Ringo Starr: Everyone One Of Us Has All We Need… (Ринго Старр: У каждого из нас есть всё что нам надо...)
SOMETIMES your friendly neighbourhood interviewer is allowed to conduct his interview in a small room with only the interviewee and a tape, recorder for company. Sometimes when you're interviewing Ringo (for it is he), you find yourself dealing with an involved and increasingly ludicrous charade of a kind which, for thine host, has no doubt become de rigeur over the years. It seems that a Beatle is a Beatle is a Beatle, and nothing from here to eternity is going to change that. Hardly surprising then that none of the ex-Beatles enjoy giving interviews. Ringo only agreed to give interviews in London – his first for several years – because he's launching his own record company (Ring O' Records; he's never been one to tax the old imagination unnecessarily) with an album of synthesiser stuff by one David Hentschel called Startling Music. Ring O' Records will be distributed throughout Europe by Polydor. Hence it is at their plush Oxford Street offices that the interviews are held. David Hughes, Polydor press officer, has had to fix a rapid conveyor-belt schedule to accommodate everyone. No self-respecting English newspaper would turn down an audience with Mr. Starr and Hughes has been instructed to offer full facilities to continental journalists too. "The very lovely Ringo will partner David Hentschel in being interviewed by two journalists at a time, at half-hourly interviews throughout the afternoon. The winners will be announced at the end of the evening and champagne prizes distributed. Eyes down, ladies and gentlemen". PUNCTUALLY at 2.00 p.m. Ringo arrives, accompanied by Barry Anthony, head of Ring O'. Ringo is wearing a full-length fur coat, his hair distinguished by greying at the temples. Others present include Hentschel and manager John Gilbert. David Hughes draws up a chair and crosses his legs: yes, he's obviously staying. A couple of photographers hover around and various other minor personages are in seemly attendance. Ringo sits down with brandy-and-bitter-lemon. The matter in hand is the Hentschel album. Startling Music turns out to be a freeish reinterpretation of Ringo's own Ringo album from individual tracks to cover. Mr. Starr: "John Gilbert brought me a tape of this music, and it was all on an ARP – the best ARP music I'd ever 'eard. I was thinking of starting a label, and we thought it would be good if he did something for the label, and we thought it would be good if he copied the Ringo album. "I mean, he really wanted to do a symphony, but I forced him into it. "It took about a year to get together. We started it in June last year. 'Course I didn't know at the time that he was Elton John's engineer and ARP player." RINGO ARTISTE Insert: Hentschel's Big Break. Hentschel was educated at Cheltenham college, and left with a university place. Before taking it up, he worked for a year as a teaboy at Trident studios. His 'comprehensive musical background' soon saw him taking more responsible jobs, working with people like Paul McCartney, before spurning university and persuading the studio to buy a synthesiser. No mean achievement, since they then cost a minimum of £5,000. ("That", says Ringo, "is a lot of money for a lot of plugs.") He mastered the machine with a drop-kick to the mains and proceeded to play it on Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Then he played it on material by Carly Simon, Jim Webb, and Blood, Sweat And Tears. ("He's been around a long time," says Ringo in perfect English.) It has been only a short hop to Ring O' Records and Hentschel's Big Break. The End. RINGO SAYS he still doesn't recognise half his songs on Hentschel's album. "At first we were a bit strict, trying to get him to do exact copies of the songs; then he played us one he'd arranged himself, 'Devil Woman' – and it 'worked.' So we sent 'im back to do a few more how he wanted them, rather than following the basic pattern that I'd laid down. "I think overall they work best. With hindsight, I think we should have given him a free hand from the beginning." Any chance of a similar project with Goodnight Vienna? "No, I don't think he could take it. Anyway, he wants to do his own thing now, which is only right. RINGO CONFIRMS that he intends to make his label a viable proposition. Squire Hentschel ceases to receive plugs. "Oh yeah, it's gonna be a good company. "We're talking to several people at the moment. "I mean, lots of people have sent in tapes. "Now, George has these really crazy freaks coming in for his label – 'Hey, man, I've just written this new mantra'; but we just get the rock 'n' roll people. "I don't know whether I'll put myself on the label. Right now I can't, 'cos I'm with EMI, but that finishes next year. After that, we'll see if it's a good idea. Maybe we'll do it how we did Apple, whereby we were only on Apple courtesy of EMI. "I'd like it to be like United Artists. My aim in the end is to get all the independents together, so that we all can run our own business. As it is, we're all being run by people whose only qualification is as an accountant." (Historical footnote: United Artists was formed by Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D. W. Griffith in 1921 so that they could protect their interests against marauding production companies). But What Of Apple?
