AUGUST 1, 2001
(from Paul McCartney interview, page 138)
Howard: Do you laugh at that guy Pete Best who left?
Ringo: Well, he didn’t really leave. I don’t laugh, no. Pete was doing the gig and then I got the gig.
Howard: Why did Pete leave the band?
Ringo: They asked him to. They asked him to leave and me to join. I had a gig already.
Howard: Did he ever come to see the Beatles?
Ringo: I don’t know. I wouldn’t think so, would you?
Howard: All the times I used to go see the Beatles movies—and I remember the first time I saw the first Beatles movie, A Hard Day’s Night. I remember sitting in the theater and girls were screaming. I couldn’t even hear the movie. If they put a close-up on one of you guys, girls would start screaming. And I was thinking of how great it was. But then I thought, “The movie I’d really wanna see is the Pete Best story.” Like, where is he right now?
Ringo: Well, there you go. You could make it. You’re in movies now, aren’t you?
Howard: Yes, I am. I’m a big movie star. I’m a great actor. And did you ever expect anything like that in your life? I mean, could you have ever imagined?
Ringo: I loved the band, and we were big in Liverpool, and we thought we’d get big in Britain. And then we suddenly got big in Europe. And then we came to America. Which was, like, the place to be. If you’re a musician, there’s only America. And we go there with Murray the K and a number-one hit.
Howard: And when you stepped off the plane the first time—
Ringo: Fabulous.
Howard: You had no idea.
Ringo: No idea.
Howard: And it was a rush. You could really enjoy that.
Ringo: Oh yeah. I enjoyed it as we flew over. It’s just one of those images that have always stayed with me. As we flew over New York—and this was America, and we’d never been before—it was like this big octopus pulling me down. It was fabulous.