Interview for MOJO

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How did you feel going back to The White Album?

I tend to like The Beatles stuff even more [now] than I did when we made it. ’Cos of the perspective and, y’know, looking back on things you think, “Oh that was pretty good!” So I enjoyed listening to it again. I enjoyed the memories that it brought back, even just about making the cover. And you hear stuff that you’d forgotten you did, things like Rocky Raccoon… It makes me think, “I should play that!” And then I go, “Uhh, you’re too lazy, learning all those bloody words again?!” Then I go, “No come on Paul, pull yourself together!”

You were always sticking up for the size of that album. The other Beatles and George Martin said later that it should have been a single disc…

There’s always that argument when you’ve got too much stuff. And then it’s like, Well what would you have lost? At the time, it was just an outpouring of songs. People say to me, “How do you know when it’s time to make an album?” It’s when you’ve got a lot of songs and you think, “I’m gonna have a massive pile if I don’t record these.” You just need to paint them and sell them!

There’s a disc of the demos you recorded at George’s house in Esher… Was demo-ing a new thing for you?

Y’know what? It was a little bit of a surprise to me. ’Cos I’d forgotten that we recorded them. I knew we kinda went around and rehearsed them. But that was a little bit of a new thing. We normally went into the studio without rehearsing – I think this was the first time we’d ever done it. But it seemed like a good idea and George had a little recording set-up. I’m not sure whose idea it was, but I think it was a pretty good idea. And hearing them now is really cool, because you hear the songs unfinished. It was just good looking at the process. Seeing them work is how I look at it now. I’m looking at them, The Beatles, even though I’m one of them. Because now there’s such a distance.

[Beatles engineer] Geoff Emerick says in his book [Here, There & Everywhere: My Life Recording The Music Of The Beatles]that, while recording The White Album, he would feed you tape echo through the headphones. As soon as the headphones were on, you started joking… and as soon as the cans came off you went back to hating each other…

(Laughs) I’m not sure about the end of that! It’s a good story, but I think headphones or not, it’s just playing, and that comes over in the music. We liked playing together. And even though we bitch… I mean, I remember George would bitch about my bass parts – which, you know, I listen to them and sometimes they’re pretty flowery. They’re not just dung, dung, dung, dung…

Sometimes there’s big melodies in there. I think the bass would probably irritate George, ’cos it was a bit too flowery. Or it seemed to be at the time. But that applied to all of us, not just me, what I brought to it. What each of us brought to The Beatles was incredibly special. We’d be struggling with Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. Going “Ching ching ching” on acoustic guitars and everything… And John walked in, he was a bit late. He said, “What you doing?” Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. “Oh yeah? Oh OK, that one.” He just goes over to the piano, ’cos he hasn’t got time to put his guitar on, and just goes, (Manic) “Dang, dang, da-dang-dang-dang-dang, um-chk-umchk-um-chk-um-chk…” Oh! We all fell in behind that. He totally brought that.

There’s a 12-, nearly 13-minute Helter Skelter coming out on the anniversary reissue. But where’s the legendary 27-minute version?

I wouldn’t know about that. I just wrote it and sang it!

But that version exists?

I don’t know! I could believe it. ’Cos we certainly had a slog at that one. Basically, my memory is that I wanted to write the filthiest, dirtiest,loudest song – ’cos I’d seen Townshend do a quote, where he said he’d just recorded the dirtiest, loudest [song ever]… so I got a bit jealous. So I went in, told the guys, “We gotta do Nrgh Nrgh… And here’s how we do it…” So then we ended up with blisters on Ringo’s fingers. Is that the 27-minute one, with the blisters?

You mean, was that line spliced from the 27-minute take onto the version that was originally released?

It might have been… I wonder, yeah.

You were there!

I know I was there, but I was unconscious at the time!

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