Ringo Starr has spoken to NME about his new Americana album ‘Long Long Road’, the resurgence of country music, the energy it brought to The Beatles, and the upcoming Sam Mendes biopics.
Released today (Friday April 24), ‘Long Long Road’ marks the Fab Four icon’s 22nd solo album but his third in the country and Americana genre, after his classic 1970 sophomore effort ‘Beaucoups Of Blues’ and last year’s acclaimed ‘Look Up’. His second collaboration co-written and produced by T Bone Burnett, the 10-song record also includes collaborations with Billy Strings, Sheryl Crow and St Vincent.
NME had a quick catch-up with Starr via Zoom, when he started our conversation with a focus on shelves of vinyl in the background. “In 2014, we actually brought the suitcases to LA,” Starr remembered. “We sold our house in England and I had all my albums. I said, ‘I’m just going to give them to my three kids at random’. One by one, whatever they get, they get, but I looked and went, ‘I’m not giving them these, I love these!’ I’ve still got them in storage.”
He continued: “I remember when my son Zak [Starkey, former drummer of The Who and Oasis] was young and he came running up to me and says, ‘Dad, you’ve got to hear this record. It’s this guy, Ray Charles’. I did the whole father thing, ‘Oh, you kids. I’ve been listening to him for years!’ We’ve had a lot of fun with vinyl.”
We asked if his children ever made him listen to anything terrible.
“I’ve never thought that, actually,” Starr replied. “I was taught that by my stepfather – the best stepdad in the world, who loved music and had his own little room to play his music. He never once said, ‘Get that crap off!’ He’d say, ‘Oh, what are you listening to, son?’ I did that with my three children. They’ve changed as the years have gone on, just like I did. That’s an inside family story for you there, brother.”
It was that curiosity in music that saw the young Ringo – born Richard Starkey – as he came of age, joined his first bands and cut his teeth on the scene in late 1950s Liverpool. For as long as he can remember, country music has “had a big place” in his heart, “but so does the blues, Motown, Buddy Holly and the gang”.
“Country came to me first and it’s the first time I realised I was trying to collect the records,” Starr remembered. “Pop was all going on, but there was very little pop in England. Thanks to Gibraltar or somewhere having the biggest antenna in the world, at 4pm on a Sunday, they would play the Alan Freed show on the BBC. You’d hear everyone that was coming out of America – hundreds of people. My friend Roy [Trafford] and I, whatever happened on Sunday, that’s what we did together.”
He added: “It just came down the radio, came from the guys who were in the Merchant Navy, it built itself as a part of my life like the drums did. I only went and practiced once, and the language from the neighbours I can’t repeat. They were screaming at me! If you didn’t shut up, a couple of them would be coming to see you and give you some more advice.”
He formed his first skiffle band with Trafford and his next-door neighbour, Eddie Miles, before joining Rory Storm and the Hurricanes and later The Beatles. Paul McCartney once credited Starr as being “the first guy in the Beatles to really turn us on to country music”.
When asked how that came about, the 85-year-old remembered: “I would have the one song to do. Sometimes they’d write one, sometimes they didn’t have one, and sometimes they wouldn’t give me one!
“I would bring other people in to play tracks for, because when I first started writing songs I would sing them and play them to the other three, and they would fall on the floor laughing. They were only doing that because I was re-writing and well-known song and hadn’t noticed! I’ve been writing with other people for a long time now and occasionally on my own.”
Now, after introducing the “emotional storytelling” spirit of country to The Beatles, Starr is 22 solo albums into his career with his second in as many years. He put his longevity down to simply a “love” of music, and the need to collaborate – especially with his ongoing supergroup, the All-Starr Band.
“I’m a drummer, so you need a few guys around you,” he told us. “I’d like to go on tour with just me and the drums! [At one point] I thought, ‘Now I need all these other guys’, and then I thought to put this All-Starr Band together [in 1989]. I had a phone book in those days, and everyone I phoned said yes.
“I realised I had to close my book or otherwise there would be 40 people on stage! We got a good band together and I was a little nervous about it as it was the first time. Beyond me and Levon [Helm, The Band] as drummers, I had Jim Keltner, my favourite drummer, up there for security. We had three drummers.”
