‘The Beatles’: Ringo Starr Would Only Room With 1 Bandmate on Tour
The Beatles were known as The Fab Four. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison were all super famous as a band in the ‘60s. Even after The Beatles broke up, each musician had their own lucrative solo career. Of course, Beatlemaniacs each had their favorites, and that included the bandmates themselves.
Starr was a guest on the Broken Record with Rick Rubin podcast on Sept. 21, 2021. He was promoting his EP, Change the World, his second of that year after Zoom In. Of course, Rubin couldn’t help but ask about the Beatles, and Starr came up with this juicy tidbit about rooming with McCartney.
Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon and George Harrison all got close as a band
Being in The Beatles together meant more than just playing together. Lennon and McCartney were a prolific songwriting duo. They also spent lots of time together on the road. McCartney even shared that when their car broke down, the four huddled in a “Beatle Sandwich” to keep warm.
“Well, the big relationship of course with our writers John and Paul,” Starr said on Broken Record. “Things that went on, when I joined the band, we only ever had two rooms, in hotels, we were all in the same car, we had two rooms. We were always getting to know each other.”
Paul McCartney was the only Beatle who would share a room with Ringo Starr
Once Beatlemania hit, fans would follow the band around on tour. Movies like A Hard Day’s Night and I Wanna Hold Your Hand had some fun with the phenomenon, but it was real. For Starr, a bigger problem was simply dividing up the hotel rooms in each city The Beatles played.
“Anyway, Paul was the only one who’d sleep with me,” Starr said. “The others [would say], ‘Oh, we don’t know if he farts or whatever.’ Anyway, so Paul kept it together.”
The Beatles interpersonal conflicts
After the Beatles broke up, there was lots of blame passed around. So many fans blamed Lennon’s wife, Yoko Ono, for coming between the Beatles, that Yoko became a joke about any band breaking up. Still, others blamed McCartney for being more of a taskmaster. The recent docu-series The Beatles: Get Back cleared up some of that, including for McCartney himself.
Starr shares some of the more practical concerns between four young men spending a decade together. It sounds like Starr and McCartney were just fine to be permanent roommates, but Lennon and Harrison never even gave him a chance.
The Beatles ultimately stopped touring after 1966 and let the albums speak for themselves. Their rooftop concert captured in The Beatles: Get Back was therefore a monumental opportunity to see them perform together one last time. Although, McCartney at least continues to play Beatles songs in his epic three hour shows.
