Ringo: I can't give touring the elbow

By Andy Welch.

Walking up the front steps of Apple's headquarters for the first time is a slightly spine-tingling experience.

The Beatles' company, not to be confused with the makers of the iPod and other gadgetry, moved from its Savile Row base in the mid-Seventies.

So the corporation's "new" south-west London office didn't witness any of the Beatlemania hysteria, the inventions of studio engineer Magic Alex or that iconic 1969 rooftop gig. But still....

Behind the giant black glossy door, there will have been numerous meetings regarding the mid-Nineties Anthology series and the more recent Remasters, plus a whole host of decisions about the day-to-day running of the vast Beatles empire.

Stopping to take it all in for a second, an unmistakable voice bellows from behind.

"Hello there. Have you come to see me?"

It's Ringo Starr, bounding along the pavement.

"Traffic was bad so I walked the last bit," he adds, decked out in his de facto uniform of black jeans, suit jacket and t-shirt. He looks slim and sprightly.

"Hold out your elbow, brother," he says, coming closer.

As greetings go, it's not particularly conventional, and as he walks past and clatters his elbow into mine, it's not very clear what he means either.

"I'm not doing handshakes," he explains later. "I'm meeting 20 people a day at the moment and I don't want to get sick and have to cancel the dates."

So instead of the more traditional greeting, he opts to bump elbows with everyone he encounters today, although when we meet up again a few days later at the recording of a TV show, he's dropped that particular Ringoism and reverted to handshakes.

"I can't keep these things up," he says, laughing.

You can't blame the 70-year-old for being concerned about germs, however. Ringo and His All-Starr Band's current tour is a big deal.

Aside from the UK dates, Ringo and the assembled line-up of Wally Palmar (guitar), Rick Derringer (guitar), Edgar Winter (keyboards and saxophone), Gary Wright (keyboards), Richard Page (bass) and Gregg Bissonette (drums) are scheduled to play 27 dates in 14 countries, beginning in Kiev, Ukraine and ending in Vienna, Austria on July 17.

Inside Apple's gold disc-lined main atrium, Ringo excuses himself for a quick photoshoot and an interview for a BBC documentary about Beatles producer George Martin.

Even though the band split up some 41 years ago, activities related to The Beatles still take up a large portion of Ringo's time.

While he doesn't do many interviews - and famously doesn't sign fan mail any more (have a quick look on YouTube to see why) - the lasting interest in the Fab Four doesn't surprise him.

"We were a great band, with great songs," he says. "The music was incredible, and it'll never let you down, no matter where it's going.

"If you see the Love show in Vegas, it's all our music redone and it sounds great. The thing about The Beatles is that the music continued. We lost our moptops, but the music carried on. It's generational.

"The young generation hasn't seen us bobbing around, they don't know us, they just hear our music, and they can't doubt it. You can't doubt that music. I love the idea that the music is still interesting to people. It's completely stood the test of time."

The important thing for Ringo, born Richard Starkey, is that whatever he does is done on his terms.

He applies the same attitude to the tour and, as a "travelling musician", feels touring is just part of his job.

"Well, that's why I'm doing it," he begins, reclining at the side of an enormous boardroom table. "It's what I do.

"I like to do things, but the position I'm in is that I can do things how and when I want to do them - that's a luxurious position to be in.

"On stage is the best time, but you've got to get there, you're in strange hotels all the time, sleeping with the light on in case you get out of bed the wrong side and hit the wall." He laughs heartily.

"Nothing changes. Nothing, not if you're touring. Well, nothing changes in the respect that you have to get on the road, get on the plane, get in the van and get on stage. That's where nothing changes. You get up there and do the best you can. The good news now is that I get my own room in hotels."

It's a far cry from the early Beatle tours when they'd drive the length and breadth of the country in a cramped van, lying on top of each other and sipping whisky to keep warm - as they did on one occasion when the windscreen of the van smashed, exposing the quartet and driver Mal Evans to sub-zero temperatures.

"Thankfully there's none of that," he says, reminiscing. "We always shared a room as well. People can't believe it these days. Most bands stay in different hotels, but the four of us shared a room!

"That's how we got to know each other, and that's why we played so well, that was all part of it. We knew each other as human beings and as brothers, as well as musicians."

The current line-up of the All-Starr Band, the eleventh incarnation, toured the US last summer. Ringo admits there was no burning desire to get out on the road in Europe, but it was an easy decision once his booking agent rang and put the idea to him.

"I said 'Yeah, why not?' I've got the band together already. We're all ready and raring to go."

One night of the forthcoming tour will see Ringo playing at the Liverpool Empire. While smaller than the arenas and stately homes of the rest of the tour, the venue has massive significance.

He explains: "We're playing for all my own reasons. The Beatles went from The Cavern to the Empire and no one will understand how big that was. We were on that big stage, before Little Richard. Wow, you know? That was big."

Ringo's relationship with his home city hasn't always been rosy. There were accusations as far back as the early 1960s, when he and the other three Beatles moved to London, that they'd left their roots behind.

More recently, in a TV interview with Jonathan Ross, Ringo made a joke about not missing anything about Merseyside and the reaction, which included a topiary statue of him in the city being decapitated, wasn't especially pretty.

He's keen to set the record straight, however.

"That bloody joke," he begins, with a heavy heart. "I don't get back there much now, really. My mum's gone, my stepdad's gone, my aunty's still there, 94 years of age, and my cousins are there with all their children and grandchildren, but I don't really know all them.

"I did get up there for the Year Of Culture show we played at, and had a big tea for all the family. It was great, saying hello to everyone. But really, I'm from Liverpool, I know Liverpool and I've got all my memories.

"I love the place, and always have done. I love Liverpool," he stresses, leaning forward to speak directly at the recorder on the table.

A star talking about their home town is always going to be a sensitive subject, but you have to feel for Ringo to an extent.

He and Paul McCartney are the only two surviving Beatles ("although he thinks he's the only one," he jokes), and everything they've said in public for almost 50 years goes around the world, often coming back to bite them.

Back in 1967, while being interviewed for Hunter Davies's landmark Beatles book - still the only authorised biography of the band - Ringo said he'd never leave the UK and didn't really see the point in living anywhere else.

A few years later he met and married Bond girl Barbara Bach and moved to Los Angeles, where he still spends much of his time.

"You say things when you're young, don't you. I'm haunted by s... I said in 1962, let alone 1967.

"People have to start reading things we say now, not what we said then.

"I'm just a kid that dreamed of playing the drums. When that happened, I dreamed of playing with great musicians, and then I achieved that, but the dream's still unfolding.

"While I'm up and running, I'm still heading."

Extra time - Ringo Starr :: Ringo Starr was born Richard Starkey on July 7, 1940. He was the oldest Beatle, and will be 71 while on tour.

:: As a child, he was regularly ill and missed much of his schooldays. Aged six, he fell into a coma following complications with a bout of appendicitis. At 13, he spent two years in a sanatorium after contracting chronic pleurisy and never returned to school.

:: He later joined the Merchant Navy and worked at Butlins before joining various bands in Liverpool, namely Rory Storm & The Hurricanes before taking the drum stool in The Beatles after Pete Best was sacked in 1962.

:: Ringo was married to Maureen Cox in 1965 and they had three children, Zak, Jason and Lee, before divorcing in 1975. Ringo married Barbara Bach in 1980 after meeting her on the set of Caveman.

:: He says he asked George Harrison to join his All-Starr Band and George replied: "But Ringo, you'd have to give me all the money." Ringo also joked about Paul McCartney joining the band, saying: "I told him he could have two songs, just like everyone else."