Are drummers the best musicians to hang out with then?
“Yes, but not just because they’re drummers,” Starr replied. “I’ve known Jim for years and he’s a good friend to me, and I’m a pal to him. We played on a lot of records together so we got to know each other. We realised that if I do the fill, he’s got the next one. Then I won’t do one until he’s done his, so we’re not on each other’s feet. We’re both banging away.
“I play with the singer. If a singer’s singing a beautiful line then you don’t need me bashing about. I feel where there’s a break and I can lift it or simmer it down. That’s the way I play.”
‘Long Long Road’ is another testament to Starr’s love of collaboration, not just with true “country guy” T Bone Burnett but also with the likes of Billy Strings and St Vincent.
“Everyone on there brings something different because they’re all great players and singers,” said Starr of this record’s guests. “They’re great musicians who have been at it a while, and they all came through T Bone. In my eyes, he’s never made a mistake on my records.”
While it may be a lifelong love affair for Starr, country music has seen an unexpected resurgence across the world and with new generations in recent years, blowing up on TikTok, filling stadiums, topping festival bills and smashing genres together thanks to the likes of Beyoncé, Post Malone, Morgan Wallen and Zach Bryan.
“The sound of country now is getting a bit more country,” Starr said of its returning appeal. “I felt they went through their rock passage with pedal steel. It was very pop-y for a while.
“All the country I started with was emotional. A bit like ‘She’s Gone’ on this album: ‘She waited in the station while I waited in the train, as I travelled down the tracks, she was standing in the rain‘. That’s so country! I do love country for the stories and the emotions.”
His original love of Americana and those songs from his early days come full circle in several ways on ‘Long Long Road’. There’s a cover of Carl Perkins, one of The Beatles’ biggest heroes, in the form of ‘I Don’t See Me In Your Eyes Anymore’, now decades after the Fab Four covered ‘Honey Don’t’ and ‘Matchbox’ with Starr on lead vocals.
Then there’s ‘Choose Love’, with a self-referential Beatles nod in sound and lyrics as Starr offers: “The long and winding road is more than a song/ Tomorrow never knows what goes on“. Starr coyly put much at that in the hands of his Nashville collaborators, aside from the signature line: ‘No matter what you choose, choose love’. “That line was mine, but they’d probably say it wasn’t,” he laughed.
Once ‘Long Long Road’ is out, the legend will be hitting the road with the All-Starrs before sitting down with collaborator Bruce Sugar to “write a few more songs”, just ahead of an increased spotlight on Starr thanks to Universal putting together a new ‘Best Of’ Starr album, and Sam Mendes’ upcoming biopics about each of The Beatles (where Ringo will be played by Saltburn star Barry Keoghan).
“Well, it’s a film,” Starr told NME of the movie focusing on his life. “I had to really change my attitude, as I was looking at it documentary-ish. Sam was great. We went to England, sat around for two days going through my script; he had Paul’s script, John’s script and George’s script. We’ll all be in each other’s, but there’s a storyline that he’s got these writers writing. That’s all I’m going to tell you about it.”
Starr continued: “He was so great because there was a section I didn’t like and he just took it out. Now something I did outside of the studio is something I did in the studio. The actors acted it out in the studio. I went up to the set, which is like eight acres of covered land, and it was so great. Sam is such a great guy and so direct.”
Just as The Beatles eternally regenerate new generations of fans, Starr has also found younger and younger audiences at his shows – with that only set to increase when the films hit the big screen in April 2028.
“I’m glad you said that because with the All-Starrs, we’re seeing a teenage crowd come in,” he added. “We’re seeing a lot of people from my age down, but you’ll be playing a gig and hearing a lot more higher voices shouting at you.
“We just do what we do, and my philosophy is that if three people turn up, then you play. That’s what we do.”
‘Long Long Road’ is out now. Starr will embark on a US tour from the end of May throughout the summer, before his annual ‘Peace & Love’ birthday event on July 7. Visit here for tickets and more information.
He also features on ‘Home To Us’, from Paul McCartney’s new album ‘The Boys Of Dungeon Lane’, due on May 29.