March 4, 2022 • 31 mins
We're dipping into the Inside The Studio vault this week to bring you something special from our formidable archive — an interview with Sir Paul McCartney! It was recorded around the release of his 2018 album ‘Egypt Station,’ a record brimming with McCartney's undiminished — and seemingly boundless — energy and trademark gift for melody. In honor of Macca's recently announced Got Back tour of North American, we decided to revisit these words from the master.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Inside the
Studio on iHeart Radio. My name is Jordan runt Hog.
But enough about me. We're doing something a little different
this week. We're dipping into the I T. S Vault
to bring you something special from our formidable archives, and
today I'm thrilled to present an interview with quite frankly,
my all time favorite human being on the planet. I'm talking,
(00:23):
of course, about Sir Paul McCartney. He was a guest
on Inside the Studio during my friend Joe Levi's tenure
as host. This interview is from two thousand eighteen, soon
after the release of his stellar album Egypt Station. It
became his first number one record in thirty six years,
and it couldn't have been better deserved. The themes of
travel mirror mind. Constantly on the move, piqued by the new,
(00:47):
the different, the unexpected and the fun. Each of the
sixteen tracks brims with McCartney's undiminished and seemingly boundless energy
and trademark gift for melody. It's a gift that he
showcased most recently on Twenties McCartney three, an album recorded
at his home studio in Lockdown, or as he called it, Rockdown.
(01:07):
In honor of Sir Paul's recently announced Got Back tour
of North America, arguably the summer's hottest ticket, we decided
that was a good reason as any to share these
words from the master. Listen to what the man said,
and enjoy Paul McCartney. Welcome to inside the Studio, Key Joe,
(01:27):
or a very special edition of Backstage at the Paul
McCartney Show. Okay, and here we are in the Winnipeg.
In Winnipeg winned the Peg a few months ago. I'm
walking up Park Avenue and I pass a guy coming
down the street who looks remarkably like Paul McCartney Park
Avenue in eighty nine street. I think, can't be Paul McCartney.
No one with him, no one around did a double take.
(01:51):
It was Paul McCartney. It couldn't have been him, but
it was. You were just walking down the street by yourself.
I walked down streets therefore, walking down I've heard that,
you know, I like to get out and about and
people say, oh no, you're gonna have acres of security
behind you and stuff. But I'd like to just get out,
you know, just so as you feel like yourself instead
(02:12):
of like a rock star. Are there times you do
like to feel like a rock star? You know, when
I do the show, that's good, But then you know
you need to balance it, so you get off the
stage and maybe you know, like you said, you're walking somewhere.
So I like to just get out like I always
did when I was a kid. So you know, it's
(02:34):
just keeps me sane, and it's it's the same feeling
as when I was just walking around, only differences. I
get recognized. Everyone reaches in their pocket immediately, you know,
but no, I got you know, quite a lot of
freedom actually, and I value it. And then you know,
(02:56):
if I'm out at a restaurant and stuff with my wife,
someone might come over to grab a photo. I say,
oh not not just now. You know, it's a private
moment and most people are very cool, understand it. So
I like to keep that, you know, a private bit
of my life. And then I like the other bit
even more because it's like, wow, this is cool. The
(03:18):
other bit being in public, being on stage, Yeah, you
have to like it. You are playing these three hour shows.
We just saw a one hour sound check, and that's
something that people don't actually know that many concerts are
preceded by this one hour sound check. I think you
have no set list for that. Many of those songs
aren't in the set, right. Yeah. No, we always do that,
(03:39):
I mean because it's good because we need to check
the instruments we're going to use, just to make sure
they're all plugged in. They all work, and I mean
there was a little moment there. Normally doesn't screw up
too much, but our keyboard players moog didn't work. So
that's good. That's what the sound checks for, instead of
just doing all the numbers from the show, which kind
(04:00):
of spoils the show for us because when we get
a bit bored doing the numbers again, we just use
the same instruments we're going to use, but we switch
the numbers about. We do any old thing, you know,
so we'll do kind of like skifful things, folk things,
early rock and roll things, like a little solely things.
(04:20):
Midnight Special tonight, which was kind of amazing, and we
always do Midnight specially. Yeah, what you often do? You know,
You've got certain songs that go way back before I
started even playing, you know. I think that's like a
big Bill BRUNSI song. So he's an old blues singer
and they're just songs you learn along the way and
(04:41):
you like them. So if you get an opportunity or
something like this where there's a sound check, all you
really need to do is just make sure everything's working.
Then you can indulge yourself and play something like that,
you know, and it's nice. Keeps it all fresh, you know.
Talking about the songs, you do know, there's something I
(05:01):
wanted to ask you about in the set list now,
is in spite of all the danger, the first song
recorded by the Quarryman in nineteen Oh my god, so
it's now sixty years old and that can't be true.
That's before my time. I will say, for those just
(05:21):
listening at home, he could pull that off because it
does look like he's not old enough to have written really,
but thank you. But that said, the amazing thing that
I realized is that you know, you're performing songs from
your your newest record, Egypt Station, and the very first
thing you ever recorded. So the audience tonight will hear
sixty years Paul McCartney songs. That's right, Yeah, yeah, it
(05:44):
is crazy. You know, it's um I've been enjoying playing
for that long, and when I do that song in
spite of all the danger, which was just the first
little demo we ever did with the Beatles, before we
got a record contract or anything. So I always imagine
us all going to this little studio in Liverpool, all
(06:06):
paying a pound each for five pound demo and doing
this little song, you know, and it's it's so ancient
that it's great for me because it's like what it is,
it's like reaching back into your childhood. So it would
be like somebody maybe listening to this thinking of when
they were on the beach when they were one, and
(06:28):
it's what a great memory, you know. So it makes
it special for me just thinking that, Wow, you know,
it goes back really before we ever went down to
Abbey Road, before we got a record, country, before you
did into Hamburg, before we've been to Hamburg. Yeah, So
it's a great memory for me, and I like doing
it because we get the audience involved on that one,
(06:50):
you know, and so we have fun with it. So
it is nice to be able to say this is
the very first thing we ever did, first record I
was ever involved with, and then we come right up
to date and were saying, now this is like the
most recent. Somehow it seems to fit together, you know.
