Sirius XM will present a Ringo Starr Town hall radio special, which the veteran rocker will be interviewed by comedian, actor and Katy Perry soon-to-be-ex-husband Russell Brand.
According to the Daily Express, Brand is a “massive fan” of the most famous drummer in music history and said, “Now we can unravel the enigma of Ringo.”
The interview will be broadcast from Los Angeles on January 30, a day before the release of Starr’s 17th album, Ringo 2012.
Ex-Beatle Ringo Starr is preparing to work with Eurythmics man and top producer Dave Stewart on a musical.
According to the U.K.’s Daily Express, Ringo collaborated with Stewart on material for his new album, Ringo 2012, and the writing sessions resulted in extra material, enough for stage show.
Starr told Mojo magazine, “Me and Dave wrote a musical, a complete thing – characters, story, a lot of songs. We wrote it for Broadway, but it will more likely end up [as] a movie... and I’m not telling you anything else. It’s about other people.”
Beatles legend Ringo Starr unveiled his self-designed replica “Knotted Gun” statue for the Non-Violence Foundation in the Gibson Guitar Studio in Central London today. He urged others to back the Non-Violence Project campaign.
Thursday, December 8 marks 31 years since John Lennon was murdered and Ringo Starr is aiming to spread Lennon’s famous message of peace.
In an urgent call to action, Ringo urged musicians from across genres and generations to unite behind The Non-Violence Foundation (NVF) and its aim to put a stop to violence affecting young people. Ringo was joined at the “Knotted Gun” unveiling held exclusively in the Gibson Guitar Studio by Bafta’s Rising Star nominee Adam Deacon and MOBO Award-winning hip-hop artist Akala.
Ringo Starr said: “I am doing the best I can – how about you?”
The former Beatle created his own design on the charity’s signature logo of the knotted gun statue “Non-Violence” which was originally created by Swedish artist Carl Fredrik Reutersward as a memorial tribute to John Lennon.
Founded in 1993, NVP is a Swiss-based, non-profit international youth education and leadership initiative. It promotes social change, with representation on five continents. NVP’s goal is to become the world’s foremost organization for violence prevention education and to create a meeting place for the next generation of leaders.
To learn more about Non-Violence Project, please visit http://www.nonviolence.com/, and to learn more about the Knot Violence art project, please visit http://www.knotviolence.org/.
Photo Credit: Lauren Keogh
In a recent interview with the Daily Mail, former Beatle Ringo Starr said talked about his rotating All-Starr Band, which is now in its 22nd year. The group—which currently features Romantics frontman Wally Palmer, guitar legend Rick Derringer and multi-instrumentalist Edgar Winter, among others—is on tour in Europe. Starr said he keeps the group going out of his love for performing.
“I still love to play,” said the legendary drummer. “I go down the front and sing ‘Photograph’ or whatever, then I get to go back to the drums and play with all these other musicians. It’s a win-win situation. I get the chance to be both the entertainer and the musician. Everyone’s a star, but I’m the big star. The band gets to play 12 numbers between them and I do 12 numbers.”
Starr said he knows that there are certain songs he has to play.
“I have to do ‘With a Little Help from My Friends.’ I have to do ‘Yellow Sub.’ And for myself, I have to do ‘Boys,’ because I’ve done that since I was with Rory Storm and The Hurricanes, the band I was in before the Fabs. People love to see me playing and singing from the drums. There is a responsibility to do stuff that people have come to hear.”
As for Ringo’s All-Starrs, the amiable skinsman said that he always makes a point of asking his old pal Paul McCartney if he would care to join his backing group, just in case.
“Every time I ask him to join the All-Starrs he says he’s too busy,” Starr joked. “I tell him he’ll have his two numbers…”
Ringo Starr will perform and announce his European tour with a live press conference today at 9 a.m. central time at www.muzu.tv/ringostarr.
Music-news.com reports that Ringo and his All Starr Band (Edgar Winter, Gary Wright, Rick Derringer, Richard Page, Wally Palmar and Gregg Bissonette) will perform briefly and then answer questions from the media and fans.
