George Harrison, the iconic, late guitarist for The Beatles was a subject of discussion by Ringo Starr, the legendary ‘Fab Four’ drummer. Starr recently took part in a lively interview discussion with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Morning Joe. Here, Ringo discusses if touring at the height of Beatle mania was ‘worth it’? He said his bandmates, including George Harrison, were miserable and going ‘grey’ in the face from touring. Alternative Nation transcribed their comments. Ringo Starr recently revealed if John Lennon hated George Harrison.
Scarborough: I remember Paul McCartney talking about it one time, saying that he made a decision early on. He went to France, drove around and said: “Do I really want to live this way for the rest of my life?” He said that he remembered making a conscious decision and deciding that it was worth it. Is there ever a time where you just said that the “price is too high”? I wish in the early documentaries they would have said, “Oh you wanted to save enough so you wanted to buy a hair salon.” The Beatles revealed George Harrison ‘smoking’ before death photo the other day.
Ringo: I’m still being bombarded with that. You know, you say several things in your life and you pay for it. We didn’t know it would be so big but the decision made was we were bombarded day and night and there was very little space. John [Lennon] and I went on holiday, Paul [McCartney] and I went on holiday, we all went on holidays and we all got recognized then so we would have a good time”
Ringo continued:
The pressure did start to hit and if you look at Ron Howard’s documentary on us you can see that it was getting grayer and grayer. We were getting gray, harsh, we stopped touring and we did some really good things in the studio. George Harrison stole this huge money from John Lennon.