You know, So that's twice now that you've mentioned drawing
(07:11):
on those childhood feelings. First when we were talking about
walking around by yourself, and now when we're talking about
playing that song in spite of all the danger. Is
that a wild spring for you going back to that
time or holding onto that energy. Yeah, you know. It's funny.
In the Beatles, even when we were like maybe twenty
four years old or something in the height of the Beatles,
(07:33):
we often would we were trying to work out something
on a song or what we're going to do with
the recording, we'd often say, what would we have done
when we were seventeen, and we check back to our
seventeen year old selves, who we thought like we're like
the coolest opinion in the world. Well, we would have said, yeah,
do it, Yeah do it man, or no way, that's
(07:55):
no good. You know. So you always refer to that period,
you know, it's your formative period. So when you get
a lot of your ideas, and in my case, if
you're writing songs, those memories are very rich wells of inspiration.
So you know, I can just think. I remember walking
(08:16):
along the road with our guitars on our backs, me
and John just before we were famous, you know, and
me writing let us to people, dear sir, we are
a rock combo, and you know, we would love to
play at your place, you know, so all that sort
of stuff. It's kind of like magic for me. I
think also because of how far I've come. So you've
(08:39):
got that very early innocent period, and then we get
famous with the Beatles. Well before that, we go to Hamburg,
as you say, and then we get famous with the Beatles,
and then we get the American fame, and then we
make records and we we go through our various phases.
So it's a long, long, long journey. And then right now,
(09:02):
you know, here I am, you know, making a new
album in Egypt Station, and long behold, it goes to
number one in America. You know, you can imagine, you know,
we're partying that night was a party, we'll see. I
want to ask you about that. Egypt Station enters the
charts at number one, So I guess that, if you're
keeping score at home, that's your first record to debut
(09:22):
at number one since the Beatles. Since the Beatles and
the first number one, and I believe thirty six years.
So what was the party? What was the well, you know,
the great thing was after the show. Sometimes if the
guys don't have to load out, if they're all in
a place and we're going to play the place tomorrow,
which was that occasion, I'll say, okay, let's all get together,
(09:45):
have a little drink of something to eat, and we
get the crowd, and so we all get to hang
with each other because it's a bit like a family,
your tour family, you know. So we all get together
and then our DJ who comes with us on the tour,
he'll DJ some nice dance music stuff. So we were
going to have that little party anyway. And then suddenly
that afternoon, right after sound check, on my phone, I
(10:07):
get the message bank congratulations requiescunt it in the morning
and I'm just about to go to the dressroom, which
I stopped going, Oh wait a minute, hey, guys, I
announced to everyone every number one, you know. So that
party that evening, that was special because we had a
real great reason to celebrate. We were going to celebrate anyway,
(10:28):
just having a party, but it became really special. We
danced the night away. Baby. I was talking to someone
at your label in Los Angeles Capital and the people, well,
they said back at you. They said, we're amazed at
how hard this guy works, seventy six years old, three
(10:51):
hour concerts. But also he's out there doing things, taking
advantage of opportunities we bring him. If we bring them
to a twenty three year old the artist, they might complain.
I was like, yeah, let's do it what I always do.
Promoting a record used to be quite boring because they
would trot out the same old things. You've got to
go there, you've got to do thirty six interviews. We're
(11:15):
going to take you to some place central in Europe
where all the European territories can come in. And how
it was that was Cologne. They always say you're going
to Colone and said why Cologne. So well, it's in
the middle of Europe, and we'll bring the Italians, the
French and Swiss and everybody in. And so I kind
of did it, thinking what I've got to promote the record,
(11:36):
But it was a deadly ball. It was really like,
oh no, not that again. So I kind of rebelled
one day and the meeting I said, look, you know,
let's make it something that we're excited about. Because if
we're excited, we actually have a good time. So let's
cook up some ideas that are like fun and they're different,
(11:57):
and it's not going to Cologne and would end this interviews.
So we had some great little things. We had playbacks
at the studio in l A. We were working at
Henson and we had these little playbacks for I Heart.
These are great little sessions. We just cranked it up,
played the album for them. So that was easy. That
wasn't like the concer to Debbey Road that you did.
(12:19):
And then we did we did a CAVN. We went
back to my old school and the little concert there,
so you know, it made it fun, it made it interesting,
and each little thing was different, and so it was, yeah,
capital we're happy. But I was happy with the ideas
we were cooking up together, you know, as long as
(12:39):
they were good ideas that were exciting everyone. We had
a blest You worked with great Kurtin and Ryan Tater
this record, and Ryan and you did the single for
(13:01):
you or some might hear it the way I do M,
which would be a knott of your word. And we
can say it for you. There we go, so give you.
If you give someone a present, you don't say this
is for you. You go, this is for you, for you, okay,
if you h okay. So this is my story and
I'm sticking to it, okay. And yet I was immediately
(13:23):
reminded of something I grew up reading a Grill Marcus
essay in the Old Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock
and Roll about the Beatles, where he recalls hearing I
saw her standing there on the radio immediately in the
days after the first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
He writes, Paul's one two three, fuck opening. How in
the world did they expect to get away with that?
(13:46):
And the thing is is, after I read that, I
never heard it another way. I always heard it, but
I'll never hear an other way. Now. It wasn't that,
But I like it, man, you know, you know, it's
a kind of nice thing when people kind of misinterpret
what you've doneal they put extra meaning on it. I mean,
I did the song Hi Hi Hi, which we'll do tonight,
(14:07):
and there's a line in it which I was kind
of writing just like surrealist lyrics. I was like, so
I wrote, I wrote lie on the bed and get
ready for my polygone. It doesn't mean anything was a polygon,
you know, but people thought it was get ready for
my body Gune. I thought, you know what, that is
(14:30):
better if you ever sung it that way. Okay, So
you know, sometimes the misinterpretation is actually better than the
real lyric. You know. Tell me you've said that the
songs you you worked on with Greg, you brought into
the studio, but when you worked with Ryan Tedder, he
wanted to make it up in the studio. Yeah, tell
(14:51):
me a little bit about putting that song for you together.
