Today Ringo released his new video “Let’s Change The World,” the lead single off his current EP Change The World.
The song was written by Joseph Williams and Steve Lukather, both of whom also played on the track, with backing vocals by Amy Keys, Zelma Davis, Billy Valentine and Darryl Phinnessee.
Lukather also appears in the video, which was created in collaboration with Kids In The Spotlight, a nonprofit that provides a platform for foster care youth to tell their stories through film. These underserved youth write, cast, and star in their own short films, and the experiences help them to heal and grow, as well as to prepare and lay the groundwork for future employment opportunities.
“Let’s Change The World! I wanted to make this video with kids because they are our future and this is for them. They deserve clean water and fresh air. I believe we should leave this planet in better shape than we found it for our kids, and right now we are not doing that. Half the world is on fire and the other half is under water. We have got to change, and I believe we can. Peace and love, Ringo.”
Ringo would like to thank Kids In The Spotlight and all the Kids who helped make this video “Let’s Change The World” ✌🏼💚🎶🌈
“I love the music myself and I am amazed that every generation gets into us,” Ringo Starr also said while appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live, discussing The Beatles’ ongoing popularity
Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney’s bond hasn’t waned with time.
While appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live Thursday, Starr, 81, opened up to host Jimmy Kimmel about his relationship with his former Beatles bandmate and how they are still close decades after the group first formed.
When asked by Kimmel, 53, how often he and McCartney, 79, see each other — after the late-night host said that Ringo mentioned to record producer Rick Rubin that the pair FaceTime “regularly” — the singer said they recently caught up in person.
“I was just in England and we actually saw each other physically,” Starr said, later noting that he and wife Barbara Bach went out to dinner with Paul McCartney and his wife, Nancy Shevell, as well as late bandmate George Harrison’s widow, Olivia Harrison.
Kimmel asked Starr if “people lose their minds” when the group walks into a restaurant together, but the drummer said that wearing face masks amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has helped with anonymity. “With the mask on, I can go anywhere,” Ringo said. During his lengthy chat with Kimmel, Ringo also chatted about The Beatles’ longevity and how their music is still being introduced to fans across the world.
Kimmel told the music legend that he was “so excited” to have him on his show, while he explained that his 7-year-old daughter Jane was similarly thrilled. “She wakes up, her alarm is set for The Beatles every morning, and it plays,” he told Starr. “That’s how she wakes up each day, and what an amazing thing that is.”
Ringo told Kimmel that his daughter’s fandom, as well as that of others her age, is “amazing.”
“What’s amazing is she’s 7 and loves the music. Every generation get[s] into the music,” he continued. “… I love the music myself and I am amazed that every generation gets into us.”
Ringo looked youthful in an all-black ensemble, consisting of Adidas sweatpants and a matching blazer over a t-shirt with red, yellow, green, blue, purple and black hand that’s also in the peace sign position. He also wore black sneakers and accessorized with a couple of rings, which was the inspiration for his nickname Ringo, and a black necklace with a silver peace symbol. While taking the short stroll from his vehicle to the entrance door, Ringo put the black-patterned fabric on his face before coming in close distance with security members who were scattered around the studio lot.
Ringo talks about everyone loving The Beatles, newer generations becoming fans, being a great grandfather, making EPs during the pandemic, selling a lot of cassettes, friendship with Paul McCartney, being in the new Ken Burns Documentary on PBS about Muhammad Ali, a new six-hour documentary on The Beatles coming in November on Disney+, footage of them recording what eventually became “Let it Be,” his first tweet ever, and what inspired him to cover Rock Around the Clock.
Ringo Starr sent fans into a frenzy as he made his way to the El Capitan theater ahead of his appearance on Thursday’s episode on Jimmy Kimmel Kimmel Live! And in true Ringo style, he couldn’t resist flashing the iconic, two-finger peace sign, which has becomes a trademark of his own over the decades, before heading inside.
