But country music is really my first and greatest love. I try to get into all sorts of different music. But back in the fifties and the sixties, I just loved country music. He’s like old rock-country, so I love him. “Just recently, I did a gig with my pals, Joe Walsh and Don Henley, and Chris Stapleton was there. “I don’t really follow it anymore, but I still love country music,” Starr confesses. Starr also carries two important things with him from the heady days of Beatlemania. But they’re all things that happened that I didn’t set up, because I always have an iPhone handy.” It’s just like, ‘Oh, let’s take that picture.’ It’s something that seems good at the time. Or if I’m in a room with people, it’s not like I’m setting it up to take the picture. I mean, if you’re looking at the book, there’s a picture of a crab walking on the beach. “I’d like to be technical and say, ‘Well, I do this and then I do that,’ but that’s not my personality,” Starr explains. Still, the ease with which the iPhone has allowed us to capture the moment, Starr says, is a blessing. But that’s gone by the wayside, because now we all use our digital phones.” But if you look at any of my photographs, from back in the sixties, you’ll see that I loved to see where you can take it, you know? One of the thrills in Magical Mystery Tour, I think, is when I shot George with the prism lens. They’re part of me, the things I love to do. It gives a release to be able to do several things, which people like to call artistic. Even in the sixties when we were touring, I loved taking pictures. “It’s something I’ve done for many years. “I play the drums and I love taking photos,” Starr says. They offer a bird’s-eye view into the life of one of the most famous men on the planet, where he just as often enjoys the mundane things in life as he does rubbing elbows with his famous friends. While Starr has contributed intimate, fascinating text to each of his books, the photos are the real draw. And this is, I feel, a better way for me to do it.” “So I’m going at it this way, through photographs, and through quotes with the photos. “This is a way of putting my life out there, because if I were to write a memoir, there’d be five volumes before I got to The Beatles, and that’s all publishers care about anyway,” Starr explains. Incredibly busy, certainly for a 78-year-old ex-Beatle who could no doubt rest on his laurels, Starr also has a third book out: Another Day In The Life, which follows 2004’s Postcards From The Boys, and 2015’s Photograph, and features photographs by Starr, along with reminiscences of the times, places and people included. “The boss! That sort of behavior has nothing to do with me,” Starr says. Other drummers, they don’t care what’s happening.
“No, he sounds like someone else completely,” Starr says, with a laugh. So does Bissonette-who’s played with everyone from ELO and the Bee Gees to Spinal Tap and Steve Vai-sound anything like the real Ringo Starr? “And I heard Gregg Bissonette did seminars on me, so I thought, ‘Well, I'm going to get him in.’”
“I’ve had drummers alongside me so I can go down and do ‘With A Little Help…’ and everything,” he explains. Starr chuckles, but gets serious when it comes time to talk about his first love: drums and drummers. I kept the right hand part of the stage, and I changed the left side.” And we still have Warren Ham, who plays everything. (“Steve has got a great autobiography out right now, make sure you write that in your damn article,” the ever-loyal Starr reminds me later.) And Gregg Rolie on keyboards. “I kept Steve Lukather there on guitar, because he’s great. “I had the last version of the band for five years, and then, this year, I changed half of the band,” Starr explains. He’ll tread the boards again this year, with the latest edition of the band. The long road back began with his first All-Starr Band tour in 1989, which featured members of The Band, Beatles’ compadre Billy Preston, and Dr. “You don’t know where you're going in life. “I’m blessed,” Starr tells me, reflecting back on those days. He also racked up an impressive roster of film roles, before his career and reputation took a nosedive in the 1980s, the result of “monumental” alcohol and substance abuse, as Starr, now thirty years sober, recalls. He enjoyed a string of hits in the aftermath of the Fab Four-surprising everyone, including John, Paul and George-and was the only one of them to entice all three of the former Beatles to contribute to a solo project. In fact, Starr has been moving on for nearly fifty years, since the demise of the most famous rock and roll band in history.