As you say. When I was working with Greg, which
was most of the time, I had a lot of
songs I wanted to record, so I came in and
we worked on them together, but they were ready written.
And then there was a period there where Great couldn't work.
But I had a couple of weeks off, so I
took one of the weeks as a holiday. Uh, And
(15:14):
then the other week my manager said, you want to
keep the momentum going. You know, you're on a bit
of a role here, and if you want to keep
it going, you know, I can suggest other people you
might work with. You know. So he sent me a
few suggestions and I liked what I was hearing that
Ryan was doing. I didn't know much about him. Maybe
I phoned him up and we had a great conversation.
(15:36):
So I said, well, come to my studio in England
and we'll just figure it out. We'll just think of something,
you know. So I said, I've got a couple of
songs we could do these. He said, no, no, let's
let's just make it up because we didn't have long
We just had the seven days. It might have even
been five days, and so we just made them up.
(15:57):
And we ended up making up three tracks. And where
you when you say make them up? Were you writing
side by side? Were you trying just having ideas, you know,
just throwing ideas out. He'd sort of say, what about
yeah do John Dudandu. I go yeah, da Dado. So
I go out on the mic and go yeah Dado,
And they think, oh God, let us stick some words in,
(16:17):
Hey you want Udandu and I eventually put some words
to it, and then we put a beat to it,
and I put some guitar on or bass on or whatever,
and him and his co producers zac you know, they
just got grooving with the sounds, and I'd get sort
of thinking of what I was going to do on
the vocal. They throw ideas out and he said what
(16:38):
about that? He said, well, let me try it, you know.
So some of the things didn't work. We can those.
It was funny because because of this method of working,
the trouble was often that yeah do dad dudando becomes yeah,
I love you baby, and it's like, this is a
bit boring. So I said to Ryan in the middle
(16:58):
of the week and I said, hey, know, man, I said,
I'm known for doing songs like eleanor Rigby or you know,
Live and Let Die, which you've got a little bit
of meaning to them, you know. So I said, I'm
not sure I can do this. Hey, I love your baby.
I said, well, I'll tell you what. So we decided
what we would do was we'd carry on like that
(17:20):
and then I'd revisit it and come up with what
I thought were better lyrics. So that was how how
we did it. It made a lot of it up
as we went along and thought that was good, but
the bits I thought were a bit corny. I just
rewrote and then went in and fix the vocal with
these new words. You know. A week or sore ago,
I was in Los Angeles. I saw a band, Lake
(17:40):
Street Dive, terrifically talented band and the will turn and
they do in their set let me roll it, and
it's it's great. And afterwards I was talking to them,
that's terrific, and they looked at me and they shrugged. Yeah,
it's a Paul McCartney song. But then they started talking
about for You, and he's got a song out now,
(18:02):
and the thing is it's so on trend, like it's
got these the drum track and these little drops in it.
So they were like amazed at that classic McCartney melodicism
up against the sort of modern touches that Bryan Tyler
brought to it. Yeah, well that's that's what it was. Yeah,
(18:22):
Ryan brought that to it, and say, Zac's called producers,
a young guy called Zac, and the two of them
took care of that side of things. What's about this
you know list? So they would take a little bit
of my vocal and speed it up and drop it
back in and do these little crazy things. And you know,
the idea was if I didn't like it, I go,
(18:43):
oh no way, man. But most of the time, I go,
that's cool. I like that. There were three tracks. Only
one has been released from that week, but the others
are pretty good too. And then when you were working
with Greg that's over a longer period, and you've said
that one thing it charged those sessions was seeing this
(19:03):
documentary Howard Goodall did about the rerelease the fiftieth anniversary
set of Sergeant Pepper's that you actually had this experience
of learning wait, wait, that's how we did it. Yeah, yeah,
you know. I mean I wasn't really gonna watch this
because you know, it's like I thought, well, I kind
of know everything he didn't tell me. I know about this,
(19:25):
But then he started in on Penny Lane. It hooked
me in because he started to say, oh, now Paul
wants to go higher, but he actually modulates down a key.
I'm going, did I Oh, wow, that's good. I'm getting
impressed by this young twenty four year old's work. You know.
Now I'm intrigued. And he got to this bit where
(19:45):
he sort of said and the Penny Lane piano. I thought, yeah, okay,
I know I played it. I know how that went.
And he said, it's not just one piano and I'm
certainly there, going, yeah it is, what do you mean
it's not just one? And he's so he starts going
back to the multi tracks and he goes, well, there's
this one piano. I said, yeah, that's it, and he
(20:05):
goes and then they've got this little spiky piano and
then he plays and there's this very trebling, little ding
ding ding piano playing along with it, and he goes on.
Then there's this harmonium, and it turned out I'd forgotten,
but we'd put all these layers into this piano that
eventually sounds like one very groovy piano, so much so
(20:30):
that I believed it myself. So I went in the
next day with Greg and I said, why wait a minute.
You know, so this is a really great idea. So
we started messing with like harpsichords and piano and mixing
them and getting them very exact so you couldn't tell
it was two pianos, but it was like a hybrid.
That's kind of interesting way to work. And you've been
(20:52):
working for almost a year at that point, so were
you going back and adding or retexturing tracks that you
don't the truth We've been doing a bit of that anyway,
because the rerelease of Sergeant Pepper, I was inspired by
how experimental we were and the inspiration that we'd had
(21:12):
for Sergeant Pepper, and I thought, yeah, you know, that's
a kind of good way to go is to just
not make the same old record, just try and think
outside the box and think, you know, what can we
do now? That's crazy and at the same time it
comes out just like a song. You know, it's still
in the end, isn't isn't some crazy mess. It's actually
(21:35):
Penny Lane, you know, your day in the life. It's
it's a proper song. But the approach was very experimental.
So we've been doing a bit of that with Greg.
But once I saw that program about it, we then
started to pick apart some of the stuff we've done,
made pianos consisting of a few things instead of just
(21:55):
the piano. Were there any particular tracks that you remember
that you began to to rewire this way. I think
the track that's the opening track, the opening song, I
(22:16):
don't know. Yeah, I think we cooked the piano a
bit there, and also we kind of de tuned it
because what was a nice was I played it in
a certain key and song along with it, but I
was finding the vocals a little bit too high and
I was just going to struggle with it. But Greg,
(22:36):
a good producer, says, why don't we just take it
down a bit? You know, it would be easier to sing.
