Ringo Starr Refuses to Play With a Click Track, and It Makes Him a Better Drummer

A click track helps musicians stay in sync, but Ringo Starr has never felt he needed to use it. The Beatles’ drummer has worked with a number of musicians over the years, and many have noted his impeccable timekeeping. He said that part of this talent comes from his belief that no musician is perfect. This knowledge allows him to better keep time with the other musicians in a band.

Ringo Starr said he never plays with a click track

Guitarist Steve Lukather has worked with Starr in his All-Starr Band and finds himself endlessly impressed with the former Beatles’ skill.

“Ringo’s brilliant, man, very soulful, and a bad-a** drummer,” Lukather said, per The San Diego Union-Tribune. “Ringo is the chicken that laid the first egg for all the rest of the drummers in the world. There would not be any of these other rock drummers, if not for him … The grooves he plays are such an important thing. And he’s never played to a click track. He said: ‘I am the click track’!”

Starr explained that he saw the click track as a detriment to his playing. 

“I can’t play drums to a click track because I believe that we (musicians) are not all perfect,” he said. “There’s a millisecond (that speeds up or slows down), forward or backwards, that four guys playing go to — and that’s what I believe in. The way I play is, if you’re singing, I don’t really do anything but keep time. Or I lift it up, bring it down or get it galloping along.”

He plays based on instinct, which he thinks is better for him.

“I always feel, if I’m playing on a track, (that) the choruses are always a micro-second faster, because it all comes from the heart,” he said. “That’s how I play. I just play … I’ve said it over and over — I just hit them!”

Ringo Starr’s Beatles bandmate said he was a perfect timekeeper without a click track

Starr’s firm belief in his ability to keep time isn’t just talk; his collaborators have noted the same thing over the years. Paul McCartney once said Starr was always consistent. They didn’t even have to look at him to know he was going to be on beat.

“The first few minutes that Ringo is playing, I look to the left at George [Harrison] and to the right to John [Lennon], and we didn’t say a word, but I remember thinking, ‘S***, this is amazing,'” McCartney told Rolling Stone. “Look, I love Led Zeppelin, but you watch them playing and you can see them looking back at John Bonham, like, ‘What the hell are you doing — this is the beat.’ You could turn your back on Ringo and never have to worry. He both gave you security and you knew he was going to nail it.”

The drummer has faced criticism all throughout his career

Despite Starr’s long and successful career, he has faced criticism over the years. For a long time, a quote incorrectly attributed to John Lennon said Starr was not even the best drummer in The Beatles. McCartney admitted that the band should have done more to stand up for their drummer.

“I think Ringo was always paranoid that he wasn’t a great drummer because he never used to solo,” McCartney said, per The Beatles Anthology. “He hated those guys who went on and on, incessantly banging while the band goes off and has a cup of tea or something. Until Abbey Road, there was never a drum solo in The Beatles’ act, and consequently other drummers would say that although they liked his style, Ringo wasn’t technically a very good drummer. It was a bit condescending, and I think we let it go too far.”