Ringo looked youthful in an all-black ensemble, consisting of Adidas sweatpants and a matching blazer over a t-shirt with red, yellow, green, blue, purple and black hand that’s also in the peace sign position. He also wore black sneakers and accessorized with a couple of rings, which was the inspiration for his nickname Ringo, and a black necklace with a silver peace symbol. While taking the short stroll from his vehicle to the entrance door, Ringo put the black-patterned fabric on his face before coming in close distance with security members who were scattered around the studio lot.
Just this past December he released the song Here’s To The Nights as the lead single to his EP, Zoom In, which dropped in March 2021, and was recorded at his home studio, beginning soon after the coronavirus crisis was deemed a pandemic last year.
The song of peace, love and friendship was written by y Diane Warren and performed with the help of his friends, including Paul McCartney, Joe Walsh, Corinne Bailey Rae,, Lenny Kravitz, Dave Grohl, Ben Harper, Finneas, Eric Burton, Jenny Lewis, Chris Stapleton, Steve Lukather and Yola.
Just this past December he released the song Here’s To The Nights as the lead single to his EP, Zoom In, which dropped in March 2021, and was recorded at his home studio, beginning soon after the coronavirus crisis was deemed a pandemic last year.
The song of peace, love and friendship was written by y Diane Warren and performed with the help of his friends, including Paul McCartney, Joe Walsh, Corinne Bailey Rae,, Lenny Kravitz, Dave Grohl, Ben Harper, Finneas, Eric Burton, Jenny Lewis, Chris Stapleton, Steve Lukather and Yola.
Now, Ringo is set to release his second EP of the year, Change The World.
This time he has invited some new friends to take part in the recording.
‘I’ve been saying I only want to release EPs at this point and this is the next one,’ Starr told, adding, ‘What a blessing it’s been during this year to have a studio here at home and be able to collaborate with so many great musicians, some I’ve worked with before and some new friends.
The four-song EP has the lead single, Let’s Change The World, which was written by Toto members Joseph Williams and Steve Lukather, who also perform on the track.
Ringo Starr is getting ready to drop his second EP of the year, Change the World. Ringo is used to spending each year out on the road, touring with his All-Starr Band. But these days, he’s fighting the pandemic blues by making music in his home studio, with a little help from his friends. As he says, with one of his wall-shaking laughs, “We have nothing better to do some days, so we write a song.”
Starr’s heart is always full of music. When his engineer assists him in setting up his Zoom mic, he spontaneously sings the Beatles’ classic “Help!” He had the big moment at this year’s Grammys, giving Billie Eilish her award for Record of the Year. (Eilish’s greeting: “What’s up, Ringo?”) Halfway through this chat, his phone goes off with a call from his son Zak, longtime drummer for the Who. (His ringtone is a weird mix of circus organ and slide whistles — “to remind me, ‘Yes, it’s your phone.’”)
Change the World has four new tunes, featuring collaborators like Linda Perry, Steve Lukather, Trombone Shorty, and Joe Walsh, who joins for a bang-up version of the Fifties oldie “Rock Around the Clock.” It comes just six months after his last EP, Zoom In. The 10-inch vinyl drops November 19th It’s available HERE as well as on CD and Cassette.
Ringo spoke to Rolling Stone via Zoom about Change the World, exuding all his famous wisdom and charm. He also spoke about his Beatle days, collaborating long distance, why “Rock Around the Clock” reminds him of childhood memories, the new Get Back documentary, the remastered Let It Be edition, and why he’s a fan of Eilish and Miley Cyrus.
-Congratulations on Change the World. You’re putting out so much new music this year — you’re the hardest-working man in show business. RS: That’s because I’m putting it out in increments. I thought, “I don’t want to make another album.” Ten songs is like a job — a good job, I love to play, but now I’m just going to do fours, because I was a big fan of EPs anyway. So I’m going to make EPs.
-The lead single, “Let’s Change the World,” is so great and timely. RS: I love that — it’s Steve Lukather and Joe Williams. Luke’s playing guitar on it, but it’s also got a bit of brass, so it’s got body. On this EP, I’m working with a lot of people I’ve never worked with before, like Linda Perry, who is so great. “Come Undone” is mainly her and me. We thought, “Let’s put a trombone on it,” so we sent it to New Orleans. And who else are you going talk to besides Trombone Shorty? He’s like a whole brass section. “Just the Way” is a reggae track, with Tony Chen and Fully Fullwood. Bruce Sugar is the engineer here — also known as a producer. We have nothing better to do some days, so we write a song.
