The Quarrymen

0:00I couldn't, I was busy, but then, and Len of course is now lying down, he's really rather tired, so he said, would I mind talking to you instead? So do you mind interviewing me about my incredibly musical career? No, that's quite alright Mr. Davis, that's fantastic. I'm sorry, I, you know, we, every day we move, and every day we have to fly pretty well, so it's very difficult to find a few minutes, but here we are. So what would you like to do? Well, yeah, let's do it. So you guys are on the road touring. We are on the road touring, yeah. Is this the first time I didn't, I didn't know the Quarrymen have been active in 50 years? Oh, well there you go, you've not read the website, have you? Let me give you the website. Well you've called me out of nowhere, I haven't had time to prepare.

0:48Don't worry, no, but I'm saying, look at the website, Quarrymen.co.uk or Happy Birthday beyond.org. Oh yeah? Okay. Yeah, we got together in 1997. What made you do it? How come? Cabin was 40th birthday. Oh, okay. And they invited lots of people from the, who played at the cabin over the years, and it was three boos all day, and I was driving, which was a bad mistake, as plenty of free beginners flowing. And then towards the end of the evening, they asked us to do some playing. I don't mean to be rude here, but I'm on my shell. Is there any chance you can call me back? Oh, no, not at the moment.

1:33Let me hear a few more. Yeah, what's a good phone number? Let me just have a look. Let me find, tell you what room number I'm in for a start. Oh, yeah, fantastic. I'll call the hotel. That's a good idea. If you can call the hotel, then you'd be on a landline. Yeah, it'll be a lot easier. Just give me a moment. Of course. I'm in room 313.

2:19Okay. And we're in Aspen, Colorado. Nice. At the hotel, your home. Okay. 9709201 1000 1000 fantastic. 9209201 1000. So if you'd like to give me a buzz on that, that would help everybody's bill. Oh, yeah. I totally understand. If you give me five minutes just to write up some questions, I'll give you a call in my five. No problem. All right. Fantastic, Rod. We'll talk. We'll talk in a few. Yeah, fine. Okay. Bye bye.

5:29Well, in just under an hour, first of all, it's Ray Lamontaine, his latest at Bagstealer Barrow. Fantastic tune. I love Doug Pettiboom's slide guitar on that one. In just under an hour, five 30 pizza and winter sleep. What do they have in common? Well, you'll find out. Here's Weezer. Say it ain't so on the sound.

6:58Good afternoon. Thank you for calling the hotel Jerome. This is Elena. Hey, Elaine, room 313, please. Sure. I'm in it. Thank you. Rod, there's a low. Hey, Rod. It's Matt Schichter. That works. Hi, Matt. I'm doing okay. I'm doing well. Yeah, I just have to do a little talking on the radio there because we'll pre-tape this

7:46in here this a little later. Yep. Okay. So, so you guys are on the road. The quarry men are on the road for a big birthday celebration for John Lennon. Pretty well, three weeks, a day. Wow. It's not the first time. You know, we, we, we, when we got back together in 1997, we've been to Japan, Russia a couple of times. What's for the reunion 13 years ago? Was the anthology? Well, no, no, no. It was, it was the cabins 40th birthday. They said we're having a big birthday party. We're going to invite all the old guys that played years ago. And it's three boos all day. So that was, that was sort of the written invitation you can't resist. No, of course. You're the wall to wall pole dancers, you know. So, I lived near London. So I drove up and Eric who lived in Edinburgh drove down to Edinburgh

8:31and the other guys turned up from not too far away. Right. And by about, I was driving, you see. So about six o'clock in the evening, we decided to go out and have some of you eat. And they, they said, Oh, no, you can't go now. We've got a, we've got a TV crew coming to film you guys. We said we haven't played for 40 years together. I mean, some of them hadn't literally had not played for 40 years. Wow. So anyway, we got on stage with a McCartney look alike and a, and a Lennon look alike. And we staggered through a couple of numbers. They said the audience is going to be legless anyway. So they were mine. So we said, Okay, that sounds like a sort of challenge we can face up to. And so that's what we did. And then some people, some Beatles fans from the North West of England said, Look, the place

9:21where John met Paul St. Peter's Church Hall is, is in a bad way. And it needs restoration. So we're thinking of trying to recreate the day John met Paul in either the restoration fund. Are you guys up for it? So eventually they persuaded us. And so that's how it started. It was just to be that one event. And then someone said, Have you got a CD? And we said, No, so this is all about it. So we went and made the CD and then it sort of snowballed from their ombles, you know, that's fantastic. So most of the time we've been doing, you know, long weekends in Europe, because that's easiest for us. Of course. With the work commitments we used to have. And then last year we did, not last year, sorry, 2008, we did a couple of weeks in the States. We started at BB Kings. And then we played the hard rock in Boston

10:09and we played in Philadelphia on the same bill as the Pete Best Band played. Did you know Pete? Or no? And not from those days. We have met him a few times since and he's a very charming guy. And then we also went to LA and we played for a charity called guitars in the classroom of which Lawrence Dubit is a patron. So Lawrence opened the show for us. Oh, look at that. That was crazy. And you're in Aspen, Colorado right now. We're in Aspen. Yeah, this particular tour, we had it sort of half planned. And then when the know where Boy's film was scheduled to appear, we said, well, you know, maybe we can do something together. So that was what the idea was, you know, or all of these gigs really are,