The All Starr Band European tour begins on June 4 , and will go to Ukraine, Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Latvia, Poland, U.K., France, Czech Republic, Italy, Holland, Germany and Austria.
As Ringo Starr prepares for another tour with his All Starr band, the Beatles drummer has been reminiscing a little with U.K. newspaper the Daily Mail.
Ringo explained why he still hits the road at 70 years of age. “I still love to play. I go down the front and sing ‘Photograph’ or whatever, then I get to go back to the drums and play with all these other musicians,” he said. “It’s a win-win situation. I get the chance to be both the entertainer and the musician. Everyone’s a star, but I’m the big star. The band gets to play 12 numbers between them and I do 12 numbers.”
Talking about the early days in Liverpool, Starr points out that The Beatles were lucky to have him. “It wasn’t just that I was a big shot; I was a cool drummer,” he said. “Brian Epstein asked if I would play lunchtime at the Cavern with them. That’s how I got started.”
He was, after all, a well-known local drummer when The Beatles were still finding their feet. “I was. Within Liverpool I was a lot more well known than them,” he said. “Rory and The Hurricanes were big shots in the city. We had suits. That was our claim to fame.”
As for his enduring friendship with Paul McCartney, Starr explained the nature of their relationship. “‘We are good friends. We don’t live in each other’s pockets, but if we’re in the same country, we get together,” he said. “He’s singing and playing on my latest album and I played on several of his. We’re just pals. We’re the only two who’ve experienced all this who are still here.”
Special thanks to ThisDayinMusic.com.
One of the most down-to-earth, accurate and realistic rock and roll movies of all time premiered on this day in 1973.
Britain’s answer, in some ways, to American Graffiti, That’ll Be the Day looked back fondly, but realistically at Britain’s late ’50s, early ’60s pre-Beatle youth culture. Future pop star David Essex, in his breakthrough role (he’d been playing Jesus in Godspell on the stage), played Jim MacLaine, a frustrated teen determined to break out of the shackles of small-town life in dull, boring, bland, post-war Britain.
Essex’s own life was probably a lot harsher than that of his essentially middle-class character who opts out of a cozy path to university for life on the edge instead. In fact, Essex grew up in a particularly impoverished and tough part of London, and was pals with soccer pro Frank Lampard Sr., father of current Chelsea and England soccer star Frank Lampard.
Ray Connolly, author of the movie, recently interviewed Essex and asked about his early life and leaving school at just 15 years of age. “Actually I think it was more like 14,” he said. “I never used to go. And when I did they’d just send me and Frankie Lampard off to play football. I played for West Ham Schoolboys. Frankie said I could have made it as a professional if I’d stuck at it, but I think he was just being kind.”
Directed by Granada TV mainstay Claude Whatham, the film succeeded thanks to a delicate balance of tried and trusted Brit actors like Rosemary Leach, newcomers like Essex and, most significantly, for its music credibility, full-blooded cameos from real-life rockers, Ringo Starr, Keith Moon and Billy Fury.
Throwing away his chance of attending university, Essex’s character winds up at a small seaside town working at a holiday camp (pre-packaged holiday vacations for Brits in wooden huts by the sea!). Enter Ringo, in his favorite film role and certainly his most accomplished as the worldly-wise Teddy Boy, Mike, who takes young Jim MacLaine under his wing.
The interplay between Ringo, who was partially re-creating his own holiday camp past as an actor, and Essex, determined to break out of his own social situation, resulted in some poignant, witty and, at times, surprisingly harsh scenes.
Throw in the holiday camp’s resident rock band, featuring a somewhat controlled Moon on drums and British ’50s rocker Fury as bandleader Stormy Tempest (based on Ringo’s old bandmate Rory Storm) and a tight, naturalistic script by music fan Connolly, and the movie was destined for greatness, or at the very least least cult stardom.
Essex sprung from the exposure with a hit single that cracked the American market, “Rock On,” a song he had written for the movie soundtrack but was rejected. The single would sell in excess of 15 million copies worldwide and, according to a statement Essex made to the Daily Telegraph in 2008, was one of John Lennon’s three favorite songs. “It’s such a weirdly original song; it still seems strange to me that they love it so much in America,” Essex said.
