Vulture has posted a fun new interview with Ringo.
Some highlights:
On the "Octopus' Garden" Scene in Peter Jackson's "The Beatles: Get Back" documentary
I can play any song you’d like as long as it’s in C on the piano. Keep that in mind. I’d actually left the band and gone to Sardinia for a holiday in 1968, and Peter Sellers’s boat just happened to be there. Maureen and I and the kids went on his boat, and the captain was talking to me. I’m afraid we were smoking a bit of dope in those days — a bit of grass. So it was all so nice and beautiful, and he told me the story about how octopuses have their own special gardens under the sea. When you’re stonedWhen I asked Starr if “Octopus’s Garden” was the best Beatles song to get stoned to, he paused and said, “I don’t know. It was fine for me.”, how do you react? “Wow! Wow!” On the boat I had a guitar, and I could play anything you’d like in that as long as it was in E. It was the only chord change I knew. “I’d like to be under the sea in an octopus’s garden in the shade” just came to me. It was just one of those magic moments. I mean, what if the captain said, “Sharks like live dogs for dinner?” Happy-go-lucky sharks.
I got a few of those verses, and when I went back to the studio — because it was in C — George was sitting there and took an interest. He said, “F flat, D minor,” whatever. Nowhere I could go. I don’t know these chords. I’m a 12-bar guy. And then, he gets up, and you see that footage you’ve experienced. He always helped out, George. It was great. I miss him every day.
On his drumming style
That’s one of the good things in the Peter Jackson documentaryThe Beatles: Get Back (2021). It’s long. But while they’re writing the songs, I’m holding the tempo. And then, when the song is finished, I can do my stuff. That’s because I’ll know where they’re going to sing and I try not to play over the singer like some other drummers do. I can’t do that drum fill twice. It’s mad because it comes off as an emotion. It’s not like, “Okay, three and a half bars, then you go boom, boom.” I’ve never played like that. I play how it feels. And sometimes, it feels like the fill is there, and sometimes it feels like, oh, no, actually the fill’s there. It’s just what I do. That’s how I play. I’m not thinking of anyone else but the track. With those three boys, we were psychic. Even with the headphones on and not looking — eyes closed, playing away — you’d know it’s going to move here. Bang, and okay, pull it back. It’s like we didn’t have to talk to each other. Once we had the count in, we knew what we did.
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