We did America and Japan, we had a year off and said, “Let’s do it again.” I called a lot of other people, got that band together and we did really well. He’s incredible, and I like to do some “peace and love” down front. I had Levon Helm playing drums with me, but I also wanted Jim Keltner as a drummer because he’s my friend. I called my friends first-I have quite a few musician friends. When I put the first band together in 1989, I’d never done it before. The thread was that you had to have hit songs. Looking over the group’s shifting lineups, can you pinpoint a thread that ties the first and most recent versions of the project together? You recently released a photo book, Ringo Rocks: 30 Years of the All Starrs 1989-2019, documenting your solo band’s first three decades. Otherwise, you just slow down more and more. I truly believe that movement-you can just walk around the block-is really important to everybody. I have a little room where I can throw paint around and make a mess, and I’ve got the gym, which is really important. I’m blessed-I’ve got stuff that can keep me busy. I’ve done five other people’s records so far. I call it a studio, but it’s really just an empty guest house that I’ve put a lot of stuff in-the drums are in the bedroom. Some days, it’s like, “I’ve had enough of this day.” But it’s not that often because of meditation and because I can stand up, come to the studio and call some people-someone will send me a few files and I can drum for them. It helps you get a break from this difficult time and it puts you in a proper space. How has that practice helped you during this difficult time? You’ve been an advocate of Transcendental Meditation for decades. They’d written “Not Enough Love in the World” and I had to do it-there’s not enough peace in the world. Once I had four tracks down and was ready to close it down, Steve Lukather and John Williams came over. My credit is “vocal and one drum fill.” I thought, “I’m going to put that down because it makes me laugh.” He sent it to me, and I did the vocals, which is something you can do now. I didn’t wanna make a 10-track CD, but I thought, “I could look at making four tracks.” Sam Hollander produced-and put all the instruments on-“Teach Me to Tango” while in lockdown in New York. I love the expression “zoom in” because of what we’re doing now. We started with “Zoom In,” which was brought to me by my engineer Bruce Sugar. Everyone was looking for something to do.

I called Sheryl Crow-I sent the files to Paul in England, and Dave Grohl and Ben Harper came over to my studio because they live right here. Diane Warren wrote “Here’s to the Nights.” She got a lot of people, and I got a lot of people. While I can’t do a lot of that these days, I can still send files back and forth.

I had just had an album out, What’s My Name, but I love to play, and I love hanging with musicians. I was sitting around doing nothing and cancelling tours. Was there a specific catalyst early on that inspired you to launch into a new project? You recorded Zoom In at your studio during the height of the pandemic last year.

Two years ago, I threw my cassette player away, trying to move on. “It’s also a cassette because I heard the kids are into cassettes. “I was trying to do things I hadn’t done,” Starr says during a recent Zoom call from his Los Angeles studio, wearing dark sunglasses and sitting next to a museum’s worth of memorabilia celebrating both his Beatles days and his son’s Trojan Jamaica label. Recorded mostly remotely-though a few friends like Benmont Tench did lend a hand in person- it’s a typical “all-star” affair, featuring Robby Krieger on the title track and the stacked roster of Joe Walsh, Corinne Bailey Rae, Black Pumas’ Eric Burton, Sheryl Crow, FINNEAS, Dave Grohl, Ben Harper, Lenny Kravitz, Jenny Lewis, Steve Lukather, Chris Stapleton, Yola and even Paul McCartney on the sing-along single, “Here’s to the Nights.” “We got it all together and we couldn’t go.”īut, once The Beatles drummer’s planned tour with his ever-changing AllStarr Band was unexpectedly scrapped, he quickly pivoted, whipping together a new, fivesong EP, Zoom In, between April-October 2020. “I was out shopping for clothes for the stage and then it all ended,” Ringo Starr says, as he thinks back to the first few months of 2020.

Ringo starr 2020