I find it weird, but that's life, all the other stuff, what we did musically and the fame bit, I don't regret. It has its advantages and its disadvantages.

 Q: Do you get a chance to listen to much music nowadays? 

Paul: Yeah, I listen to the radio mainly. I hear bits and pieces in the studio. I hear a lot through my kids as well.

 Q: What about Liverpool bands?

 Paul:  Really, I've only heard Seagulls and the Bunnymen.

 Q:  What do you think of them? 

Paul:  I think they're all right. The Seagulls seem very commercial. The Bunnymen seem not commercial, but have more integrity-- until he took his shirt off on the Top of the Pops. I thought, 'Oh, dear me, come on.' It just seems silly. There's nothing wrong with taking your shirt off on the Top of the Pops, actually, but it just seemed a bit posy. I'm like the Cutter anyway. I think their stuff's good. It's interesting. The Bunnymen are, like -- we were when we were just getting on. It's a very exciting period. I like the freshness, and you can tell there's an enthusiasm. 

Q:  Would you prefer to visit Liverpool more regularly if you had the chance? 

Paul:  I do have the chance, and I do visit, but I don't visit as regularly as I used to, because my dad is not alive. I still go up to see my brother and other relatives. I'm up at least once a year, usually a lot more than that. As a city, there is not a lot there for me anymore. The time I was there, I met up with my actor friend Victor Bernetti. [sic] We were going out for a drink. We were driving around Dingle. I was showing him where Ringo lived and where my mother used to work. And then we got on to the brow and zap --- it had all gone. This old fella in a wheelchair said a quote which summed it all up. He said, 'Oh yeah, they pulled it all down, and they're not putting anything back up in its place.'

     At this point, we finished the interview on a point which proves Paul McCartney still cares about his native city, and he knows his native city still cares about him.