Paul McCartney: "Anything Wings did had to be viewed in the light of The Beatles.

By editorial board on August 1, 2021

"And the comparisons were always very harsh" McCartney looks back on the transition to Wings, its effect on his bass playing, and how he became an entertainer again

Things were changing. But as he explains, there was never going to be a move from the bass guitar, even if he had switched up his brand of choice....(Guitarworld)

You were always seen on stage with a Hofner bass with The Beatles, and yet you virtually always used a Rickenbacker while on stage with Wings. Why was that?

 

“I’m not sure. Maybe it was a combination of things. I knew I was known for the violin shape. It’s like Charlie Chaplin, you know? The little walking cane, the moustache, and a bowler hat, and he’s Charlie. If he comes on with a bandanna and he’s shaved and he’s on a bike, it’s like, ‘Who’s that?’ So I think there may have been an element of that was what I looked like, kind of a trademark.

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“Yeah, they are, completely, yeah. Number one, The Beatles was the best band in the world. It’s difficult to follow that. It’s like following God. Very difficult, unless you’re Buddha. Anything Wings did had to be viewed in the light of The Beatles. And the comparisons were always very harsh. Denny Laine wasn’t John Lennon. Henry McCullough wasn’t George Harrison. That was inevitable. The interesting thing is that, looking back on some of the work, some of the stuff, it’s better than you think it was, but because it got such harsh criticism... from me.

“The critics gave us a hard run, but I was particularly hard on us. I remember looking at a book, there was an album we did, I think it was Back to the Egg, which didn’t do well, and I remember thinking, ‘God, complete disaster.’ Years later, I remember looking at it with Bowie in this old book – one of these ‘who-did-what’ Hit Parade books, looking it up – and it was like number eight in America. And I thought, most people would give their right bloody arms to be number eight.

“But eight, and I wasn’t satisfied. The Beatles had been number one. This is all right, keeps you going. But yes, a lot of the stuff is underrated, because of that. The truth of the matter is that I had The Beatles and then had another bite of the cherry through Wings.

 

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