And what was cool about it was the piano I
had already played now got a little bit darker. And
it actually is a bit one of his sounds. I
think I heard it on the Adele Hello. I listened
(22:57):
to that piano. I thought this is one of greg tricks,
you know, But it happened anyway to us, and I
liked the sound of the piano we were experimenting. And
the thing is, you know, it keeps it really interesting.
So you go in each day and instead of thinking, oh,
I gotta do this song, I'll but do it good.
There'd be a bit of that, but mainly it'll be whatever,
(23:18):
don't do it good. We'll mess around, you know, we'll
get something that excites us. We'll put a crazy sound
on it. And I got, yeah, I can see it
to that. And it's often that when we did a
lot of that in the beatings. I mean, John was
particularly fond of putting an echo when he was doing
the vocal so he would do what we called the
(23:39):
bog echo. In Liverpool, Bog means the toilet. You know,
I'm going to bog and the toilet traditionally has got
a good acoustic, so we would call this little delay
on the vocal sound the bog echo. It just gives
you a little bit different feeling than when you're just
hearing your own voice plane and straightforward. It's like your
(24:02):
eldest somebody with a crazy sound on his voice, Jean Vincente,
(24:22):
you know whatever. The sounds like your old rock idols.
So it inspires you a little bit. You know. It's
interesting you you mentioned the darker sound that Greg brought
to that to the piano, and then you talk about
John's experimentation, because John was sometimes the one bringing in
the darker energy that the slight darkness of you know,
(24:43):
like it's getting better all the time. It couldn't couldn't
get much worse like that. That's the famous example of
a little addition that that just adds a different shadow. Yeah,
that's true. I mean we all brought that. You know.
This is the thing what happens, you know, over time,
things become legendary, so you'll get John was the dark one,
(25:04):
Paul was the cute one, and that's not true because
we each had a bit of that or the other.
So George could be very much the one who would
bring that in. But you know what I'm talking about it.
I always used that example of the song getting better.
I always getting better all the time, and John goes
couldn't get much worse. So you know, that's a good
(25:26):
example of how he would do that. But often it
could be George who do it just as much as
John would. And I think you know, I would sometimes
take John's songs and darken them. I mean, Come Together
was a very jolly little song when John brought it in,
and it was like, no, we're not going to do that,
(25:50):
seventeen year old, you seventeen year old, Yeah, we would
have swamped it out, man. So that's the point in
case swear John's thing was, and then I would. We
had those kind of influences on each other. But the
(26:13):
story sticks that John was the dark one, I was
the light one. George was the mystic one, you know,
and to some degree that's true, but we each had
aspects of all those kind of forces. And Ringo too,
you know, he would come in sort of put some
drumming on it. That would be like whoa. I mean,
(26:35):
I had the song get Back and I'm just going
to get back, get Back and he comes up with
and that drum makes that record, you know. So it's yeah,
we're all four corners of a square. The Beatles, it
was a very democratic group, so we all brought ideas in.
(26:58):
Maybe John and I wrote most of the songs, but
George wrote some of the best songs, you know, like
something you know, some of those songs he wrote. So
sticking with this idea of it comes the legends that
stick and what we might be missing. Will soon hear
(27:19):
the fiftieth anniversary box set of the White album. Yeah,
what surprises are in store for us. So the legend,
of course is that this is where things get difficult.
There's a lot of tension during these sessions that have
spread over I think five months or so, and sometimes
the group is recording as individuals rather than as a group.
(27:39):
Is the legend they're true? Or do you remember those
sessions differently? You know. The thing is, because it was
towards the end of the Beatles, all the forces that
were later going to break the Beatles up, which is
mainly business. To tell you the truth, there was a
lot of arguing about business and we didn't like that.
We'd always traditionally just left that to someone else, but
(28:01):
it got a bit dangerous to do that, and that
someone else, it was a different someone else, actually was
about to nicke it all. So that got This is
a period after Brian Epstein's death and the start of
Applecord referring to is called Alan Klein. You know, it
got dangerous. It was an idea that he was maybe
(28:21):
going to take over and take over all the money
and all the stuff that we'd ever done, and that
made it a difficult period. But you know, the great
thing was when we got in the studio, it all
changed because we were just these four guys again and
it wasn't to do with business. It was now to
do with music, and so sometimes we did record separately.
(28:46):
I would do Blackbird, but only because it's a solo
song I did yesterday and I said to him me, okay, guys,
what are you going to do on this? And they also, well,
we can't. It's a solo song. You know. It wasn't
because we were arguing. Some of the great songs like
she's so heavy John's I mean, we all got right
(29:07):
in there. There's no we were at peace. When we
were playing music in the studio. It was always a
thrill from the word go when the Beatles were formed
to the word stop. You know, we always got in
the studio and even if we were arguing, that kind
of got superseded by the music. And you know, we
(29:30):
argued like families argue. I mean, in the early days
it was always John and George arguing about who would
have his amp loudest. They agree, okay, look, you know
we've gotta yeah, let's put it at seven. Okay, and
they put it at seven, and then you will be
playing and you just see George kind of back towards
(29:50):
his up and go nine. And then Johnathan noticed, so
he quietly sneak towards his ten, you know, and then
that would go, hey, well what are you doing? You
know that might cause a bit of an argument, but
other than that, you know that when we played music,
it came good. But we're not going to keep you
(30:22):
any longer. It is almost time to I'm in a mispronounsis,
but they're going mak chow buckshaw. Yeah, all that's what
they used to say in Germany. I remember the guy's name, Billy.
He was the chefts for to like, the manager of
the little club. We first played him and he used
(30:43):
to come okay, chow. We tried to it weren't very
good at MAC and show. Make show in German. Come on,
make a show in German. But sometimes there's people in
the audience hold that sign up, so it's stuck. You know.