That’s a good thing about recording now. It saves my life, saves my ass, because some days I’m in there going, “Oh, I’m fed up with this — I want to be on tour. I wanna, I wanna, I wanna!” Now we can send the files around. How great is that?
-Amazing you can do it that way now. RS: Yeah — I can’t tell you what the song is, but Eddie Vedder was over the other day with his files. [Laughs mischievously.] That’s all I’m saying, Eddie!
-I can’t wait to hear that. RS: Well, the drums are great. We’re in this room here — what is it, lads, 15-by-12? All the equipment is here. All the keyboards, all the mics are here. Then in the bedroom, there’s three amplifiers and two kits of drums. And that’s how we do it. I’ve done it in here for 10 years now. I love it because I can also say hi to the dogs, hi to [his wife] Barbara [Bach], have a cup of tea, whatever, and we’re safe. I haven’t really been out because of the pandemic at all.
-The new record has a flashback to your Fifties roots. How did you come to sing “Rock Around the Clock”? RS: I was thinking — one of those days you’re just sitting around thinking — about when I was 15. The year I’d been in hospital. I’d had my 14th birthday and it was coming up to my 15th, and I just didn’t want to be there for 15. We spoke to the doctors, my mum did a bit of begging, and the doctors let us go. We got out two weeks before my birthday and went to London with my stepdad, to hang out with his family for a week. Then we came back to my grandparents’ in Liverpool — they brought me up with my mother, because my dad left when I was three. They took me to the Isle of Man. Rock Around the Clock was playing in the cinema, so they took me. It was one of those rowdy holiday places, everybody’s having fun, like Florida on a bad day.
And they just ripped the cinema apart! I mean, ripping out the seats and throwing them out and fighting. And it’s like “Wow!” — I’d just come out of hospital — “Wow! Things have changed!” You know what I mean? It was so great. It just was in in my heart for the rest of my life, as you can tell. So I was just thinking about Bill Haley and thought, “Well, I’m going to do ‘Rock Around the Clock.’”
Bill always looked like your dad. That’s why we loved Elvis and Eddie Cochran and Buddy, all those guys that came after Bill, because Bill just looked like your dad. But he did a good job on “Rock Around the Clock.”
-It’s incredible how you get out of the hospital, then you’re in a new world where kids are ripping up the cinema. RS: I know, yeah! After being in bed for a year. [Speaks in falsetto voice] “I’m getting better now!” Thanks to America — they invented streptomycin. I had TB, so they just put me in a greenhouse in Haswell, outside of Liverpool, which had trees and a breeze. It was all windows and streptomycin. I had to lay there for months. One of the big days was when they let me get out of bed so I could sit on a chair: “Ah, wow — I’m sitting on a chair!”
-Is that when you decided you were someday going to be as big as Bill Haley? No. I didn’t even think I’d be as big as Bill Haley. I thought, “I’m going to be like those lads though,” and I turned into a Teddy Boy.
-It didn’t take long until they were ripping the seats out for you. RS: I know, isn’t that far out? I don’t think there was a lot of ripping. There was a lot of screaming, but not ripping.
-You stole the show at the Grammy Awards this year, with Billie Eilish. RS: Yeah, and how strange. I would’ve loved to hang out and say, “Hey, what’s going on?” But I got in the car, I got tested the day before — God, that’s the way of the world now. Got in the car, went right to the venue, got out the car, into a dressing room, onto the stage, then back in the car. There was no real time. But I love her anyway — she is so great. I love her attitude. And I like Miley Cyrus, too. I like the little rebels, you know.
-And they love you. When you gave Billie the award, she and her brother bowed down to you. Your music speaks to all different generations. RS: Well, that’s what music is about. I mean, if you look at the Beatles, someone was showing me two photographs, one from August in ’62 when I joined, and one on the same day in August ’69, the last photos of the four of us and the first photo of the four of us. It was all in that short time, but we’re still relevant and the music is still great. Now, they’re saying that we were sort of heavy metal! [Laughs merrily.] I love what they say.
