John Lennon Ordered Ringo Starr Around When He Joined The Beatles to Show ‘Who Was Boss’
By the time Ringo Starr joined The Beatles, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney had been playing music together for several years. They’d established a dynamic that Lennon wanted to maintain with the new drummer. Just a few weeks into Starr’s time with the band, Lennon tested Starr to see if he’d listen to him. According to people in the room, it was clear Lennon was making a power play.
Ringo Starr was the last person to join The Beatles
The original drummer for The Beatles was Pete Best. He performed with the band until 1962 when they unexpectedly fired him and replaced him with Starr.
“Unbeknownst to me, they’d approached Ringo,” he told the Telegraph in 2018.
The band didn’t speak to Best personally. They had manager Brian Epstein fire him and struggled to look Best in the eye when they saw him later.
“He said, ‘Pete, I don’t know how to tell you this. The boys want you out’ — those were the words — ‘and it’s already been arranged,'” Best said. “That was another key word. Arranged. Ringo joined the band on Saturday. It was a closed shop. I asked why and he said, ‘Because they think he’s a better drummer.’ The bomb was dropped.”
John Lennon made a power play over Ringo Starr shortly after he joined the band
Starr was entering a preexisting dynamic when he joined The Beatles and wanted to fit in. Before a 1962 show, he sat backstage with his bandmates and several other acts. Lennon seemed restless and, after criticizing McCartney’s new haircut, turned his attention to Starr.
“Hey, Ringo,” Lennon said, per the book Paul McCartney: A Life by Peter Ames Carlin. “There are two sets of our maracas on the stage. Go get them.”
Starr looked around the room while Lennon watched him.
“He looked slyly to see if Ringo would comply,” drummer Tony Sanders of the band Billy Kramer and the Coasters said.
After a beat, Starr got up and casually said he had to go to the stage anyway. He’d get the maracas on his way back. Lennon seemed happy with this.
“That was Lennon showing them, and everyone else in the dressing room, who was boss,” Sanders said. “Which he always had to be.”
Ringo Starr still gets emotional when talking about John Lennon
The early stages of their relationship may have been a bit tense, but Starr and Lennon formed a long-lasting friendship. They remained on good terms even after The Beatles broke up, when the former bandmates were fighting with each other. Decades after Lennon’s death, Starr still gets choked up when he talks about him.
“I’m emotional now thinking of him 40 years ago talking about me on his tape and thinking of me,” Starr told Rolling Stone in 2019. “The four of us were great friends with a couple of side issues. And it was far out. So anyway, I didn’t know how to act [after Lennon died]. And then I got back to LA, and I grieved, and then of course you always go through the grief.”