There we all and that is it. I do have
to go. Thank you so much, we have to go
(31:03):
on show. Thanks very much for chatting. We hope you
enjoyed this episode of Inside the Studio, a production of
I Heart Radio. For more episodes of Inside the Studio
or other fantastic shows, check out the I Heart Radio
app Apple podcast orever you listen to your favorite podcast.
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Inside the
Studio on iHeart Radio. My name is Jordan runt Hog.
But enough about me. We're doing something a little different
this week. We're dipping into the I T. S Vault
to bring you something special from our formidable archives, and
today I'm thrilled to present an interview with quite frankly,
my all time favorite human being on the planet. I'm talking,
(00:23):
of course, about Sir Paul McCartney. He was a guest
on Inside the Studio during my friend Joe Levi's tenure
as host. This interview is from two thousand eighteen, soon
after the release of his stellar album Egypt Station. It
became his first number one record in thirty six years,
and it couldn't have been better deserved. The themes of
travel mirror mind. Constantly on the move, piqued by the new,
(00:47):
the different, the unexpected and the fun. Each of the
sixteen tracks brims with McCartney's undiminished and seemingly boundless energy
and trademark gift for melody. It's a gift that he
showcased most recently on Twenties McCartney three, an album recorded
at his home studio in Lockdown, or as he called it, Rockdown.
(01:07):
In honor of Sir Paul's recently announced Got Back tour
of North America, arguably the summer's hottest ticket, we decided
that was a good reason as any to share these
words from the master. Listen to what the man said,
and enjoy Paul McCartney. Welcome to inside the Studio, Key Joe,
(01:27):
or a very special edition of Backstage at the Paul
McCartney Show. Okay, and here we are in the Winnipeg.
In Winnipeg winned the Peg a few months ago. I'm
walking up Park Avenue and I pass a guy coming
down the street who looks remarkably like Paul McCartney Park
Avenue in eighty nine street. I think, can't be Paul McCartney.
No one with him, no one around did a double take.
(01:51):
It was Paul McCartney. It couldn't have been him, but
it was. You were just walking down the street by yourself.
I walked down streets therefore, walking down I've heard that,
you know, I like to get out and about and
people say, oh no, you're gonna have acres of security
behind you and stuff. But I'd like to just get out,
you know, just so as you feel like yourself instead
(02:12):
of like a rock star. Are there times you do
like to feel like a rock star? You know, when
I do the show, that's good, But then you know
you need to balance it, so you get off the
stage and maybe you know, like you said, you're walking somewhere.
So I like to just get out like I always
did when I was a kid. So you know, it's
(02:34):
just keeps me sane, and it's it's the same feeling
as when I was just walking around, only differences. I
get recognized. Everyone reaches in their pocket immediately, you know,
but no, I got you know, quite a lot of
freedom actually, and I value it. And then you know,
(02:56):
if I'm out at a restaurant and stuff with my wife,
someone might come over to grab a photo. I say,
oh not not just now. You know, it's a private
moment and most people are very cool, understand it. So
I like to keep that, you know, a private bit
of my life. And then I like the other bit
even more because it's like, wow, this is cool. The
(03:18):
other bit being in public, being on stage, Yeah, you
have to like it. You are playing these three hour shows.
We just saw a one hour sound check, and that's
something that people don't actually know that many concerts are
preceded by this one hour sound check. I think you
have no set list for that. Many of those songs
aren't in the set, right. Yeah. No, we always do that,
(03:39):
I mean because it's good because we need to check
the instruments we're going to use, just to make sure
they're all plugged in. They all work, and I mean
there was a little moment there. Normally doesn't screw up
too much, but our keyboard players moog didn't work. So
that's good. That's what the sound checks for, instead of
just doing all the numbers from the show, which kind
(04:00):
of spoils the show for us because when we get
a bit bored doing the numbers again, we just use
the same instruments we're going to use, but we switch
the numbers about. We do any old thing, you know,
so we'll do kind of like skifful things, folk things,
early rock and roll things, like a little solely things.
(04:20):
Midnight Special tonight, which was kind of amazing, and we
always do Midnight specially. Yeah, what you often do? You know,
You've got certain songs that go way back before I
started even playing, you know. I think that's like a
big Bill BRUNSI song. So he's an old blues singer
and they're just songs you learn along the way and
(04:41):
you like them. So if you get an opportunity or
something like this where there's a sound check, all you
really need to do is just make sure everything's working.
Then you can indulge yourself and play something like that,
you know, and it's nice. Keeps it all fresh, you know.
Talking about the songs, you do know, there's something I
(05:01):
wanted to ask you about in the set list now,
is in spite of all the danger, the first song
recorded by the Quarryman in nineteen Oh my god, so
it's now sixty years old and that can't be true.
That's before my time. I will say, for those just
(05:21):
listening at home, he could pull that off because it
does look like he's not old enough to have written really,
but thank you. But that said, the amazing thing that
I realized is that you know, you're performing songs from
your your newest record, Egypt Station, and the very first
thing you ever recorded. So the audience tonight will hear
sixty years Paul McCartney songs. That's right, Yeah, yeah, it
(05:44):
is crazy. You know, it's um I've been enjoying playing
for that long, and when I do that song in
spite of all the danger, which was just the first
little demo we ever did with the Beatles, before we
got a record contract or anything. So I always imagine
us all going to this little studio in Liverpool, all
(06:06):
paying a pound each for five pound demo and doing
this little song, you know, and it's it's so ancient
that it's great for me because it's like what it is,
it's like reaching back into your childhood. So it would
be like somebody maybe listening to this thinking of when
they were on the beach when they were one, and
(06:28):
it's what a great memory, you know. So it makes
it special for me just thinking that, Wow, you know,
it goes back really before we ever went down to
Abbey Road, before we got a record, country, before you
did into Hamburg, before we've been to Hamburg. Yeah, So
it's a great memory for me, and I like doing
it because we get the audience involved on that one,
(06:50):
you know, and so we have fun with it. So
it is nice to be able to say this is
the very first thing we ever did, first record I
was ever involved with, and then we come right up
to date and were saying, now this is like the
most recent. Somehow it seems to fit together, you know.
You know, So that's twice now that you've mentioned drawing
(07:11):
on those childhood feelings. First when we were talking about
walking around by yourself, and now when we're talking about
playing that song in spite of all the danger. Is
that a wild spring for you going back to that
time or holding onto that energy. Yeah, you know. It's funny.
