Interview with Larry Kane

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From May 11 to May 15, 1968, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were in New York, to promote their newly-formed company, Apple Corps. On May 13, 1968, they conducted a series of interviews for US media at the St. Regis Hotel.

They were also interviewed by Larry Kane, a Miami-based disc jockey and a key supporter of The Beatles since their 1964 US invasion. His interview was filmed in colour, and the footage remained unreleased till its inclusion in Kane’s book “Lennon Revealed” in 2007.

During the interview, Larry Kane asked John and Paul about Apple’s business plans, their recent trip to India, their thoughts on LSD, US campus riots, and Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination. John also talked about The Beatles’ troubled 1966 appearance in Memphis and their first visit to New York in 1964.

Larry Kane: John and Paul, nice to see you again.

Paul: Nice to see you

John: Nice to see you, Larry

Larry Kane: What is Apple?

John: It’s a company we’re setting up which involves records, films, electronics, which make records and films work and, what’s it called, manufacturing?

Paul: Yeah, it does a few things, you know.

John: You know, the by-products that end up with Larry Page, T-shirts and that.

Paul: It’s just trying to mix business with enjoyment.

John: Pleasure.

Paul: We’re in business, you know, we find ourselves in business, but…

Larry: Are you the directors of this?

Paul: Yeah, yeah. But all the profits won’t go into our pockets, it’ll go to help people, but not like a charity.

John: If somebody wants to make a film and they go to a company and they get shown into the waste-paper bin [Paul laughs] and nothing ever happens. So they go round, they make an underground one and it goes round and round underground and a lot of people never see it. So if they come to us, they won’t stand a chance [John is joking. Paul laughs]. But we hope to make a thing that’s free, where people can just come and do and record and not have to ask “could we have another microphone in the studio ’cause we haven’t had a hit yet ?”

Larry: I see. How expansive, how large will this be…?

John: [Joking] Oh, like that!

Larry: How large will it be in America?

Paul: We don’t know yet, you know. It’II be big, I think.

John: We’re just blowing up the balloon.

Paul: There’s lots of things, you know, we’ve just got a friend of ours who’s in electronics…

John: Oh yeah.

Paul: …I’ll tell you about this, John… who’s called Alex and he’s great. He’s a Greek fella and he’s invented incredible things, you see? So, that’ll be big.

Larry: Are the days the Beatles are on stage over?

John: You know, they’ve been over the last two years because [inaudible] but you never know, with those incredible electronics. I can fly over to New York in one day.

Larry: Did you enjoy the trip over to India?

Paul: Yes, loved it.

John: The journey was terrible, but the trip was all right.

Larry: There was a report that… Now, we get very bad reports…

John: Yeah, it’s true…smashed him! [Paul laughs]

Larry: …that you didn’t it or you didn’t have the patience and you decided to go home?

John: We were there for four months, or George and I were. We lost thirteen pounds and we looked a day older.

Larry: Do you think this man’s on the level?

John: I don’t know what level he’s on, but…

Paul: He’s on the level!

John: … we had a nice holiday in India and came back rested to play businessman.

Larry: What do you see in the years ahead for yourselves?

Paul: A moving on, expanding vista …

John: Apple. You know, we’ll try and set it up and then see where it goes. It’s like a top. We’ll set it going and hope for the best.

Larry: Paul, about a year and a half ago, there were quotes on the wire about your discussion of LSD and some other things like that … It seemed to me, from what I read, that you had endorsed it and condemned it

John: We were manufacturing it at the time… [Paul laughs]

Larry: …what’s the story?

John: The business went bump! [Everyone laughs]

Paul: Somebody asked me, some newspaper man came up and said, “Have you had LSD?” So I thought, ‘Well, I’ll either be cagey here, or I’ll be honest’. So I said, “Yes”.

John: And it was his responsibility reporting it. So they had him on TV saying, “Why did you say this? Why did you say this?” They kept asking him, “Did you take it?” So he says, “Yeah” but on TV he says, “Well you don’t print this bit of film, man, I mean, I don’t wanna tell anybody I’ve had it”

Larry: Almost like the situation with the Christ statement? [John looks away and mouths something to the side]

Paul: Yeah, right, but they just asked me a question and I gave them an answer and then it was blown up. I mean, you know, I just spoke the truth and it’s sometimes painful.

…

Paul “We only stopped touring because there was nowhere to go, you could only get bigger and bigger audiences and you couldn’t hear it.”

John “What with all the rifles and the big masks and the club, I was frightened to death!”

Larry Kane “Of all the time you’ve been Beatles, before you were just people from Liverpool, there was always a question that somebody asked you, ‘When is the bubble going to burst?’ Remember that? Well, the bubble hasn’t burst, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to burst.”

John (interrupting) “It just flew off.”

Larry Kane “But do you ever envision a time of just ceasing being The Beatles and going off on your own?”

John “We do work on our own anyway now.”

Larry Kane “You never can be anything else but The Beatles?”

Paul “We are The Beatles. That’s what we are!”

…

Larry: What would you say is the highlight of your career here?

John: Escaping from Memphis.

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