10:54it's a, you see the film and then we do a quick Q&A for 15 minutes or so. And then we play for an hour or so. So they see the real thing. Haven't just seen the giant, some young men playing on the screen. How were you portrayed? Were you happy with your portrayal? Well, Brad Pitts, no banjo picker. I mean, that's the problem, really. And it's just fascinating to be portrayed on screen. I mean, you know, getting the resemblance right and everything else. It's not a documentary. So it would be very unfair of us to criticize it as a documentary. I mean, it basically concentrates on the triangle between John and his mother, Julia and his aunt, Mimi. And that's the main focus of the film. I mean, the quarrymen are obviously there in the background, but in the interest of, you know, gravity and artistic

11:43license, you know, things have been concentrated a bit. And, you know, basically, we think the film is great. It has a really good atmosphere of Liverpool at the time. And the personalities come over very well. The lady playing Aunt Mimi, Christine Scott Thomas did a great job as did indeed the others. And, you know, it's we went there. We don't know exactly what went on between the three of them. In fact, nobody does. So obviously it's, you know, an artistic interpretation of it. Right. But it's a very entertaining one. And it tries to explain certain factors in John's life, which obviously affected him in later years and the music. Of course. And it's a very entertaining film. I saw the film last weekend. John came off as fantastic. It's, but John came off as a bit of an ass a little bit. Was that real?

12:33Would you like to redefine that in terms of an Englishman can understand a bit of an ass? A bit. What's a slag? Nope. Nope. Okay. A bit of an ass in English means stupid. No, he didn't come off stupid. He came off as a hang on. I'm thinking of the word. I used to live with two gentlemen from Birmingham. A bit of an asshole. That's something else. No. Well, yeah, that's exactly it. Well, he wasn't the most charming guy. I mean, a lot of ego, you know, big genius, his aunt. I mean, I believe, you know, Wagner was a difficult guy to get by. Difficult. That's a good word. Difficult. You have many mysteries. Well, it's funny because, you know, the Beatles got portrayed so much as this big happy, fun group. And then you see John as a teen, which is only a few years

13:20before everything happened. And it's showbiz, right? I guess at the end of the day, it's showbiz. I think so. Yeah. So I think they were. They did get on extremely well. I mean, when you say yes, we get on extremely well. We laugh and joke, but we still have our differences. Oh, of course. And, you know, it's, as you say, it's showbiz basically. Well, actually, we're not showbiz because we actually do enjoy winding each other up and putting each other's up. But it's the Liverpool sense of humor. It's not the Beatles sense of humor. Right. And what I mean, I do. You've got to go to Liverpool and no disrespect whatsoever to John. But I do know a lot of guys whose sense of humor is, you know, off the Rich the Scale by compared with John, comparison with John, he had a very funny guy. And so was George. Right. And indeed,

14:09Ringo, pause a little bit more sober, I think. But, you know, the sense of humor, it comes with the jeans. What is a set list like for you guys? Are you playing Beatles songs? Are you playing old skiffle music? What do you guys play live? Well, we think there are sufficient look alike. Sounds like people's bands out there to, you know, for us, no, no pointing completely with them. You know, we've got enough. Yeah. And so we are the original guys playing the original music, which inspired John and Paul and George. And of course, Ringo, because he was also in a skiffle group, you see. Right. Things like what? That's all right. Mama, old Elvis tunes, Chuck Berry, that kind of thing. Well, we play, you know, Lonnie Donnegan Rock Island line, stuff like that. Oh, yeah. Loose way, choose mean woman blues. Our other

14:55lead singer, Len, is very keen on Elvis. So we get a few Elvis numbers in. But of course, these are all the ones we did years ago. Of course. Come go with me, Maggie May, and well, 20 Flight Rock, which is this song that got Paul into the band. Yeah, of course. All that kind of stuff, you know. Well, Rod, I ask everyone that comes on the show five questions, one word answers. And I've never had anyone that knows Leonard McCartney. So this will be an interesting one. We'll start with what do you prefer on the road or in the studio? On the road or in the studio? I like on the road. Okay. Leonard McCartney. You get the smell of the crowd. And on McCartney. Well, I never knew Paul. I only met him once all those years ago. And in 2005, I met him again. He's a nice guy, but I know John much better.

15:41So it's got to be John. All right. Most important thing in a song. lyrics, melody or cadence? Oh, heck. I think a good tune. If it passes the paper boy test, then it's good. I like the lyric. All right. Favourite song to play live. Favourite song to play live. Don't it make my brown eyes blue? Or beach picking time in Georgia? You can take it pic. All right. And in one word, the quarrymen. Yes. Good word. Thank you very much. I really appreciate talking to you. Come and see us and have fun and find the details on the website. Yes. What is the website? One more time for people. www dot happy birthday John dot org or www.quarrymen.co.uk

16:38and there's links to everywhere on that. Fantastic. Thank you very much. Great talking to you as well. Enjoy the tour and enjoy the side of the Atlantic. We're going to do our humble best. Okay. All the best for the show. Thanks. Thank you. Take it easy, Rob. Cheers. Bye.