In the Beatles, even when we were like maybe twenty
four years old or something in the height of the Beatles,
(07:33):
we often would we were trying to work out something
on a song or what we're going to do with
the recording, we'd often say, what would we have done
when we were seventeen, and we check back to our
seventeen year old selves, who we thought like we're like
the coolest opinion in the world. Well, we would have said, yeah,
do it, Yeah do it man, or no way, that's
(07:55):
no good. You know. So you always refer to that period,
you know, it's your formative period. So when you get
a lot of your ideas, and in my case, if
you're writing songs, those memories are very rich wells of inspiration.
So you know, I can just think. I remember walking
(08:16):
along the road with our guitars on our backs, me
and John just before we were famous, you know, and
me writing let us to people, dear sir, we are
a rock combo, and you know, we would love to
play at your place, you know, so all that sort
of stuff. It's kind of like magic for me. I
think also because of how far I've come. So you've
(08:39):
got that very early innocent period, and then we get
famous with the Beatles. Well before that, we go to Hamburg,
as you say, and then we get famous with the Beatles,
and then we get the American fame, and then we
make records and we we go through our various phases.
So it's a long, long, long journey. And then right now,
(09:02):
you know, here I am, you know, making a new
album in Egypt Station, and long behold, it goes to
number one in America. You know, you can imagine, you know,
we're partying that night was a party, we'll see. I
want to ask you about that. Egypt Station enters the
charts at number one, So I guess that, if you're
keeping score at home, that's your first record to debut
(09:22):
at number one since the Beatles. Since the Beatles and
the first number one, and I believe thirty six years.
So what was the party? What was the well, you know,
the great thing was after the show. Sometimes if the
guys don't have to load out, if they're all in
a place and we're going to play the place tomorrow,
which was that occasion, I'll say, okay, let's all get together,
(09:45):
have a little drink of something to eat, and we
get the crowd, and so we all get to hang
with each other because it's a bit like a family,
your tour family, you know. So we all get together
and then our DJ who comes with us on the tour,
he'll DJ some nice dance music stuff. So we were
going to have that little party anyway. And then suddenly
that afternoon, right after sound check, on my phone, I
(10:07):
get the message bank congratulations requiescunt it in the morning
and I'm just about to go to the dressroom, which
I stopped going, Oh wait a minute, hey, guys, I
announced to everyone every number one, you know. So that
party that evening, that was special because we had a
real great reason to celebrate. We were going to celebrate anyway,
(10:28):
just having a party, but it became really special. We
danced the night away. Baby. I was talking to someone
at your label in Los Angeles Capital and the people, well,
they said back at you. They said, we're amazed at
how hard this guy works, seventy six years old, three
(10:51):
hour concerts. But also he's out there doing things, taking
advantage of opportunities we bring him. If we bring them
to a twenty three year old the artist, they might complain.
I was like, yeah, let's do it what I always do.
Promoting a record used to be quite boring because they
would trot out the same old things. You've got to
go there, you've got to do thirty six interviews. We're
(11:15):
going to take you to some place central in Europe
where all the European territories can come in. And how
it was that was Cologne. They always say you're going
to Colone and said why Cologne. So well, it's in
the middle of Europe, and we'll bring the Italians, the
French and Swiss and everybody in. And so I kind
of did it, thinking what I've got to promote the record,
(11:36):
But it was a deadly ball. It was really like,
oh no, not that again. So I kind of rebelled
one day and the meeting I said, look, you know,
let's make it something that we're excited about. Because if
we're excited, we actually have a good time. So let's
cook up some ideas that are like fun and they're different,
(11:57):
and it's not going to Cologne and would end this interviews.
So we had some great little things. We had playbacks
at the studio in l A. We were working at
Henson and we had these little playbacks for I Heart.
These are great little sessions. We just cranked it up,
played the album for them. So that was easy. That
wasn't like the concer to Debbey Road that you did.
(12:19):
And then we did we did a CAVN. We went
back to my old school and the little concert there,
so you know, it made it fun, it made it interesting,
and each little thing was different, and so it was, yeah,
capital we're happy. But I was happy with the ideas
we were cooking up together, you know, as long as
(12:39):
they were good ideas that were exciting everyone. We had
a blest You worked with great Kurtin and Ryan Tater
this record, and Ryan and you did the single for
(13:01):
you or some might hear it the way I do M,
which would be a knott of your word. And we
can say it for you. There we go, so give you.
If you give someone a present, you don't say this
is for you. You go, this is for you, for you, okay,
if you h okay. So this is my story and
I'm sticking to it, okay. And yet I was immediately
(13:23):
reminded of something I grew up reading a Grill Marcus
essay in the Old Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock
and Roll about the Beatles, where he recalls hearing I
saw her standing there on the radio immediately in the
days after the first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
He writes, Paul's one two three, fuck opening. How in
the world did they expect to get away with that?
(13:46):
And the thing is is, after I read that, I
never heard it another way. I always heard it, but
I'll never hear an other way. Now. It wasn't that,
But I like it, man, you know, you know, it's
a kind of nice thing when people kind of misinterpret
what you've doneal they put extra meaning on it. I mean,
I did the song Hi Hi Hi, which we'll do tonight,
(14:07):
and there's a line in it which I was kind
of writing just like surrealist lyrics. I was like, so
I wrote, I wrote lie on the bed and get
ready for my polygone. It doesn't mean anything was a polygon,
you know, but people thought it was get ready for
my body Gune. I thought, you know what, that is
(14:30):
better if you ever sung it that way. Okay, So
you know, sometimes the misinterpretation is actually better than the
real lyric. You know. Tell me you've said that the
songs you you worked on with Greg, you brought into
the studio, but when you worked with Ryan Tedder, he
wanted to make it up in the studio. Yeah, tell
(14:51):
me a little bit about putting that song for you together.
As you say. When I was working with Greg, which
was most of the time, I had a lot of
songs I wanted to record, so I came in and
we worked on them together, but they were ready written.
And then there was a period there where Great couldn't work.