"Well, we still have a couple of buildings. We don't have any artists or anything, 'cos we're, trying to split ourselves up. Apple can't end as such because it will have all the Beatle product. "It's very hard. You sign a piece of paper in two minutes and it takes you 7 years to get out of it. We've got 27 lawyers at the moment in LA trying to dissolve our partnership. I'd like the world to be on a shake of the hand. "Certainly, if any artists get pissed off, they'll be able to leave my company. With Brian it was fine – I'd have signed a toilet-roll for him."  A PHOTOGRAPHER from the Daily Express asks Ringo and Hentschel to pose together in front of a darts board.
Hentschel, built like a rugby-player, dwarfs Ringo. People continue to drift in and out, the room gets sweatier and smokier. Two journalists from Holland ask if Ringo likes Golden Earring and Focus, to which he replies: Not really. What have you got against Dutch groups? They respond, indignantly. RINGO'S CAREER is remarkably buoyant at the moment. He admits that after the initial dissolution of The Beatles he spent a year sitting in his garden wondering what to do. Since then he's achieved a fresh sense of purpose. Last year with Ringo he created an album that was on a par with anything the others had accomplished as solo artists, and it sold over a million copies in the States alone. He's made a few films, designed furniture, and formed his own record company. In fact (and here the case for the defence rests), Ringo even has a Number One in the U.S. charts at the moment – his version of Hoyt Axton's 'No No Song', which may not be released over here. "We don't think they'd play it over here. I asked at Capital, and they said no, and I don't think the BBC would play it. I've never 'eard it on the radio, and it's on the album, so they could play it if they wanted to. "It's interesting because last year in America we checked out all the stations, and they said they wouldn't play it there either. So we put our 'Snooker-oo' as the A side, but everyone played 'No No Song', which freaked us all out. "I mean, there's been no problems at all. Anyway, it's an anti-drug song. You know me – I'm so nice." Which is absolutely correct. Ringo rejects in turn the temptations of marijuana, cocaine, and moonshine whisky, saying: "No, no no, I can't take it no more/I'm tired of ending up on the floor." Meanwhile, his next project is putting together his next album, which he'll regard as his third (on the basis that Ringo was his first, and both Sentimental Journey and Beaucoups Of Blues were special assignments, effectively pre-natal as far as his solo career is concerned). "I don't know whether the third album will be with Richard Perry. Maybe he's busy – maybe I'm busy, we haven't talked about it yet. I'm just going back to LA next week to try to get some things together for it. "Also Bobby Keyes – he's an old friend of everybody's – and I are going into the studio when I get back, to see if we can get anything from it. If it comes off, he'll be on my label. "I keep promising myself to do another country album, but I don't seem to have the time. By the time I've done a pop album, it's the end of the year and time to start again. "I'm supposed to be doing a TV show. Graham Chapman has just written me a script. Originally it was intended to push the Goodnight Vienna album, but it's a bit late for that. So it will now be a different show, based on the cover of the album, and featuring tracks from it. It's a Python-ish type thing. "And go and see Holy Grail – it's really great." RINGO ALSO CONFIRMS that there are plans for him to make a film with Burt Reynolds, although a shooting schedule has not yet been arranged. He will play the part of Reynolds' dumb servant. It is, he adds (naturally enough) a comedy. With all this activity, is Ringo's furniture business still active? "Yes, I'm still designing furniture with Robin Cruikshank. We do mirrors as well, and we have the franchise on the Disney characters. That all goes tumbling along – it goes on without me. We design things together, and then Robin runs all the business side. "Then Keith Moon and I are trying to get a movie together. Have you heard Moon's album? Some of it's very good, especially the bits I'm on. "Um...that never looks very good in print. "Anyway, it was a disaster at first, and he knows it and I know it, but then he got it together – there's a couple of really good tracks. 