But the music still holds up. We do a lot of streams. Another package set will be out any minute now, so it still goes on. We’ve come out as vinyl, we’ve come out as CDs, now we’re streaming. As soon as they invent something else, they’ll all be out again! But what I do love is a lot of kids say, “Hey man, I love that music, love that track.” We get every generation excited about the Beatles. If you’re interested in music in any way, you have to listen to them. Because they were great.
-I’ve been listening to the new edition of Let It Be. Your drums sound louder and clearer than ever. RS: It was interesting — the first remaster was Yellow Sub. Paul and I went to Abbey Road to listen and we’re going, “Who put that on? What’s that?” We’re so clear. But the drums — with the remastering, you can hear the drums really clear now. I’ve got so many people saying, “Wow, you played on that? That’s you?” Yeah, that’s me, I’m afraid. And I love it.
In the Sixties, it was mono, so if anything had to be taken away, usually it was the bass drum. Very little bass drum on our early records. But that was how they did it. Now we’re clear — it’s good.
-Listening to the new Let It Be, it feels like everybody’s having fun together. RS: We had a lot of fun. Coming out on Thanksgiving is the remastered Get Back documentary, which is now six hours long. There’s a lot of fun and laughter, where the original [Let It Be] did not have any fun or laughter. It was a shame about that. But we did get on the roof, and we did finish an album in that month, so it wasn’t like we were sitting around all day.
-It sounds like your drums are inspiring the singers to tell their story. RS: That’s how it was in the room. They could always hear the drums because I was there — yes, the other side of the room most times, but we did start creeping in. We did get a lot closer as the years went on, because even George Martin totally believed in [studio] separation. But we weren’t opposed to a bit of override. My favorite track, not on that, but on the White Album, was “Yer Blues,” where we were in a room — let’s say, eight-by-eight. Everyone, the amps and everything, John singing. It was like, “Wow, we’re like back in the clubs,” and it was so great because you could get all that energy from each other. So, yeah, the remastering has been really good to me.
-I guess it’s a tribute to friendship and music and how they go together. RS: I love that band. I mean, it was just a thrill to be with those three guys. We had every facet, with Paul, man of many voices, and great bass player. John, [imitates Lennon’s voice] “Let’s go!” George, working those melodies on guitar. A lot of the stuff George put on the tracks is as important, really, as the track. [Sings a bit of Harrison-like guitar.] Whatever he did, “Oh, it’s that track” — they’d know it from whatever George played. It was great. So I think we did well.
When The Beatles dissolved in 1970, George had enough hit songs to make a couple of albums right off the bat. He became the first Beatle to score a No. 1 hit as a solo artist, and his albums All Things Must Pass, Living in the Material World, and Thirty Three & 1/3 became some of his best successes.
George’s wife Olivia found a folder of lost songs that he’d written. George dedicated one song to Ringo.
George Harrison released his memoir, I, Me, Mine, in 1980.
In 2017, Olivia Harrison updated her husband’s memoir with new lyrics, writings, photos and gave it a new cover. She also released a new 13-album vinyl box set, George Harrison-The Vinyl Collection. It had been her project for three to four years. Olivia told Billboard that there were 50 new pages of lyrics that she needed to add. George had found some, and she’d found some after he died.
“I tried to find a lyric to match every song that was on the subsequent albums and in the first edition of I, Me, Mine, and that was the basis of it. We found lyrics that went up to 2000,” Olivia explained. While looking through the lost lyrics, Olivia was shocked to find that George had written a song about his ex-bandmate, Ringo Starr. He wrote a song called “Hey Ringo.” When Olivia launched a gallery/pop-up store to celebrate the re-release of I, Me, Mine, she showed Ringo the lyrics.
“Ringo had never seen it [at the gallery/pop-up store]. He said, ‘Hey, I’ve never seen that before.’ And I said I hadn’t either,” Olivia explained. “I guess it was in the piano bench in an envelope. And there was this song called ‘Hey Ringo’ that they think was from around 1970 or 1971. And it’s really sweet. I’m going to get it framed and give it to him because it’s really sweet.” The lyrics include lines like, “That without you my guitar plays far too slow.”