But I had a couple of weeks off, so I
took one of the weeks as a holiday. Uh, And
(15:14):
then the other week my manager said, you want to
keep the momentum going. You know, you're on a bit
of a role here, and if you want to keep
it going, you know, I can suggest other people you
might work with. You know. So he sent me a
few suggestions and I liked what I was hearing that
Ryan was doing. I didn't know much about him. Maybe
I phoned him up and we had a great conversation.
(15:36):
So I said, well, come to my studio in England
and we'll just figure it out. We'll just think of something,
you know. So I said, I've got a couple of
songs we could do these. He said, no, no, let's
let's just make it up because we didn't have long
We just had the seven days. It might have even
been five days, and so we just made them up.
(15:57):
And we ended up making up three tracks. And where
you when you say make them up? Were you writing
side by side? Were you trying just having ideas, you know,
just throwing ideas out. He'd sort of say, what about
yeah do John Dudandu. I go yeah, da Dado. So
I go out on the mic and go yeah Dado,
And they think, oh God, let us stick some words in,
(16:17):
Hey you want Udandu and I eventually put some words
to it, and then we put a beat to it,
and I put some guitar on or bass on or whatever,
and him and his co producers zac you know, they
just got grooving with the sounds, and I'd get sort
of thinking of what I was going to do on
the vocal. They throw ideas out and he said what
(16:38):
about that? He said, well, let me try it, you know.
So some of the things didn't work. We can those.
It was funny because because of this method of working,
the trouble was often that yeah do dad dudando becomes yeah,
I love you baby, and it's like, this is a
bit boring. So I said to Ryan in the middle
(16:58):
of the week and I said, hey, know, man, I said,
I'm known for doing songs like eleanor Rigby or you know,
Live and Let Die, which you've got a little bit
of meaning to them, you know. So I said, I'm
not sure I can do this. Hey, I love your baby.
I said, well, I'll tell you what. So we decided
what we would do was we'd carry on like that
(17:20):
and then I'd revisit it and come up with what
I thought were better lyrics. So that was how how
we did it. It made a lot of it up
as we went along and thought that was good, but
the bits I thought were a bit corny. I just
rewrote and then went in and fix the vocal with
these new words. You know. A week or sore ago,
I was in Los Angeles. I saw a band, Lake
(17:40):
Street Dive, terrifically talented band and the will turn and
they do in their set let me roll it, and
it's it's great. And afterwards I was talking to them,
that's terrific, and they looked at me and they shrugged. Yeah,
it's a Paul McCartney song. But then they started talking
about for You, and he's got a song out now,
(18:02):
and the thing is it's so on trend, like it's
got these the drum track and these little drops in it.
So they were like amazed at that classic McCartney melodicism
up against the sort of modern touches that Bryan Tyler
brought to it. Yeah, well that's that's what it was. Yeah,
(18:22):
Ryan brought that to it, and say, Zac's called producers,
a young guy called Zac, and the two of them
took care of that side of things. What's about this
you know list? So they would take a little bit
of my vocal and speed it up and drop it
back in and do these little crazy things. And you know,
the idea was if I didn't like it, I go,
(18:43):
oh no way, man. But most of the time, I go,
that's cool. I like that. There were three tracks. Only
one has been released from that week, but the others
are pretty good too. And then when you were working
with Greg that's over a longer period, and you've said
that one thing it charged those sessions was seeing this
(19:03):
documentary Howard Goodall did about the rerelease the fiftieth anniversary
set of Sergeant Pepper's that you actually had this experience
of learning wait, wait, that's how we did it. Yeah, yeah,
you know. I mean I wasn't really gonna watch this
because you know, it's like I thought, well, I kind
of know everything he didn't tell me. I know about this,
(19:25):
But then he started in on Penny Lane. It hooked
me in because he started to say, oh, now Paul
wants to go higher, but he actually modulates down a key.
I'm going, did I Oh, wow, that's good. I'm getting
impressed by this young twenty four year old's work. You know.
Now I'm intrigued. And he got to this bit where
(19:45):
he sort of said and the Penny Lane piano. I thought, yeah, okay,
I know I played it. I know how that went.
And he said, it's not just one piano and I'm
certainly there, going, yeah it is, what do you mean
it's not just one? And he's so he starts going
back to the multi tracks and he goes, well, there's
this one piano. I said, yeah, that's it, and he
(20:05):
goes and then they've got this little spiky piano and
then he plays and there's this very trebling, little ding
ding ding piano playing along with it, and he goes on.
Then there's this harmonium, and it turned out I'd forgotten,
but we'd put all these layers into this piano that
eventually sounds like one very groovy piano, so much so
(20:30):
that I believed it myself. So I went in the
next day with Greg and I said, why wait a minute.
You know, so this is a really great idea. So
we started messing with like harpsichords and piano and mixing
them and getting them very exact so you couldn't tell
it was two pianos, but it was like a hybrid.
That's kind of interesting way to work. And you've been
(20:52):
working for almost a year at that point, so were
you going back and adding or retexturing tracks that you
don't the truth We've been doing a bit of that anyway,
because the rerelease of Sergeant Pepper, I was inspired by
how experimental we were and the inspiration that we'd had
(21:12):
for Sergeant Pepper, and I thought, yeah, you know, that's
a kind of good way to go is to just
not make the same old record, just try and think
outside the box and think, you know, what can we
do now? That's crazy and at the same time it
comes out just like a song. You know, it's still
in the end, isn't isn't some crazy mess. It's actually
(21:35):
Penny Lane, you know, your day in the life. It's
it's a proper song. But the approach was very experimental.
So we've been doing a bit of that with Greg.
But once I saw that program about it, we then
started to pick apart some of the stuff we've done,
made pianos consisting of a few things instead of just
(21:55):
the piano. Were there any particular tracks that you remember
that you began to to rewire this way. I think
the track that's the opening track, the opening song, I
(22:16):
don't know. Yeah, I think we cooked the piano a
bit there, and also we kind of de tuned it
because what was a nice was I played it in
a certain key and song along with it, but I
was finding the vocals a little bit too high and
I was just going to struggle with it. But Greg,
(22:36):
a good producer, says, why don't we just take it
down a bit? You know, it would be easier to sing.
