Interview for The Daily Mirror

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A IS for Apple. B is for Beatles and Big Business, a multi-million pound business the group is building from a fifth-floor office in Wigmore Street. Soon they move to a quarter-million pound headquarters in Savile-row, and yesterday they revealed to me their plans for their new empire.

From behind a huge oak desk cluttered with coffee cups, sandwiches and sheets of paper, Paul McCartney told of the Beatles’ fourpronged attack into the world of big business, and their bid to secure a Dr. Beeching figure to run it all.

Apple Corps, Limited, is the new company created by the Beatles with the spare half a million pounds left in the kitty after Beatlemania ended. It has branched into four major divisions — music, electronics, merchandise and films.

Managing director is Neil Aspinall, the ex-road manager who used to carry the Beatles’ bags. Aspinall has crossed the world three times making the contacts and forging the links for the organisation to succeed.

“He’s really come right out of his shell. We always knew it was there, but we didn’t know he was going to develop with such tenacity,” said George Harrison of Aspinall. “Mind, he should. He collected eight GCEs at school and that’s more than the rest of us together, which makes him a lot brainier than us.”

A lot of the Beatles’ old friends have jobs in the organisation.

But Paul McCartney said: “In a year’s time the organisation will be so big that the friends we have will be immersed by friends we never dreamed of.”

Each department has its own boss:

Denis O’Dell, 41, from Eire, associate producer of the Beatles’ first film “A Hard Day’s Night,” has taken over as their film chief. As yet, Apple have got to get their first film off the ground. But O’Dell says: “We hope to have four major productions in the pipeline by the end of the year.” And Apple plan to make the Beatles’ next picture. O’Dell told me: “Our first film is titled ‘The Jam’ — the story of a traffic jam — and the love-hate, selfishness and greed it can cause.” Also planned are the film versions of the two Lennon books, “In His Own Write” and “A Spaniard in the Works.“

Ronald Kass, 31, an American and once the whiz kid behind Liberty Records, is in charge of all the new artists and the sheet music, as well as the records. “We’re going away fast,” said Kass. “Many people in the record industry are going to be stunned by the progress we make.”

John Lyndon, who came to the attention of the Beatles after he promoted pop concerts, is in charge of merchandise. He was once a Portobello-road stall keeper. He said: “Very soon we shall start a mail order catalogue, so the kids in the provinces who can’t afford to come to London can get their garments and goods.“

SURPRISING territory into which the Beatles move is electronics. John Lennon happened to meet bearded Greek research chemist and inventor Alexis Mardas, 26, who was tramping his way to Africa. The only people he knew in London were Lord Snowdon and Prince Philip. But he got to know the Beatles as well — and signed up with Apple.

In the space of a few weeks he has brought out over fifty new gadgets from radios to telephonic equipment, and these are now being patented.

In the new building he will get a basement laboratory.

Yesterday in the Wigmore Street offices, there was a kind of flurry which you might see in the City. There was a wiry-haired singer from America hoping the Beatles or an Apple executive would listen to a demonstration record. Wages clerk Angela Walsh, 19, from Fulham making up the monthly cheques for signature. There are forty-nine on the payroll.

“I know what everyone is earning in the organisation apart from the Beatles,” she said. “But of course it is strictly confidential.”

The Beatles commute between the offices of the executives they have appointed. John and Paul were in yesterday soon after nine o’clock.

They have decided to run the organisation themselves, although they haven’t become directors or chairmen, because they own it — and that’s all they need to do.

“We’ve been looking for a Beeching figure to come in and organise us,” revealed John. “We had several of ’em in. but they just didn’t come up to scratch. The chaps we had in the interview were bigoted. They thought they knew everything and that they were just dealing with four clowns. But we saw through them right away and felt we couldn’t offer any one of them the £20,000 a year we were prepared to pay. We could fall flat on our faces — but, so what if we do? But at the moment we can only see success,” John said.

Apple is setting up a staff pension insurance scheme and other facilities.

Said Paul: “We’re going to have our own brass band.”

There are six other key figures in the organisation. Most influential among them — 25-year-old Stephen Maltz, who has been accountant to the Beatles for the past three years. “I shall be disappointed if Apple doesn’t turn over £10m sterling within the next three years,” he said.

Brian Lewis, a solicitor who once worked on the James Bond films, is assisting O’Dell on the picture-making front.

There’s Derek Taylor, 33, former personal assistant to Brian Epstein. Peter Brown, who once managed Epstein’s record shops in Liverpool, and Wendy Hanson, 31, publicity consultant.

Another old Beatles’ friend has an office in the Apple empire, 26-year-old Peter Shotton, former member of the Quarrymen group of which all the Beatles, apart from Ringo, were members.

He was the washboard player of the group, but there was no place for him when the Beatles assembled as we know them today. Now he’s personal assistant to John Lennon.

Today Apple is brushing aside the conventions of big business. Tomorrow the Beatle bosses could be on their way to another fortune.

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