“That was a big revelation and surprise. Ringo was totally surprised and really happy. What a gift to have all these years later,” Olivia concluded. Olivia said that she found lost lyrics penned by her husband stashed away in the couple’s furniture and other odd places.
“You know, you’re sitting at your desk or your table writing lyrics, and you’re going to put papers in it. You’re going to stuff them somewhere,” Olivia explained. “George had a desk in the studio and tables downstairs, the kitchen cupboard, wherever. It’s not like you would sit at a desk nowadays with a laptop trying to write something. He’d be walking around and take a piece of paper out of his pocket, and it would end up somewhere. Maybe he would stick it in a book or in a drawer or somewhere.”
George also squirreled away lyrics in Billy Preston’s piano bench. Preston had worked with The Beatles and continued to have collaborative relationships with them in their solo careers. On more than one occasion, Billy visited George, and they jammed in the ex-Beatles in-home studio in England. So Billy left his Hammond B3 there. “No one had opened that bench in a long, long time—years—and there were folders. So when I finally got around to opening the piano bench, there were envelopes of depositions, lyrics, and scores for strings going back to I don’t know when, probably All Things Must Pass.”
Olivia used to shut the lid on the folders because she didn’t want to take them out and “disturb” them. “It’s like a time capsule. You don’t really want to disturb anything, but eventually I did find lyrics in there and lots of notes. The song ‘Wake Up My Love’ was in there, that went into the book, and it hadn’t been in there before this expanded edition.”
Ringo is delighted with the new documentary The Beatles: Get Back. Ringo reckons people were presented with an image that the four youthful pals had turned on each other. He has long been unhappy that fans felt the band were at each other’s throats recording the Let it Be album, as portrayed in the Let It Be film 51 years ago. Ringo is overjoyed Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson has recut a new version, this time serving up more of “the joy and laughter” between members.
Ringo said: “The point I am trying to make was from day one, 30 days later, no matter what happened we had an album, we did the show on the roof and did all this video. “There is no doubt of the record and we did have a few ups and downs, but that is what life is all about.
“First of all I never liked the film that came out. It was always [centred] around four seconds of a month. I thought there was no joy and no laughter, and I was telling Peter Jackson this.” He added: “We found 56 hours of unused footage.”
Ringo is delighted with the new version, which will air on Disney+ over three nights in November.
He said: “Peter started putting it together then he’d fly into LA and show me pieces of it. “We were laughing, we were lads. But to get back to the original one, there was a discussion and there were four guys in a room for a month, that had up days, down days, music days. But the music never, ever once got lost in what we were doing.
“It was the first time we went in the studio, especially George and I, and John did not have any songs and Paul didn’t have any songs.
“Usually they had two or three, so we could start. So there was a whole discussion. But when you look at it, it’s a six-hour documentary and it is like the ocean, the waves of joy and ‘Oh what is that going on?’
“Laughter and playing great. We never stopped loving each other. Once we heard the count in… whatever was going on, everybody did their best.”
Ringo spoke of his emotions and revealed how the finale of the film with the band’s final concert on Apple’s roof was a matter of convenience.
Ringo said: “The Beatles on the roof – India was pushed forward or maybe somewhere in Rome, on Everest, or Egypt in a mummy’s tomb. Paul said, ‘let’s just walk across the road’.
“And now it has become the biggest icon known to man.”
Recently Ringo revealed fans will finally be able to see their entire farewell concert. Mr Lindsay-Hogg has defended his original film’s narrative, which charted the last studio sessions together before the band split up.
He said: “I was aware that they were beginning to get on each other’s nerves.”
The director sensed the tension building and positioned his cameras so the drama could unfold naturally. He added: “I didn’t want them to feel the cameras were intrusive.
“I put one camera up in the gantry shooting down, so they didn’t see it. I moved the other back to the end of the studio. So they didn’t really know the cameras were there, which gave them the opportunity to get it off their chest.”
Ringo is releasing a lead single Let’s Change The World, written by Toto bandmates Joseph Williams and Steve Lukather. Change The World is released through uMusic on September 24