And what was cool about it was the piano I
had already played now got a little bit darker. And
it actually is a bit one of his sounds. I
think I heard it on the Adele Hello. I listened
(22:57):
to that piano. I thought this is one of greg tricks,
you know, But it happened anyway to us, and I
liked the sound of the piano we were experimenting. And
the thing is, you know, it keeps it really interesting.
So you go in each day and instead of thinking, oh,
I gotta do this song, I'll but do it good.
There'd be a bit of that, but mainly it'll be whatever,
(23:18):
don't do it good. We'll mess around, you know, we'll
get something that excites us. We'll put a crazy sound
on it. And I got, yeah, I can see it
to that. And it's often that when we did a
lot of that in the beatings. I mean, John was
particularly fond of putting an echo when he was doing
the vocal so he would do what we called the
(23:39):
bog echo. In Liverpool, Bog means the toilet. You know,
I'm going to bog and the toilet traditionally has got
a good acoustic, so we would call this little delay
on the vocal sound the bog echo. It just gives
you a little bit different feeling than when you're just
hearing your own voice plane and straightforward. It's like your
(24:02):
eldest somebody with a crazy sound on his voice, Jean Vincente,
(24:22):
you know whatever. The sounds like your old rock idols.
So it inspires you a little bit. You know. It's
interesting you you mentioned the darker sound that Greg brought
to that to the piano, and then you talk about
John's experimentation, because John was sometimes the one bringing in
the darker energy that the slight darkness of you know,
(24:43):
like it's getting better all the time. It couldn't couldn't
get much worse like that. That's the famous example of
a little addition that that just adds a different shadow. Yeah,
that's true. I mean we all brought that. You know.
This is the thing what happens, you know, over time,
things become legendary, so you'll get John was the dark one,
(25:04):
Paul was the cute one, and that's not true because
we each had a bit of that or the other.
So George could be very much the one who would
bring that in. But you know what I'm talking about it.
I always used that example of the song getting better.
I always getting better all the time, and John goes
couldn't get much worse. So you know, that's a good
(25:26):
example of how he would do that. But often it
could be George who do it just as much as
John would. And I think you know, I would sometimes
take John's songs and darken them. I mean, Come Together
was a very jolly little song when John brought it in,
and it was like, no, we're not going to do that,
(25:50):
seventeen year old, you seventeen year old, Yeah, we would
have swamped it out, man. So that's the point in
case swear John's thing was, and then I would. We
had those kind of influences on each other. But the
(26:13):
story sticks that John was the dark one, I was
the light one. George was the mystic one, you know,
and to some degree that's true, but we each had
aspects of all those kind of forces. And Ringo too,
you know, he would come in sort of put some
drumming on it. That would be like whoa. I mean,
(26:35):
I had the song get Back and I'm just going
to get back, get Back and he comes up with
and that drum makes that record, you know. So it's yeah,
we're all four corners of a square. The Beatles, it
was a very democratic group, so we all brought ideas in.
(26:58):
Maybe John and I wrote most of the songs, but
George wrote some of the best songs, you know, like
something you know, some of those songs he wrote. So
sticking with this idea of it comes the legends that
stick and what we might be missing. Will soon hear
(27:19):
the fiftieth anniversary box set of the White album. Yeah,
what surprises are in store for us. So the legend,
of course is that this is where things get difficult.
There's a lot of tension during these sessions that have
spread over I think five months or so, and sometimes
the group is recording as individuals rather than as a group.
(27:39):
Is the legend they're true? Or do you remember those
sessions differently? You know. The thing is, because it was
towards the end of the Beatles, all the forces that
were later going to break the Beatles up, which is
mainly business. To tell you the truth, there was a
lot of arguing about business and we didn't like that.
We'd always traditionally just left that to someone else, but
(28:01):
it got a bit dangerous to do that, and that
someone else, it was a different someone else, actually was
about to nicke it all. So that got This is
a period after Brian Epstein's death and the start of
Applecord referring to is called Alan Klein. You know, it
got dangerous. It was an idea that he was maybe
(28:21):
going to take over and take over all the money
and all the stuff that we'd ever done, and that
made it a difficult period. But you know, the great
thing was when we got in the studio, it all
changed because we were just these four guys again and
it wasn't to do with business. It was now to
do with music, and so sometimes we did record separately.
(28:46):
I would do Blackbird, but only because it's a solo
song I did yesterday and I said to him me, okay, guys,
what are you going to do on this? And they also, well,
we can't. It's a solo song. You know. It wasn't
because we were arguing. Some of the great songs like
she's so heavy John's I mean, we all got right
(29:07):
in there. There's no we were at peace. When we
were playing music in the studio. It was always a
thrill from the word go when the Beatles were formed
to the word stop. You know, we always got in
the studio and even if we were arguing, that kind
of got superseded by the music. And you know, we
(29:30):
argued like families argue. I mean, in the early days
it was always John and George arguing about who would
have his amp loudest. They agree, okay, look, you know
we've gotta yeah, let's put it at seven. Okay, and
they put it at seven, and then you will be
playing and you just see George kind of back towards
(29:50):
his up and go nine. And then Johnathan noticed, so
he quietly sneak towards his ten, you know, and then
that would go, hey, well what are you doing? You
know that might cause a bit of an argument, but
other than that, you know that when we played music,
it came good. But we're not going to keep you
(30:22):
any longer. It is almost time to I'm in a mispronounsis,
but they're going mak chow buckshaw. Yeah, all that's what
they used to say in Germany. I remember the guy's name, Billy.
He was the chefts for to like, the manager of
the little club. We first played him and he used
(30:43):
to come okay, chow. We tried to it weren't very
good at MAC and show. Make show in German. Come on,
make a show in German. But sometimes there's people in
the audience hold that sign up, so it's stuck. You know.
There we all and that is it. I do have
to go. Thank you so much, we have to go
(31:03):
on show. Thanks very much for chatting. We hope you
enjoyed this episode of Inside the Studio, a production of
I Heart Radio. For more episodes of Inside the Studio
or other fantastic shows, check out the I Heart Radio
app Apple podcast orever you listen to your favorite podcast.
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