'Solid Gold' should be the single. "And he does that old one of ours...um...there are places I remember... "'In My Life' – that's it. "He's like the new Rex Harrison on that, because he semi-talks it." Mention of Moon leads on to inevitable discussion about Ringo's most recent public appearance, which was at the premiere of Tommy. Me, I'm just waiting for a member of the public to summons Ken Russell for audio-visual assault and battery – but what did our Ringo think of it? "I thought it was amazing. "I was stunned, shattered, it was so good. "It just blew my brain out – what little, I had left. "The only thing is it's ironic because you see it, and then you go to a party and get pissed. My reading of the film is that it's about getting yourself together, and lying on the floor in some hotel isn't getting yourself together. "The point is that cinema's only just catching up on sound, and it's through rock movies. They've had quadraphonic, and now they've got fumfaphonic, or whatever. I kept trying to find the fifth speaker – is it in the ceiling?" (In fact it's placed behind the screen). "It really heightens the movie if you have great sound. But of course, when it gets to Bradford, they're still going to show it just the same, but they'll put it through a teeny speaker." TWO JAPANESE journalists arrive bearing gifts from the East. There's a large bottle of sake and a box containing an ornamental hand mirror. Ringo makes a wisecrack about Chinese lanterns, then quickly apologises for his cultural confusion. Meanwhile, Hentschel sits quietly, self-possessed and attentive. All this is really for him, but it's to his credit that he knows his place. Ringo explains that he lives seven months in England, during which time he can see his kids, and five months in L.A., where most of the friends are, as well as the people he likes working and recording with. Yes, he says, he is getting divorced – "just like everyone else; but because it's me, it's some big scene." What sort of music is Ringo himself listening to? "There's Harry Nilsson's new album, of course, and Eric's new album has a few fine tracks on it. I listen to a lot of country music, and a lot of rock/pop music. "I like Mud, I think they're a really tight little band. 'Rock And Roll, I think, is a great album – but I'm prejudiced with John anyway, because I like most things he does. The only one I didn't like was Some Time In New York City. "I really do think that Walls And Bridges is the finest album in the last five years by anybody." Asked what he feels about the contemporary 'pop' scene, Ringo replies that it's waffling – no sense of direction. "Who knows what could be next; it might be an Italian tenor or something!" WHATEVER DOES happen, it seems we'll all become accustomed to hearing synthesisers frequently in the near future. Ringo, returning to the subject of Hentschel, effuses: "I think he's probably the greatest player of that machine in the world. I mean Wonder, of course, is amazing – but he uses it on a freak-out level, whereas David uses it to take the place of an orchestra. He gets such a natural sound." (Well, as I see it, simulating the sound of a full orchestra on record is redundant in everything but financial terms. The machine should, at the very best, transcend any sound an orchestra is capable of creating and Hentschel has certainly not achieved this.) Ringo was right. The most successful tracks are the ones that have been most thoroughly transmuted. Those that echo the previous versions – of which 'Oh My My', the single, is one – seem to be nearly a form of superior muzak, destined for respect only from the kind of hi-fi audience that fell for Dark Side Of The Moon and Tubular Bells. With Ringo's name behind him it's unlikely that Hentschel will be 'unsuccessful' (He's already over the first hurdle, after all. The single was put on the BBC's exclusive play-list without any quibble whatsoever). NO DOUBT the afternoon too can be considered a success. The press have turned out in force and Hentschel's name will be in most of the papers next week. The Japanese journalists, though, remain mute; they know only a little English. At length, they get it together to ask Ringo a question. Has he any message for the people of Japan? "Hello, Japan." They grin excitedly. After 15 years in the business, Ringo could not be accused of fluffing his lines.
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