Can anything be considered low risk when everyone's watching your every move?
'What has been my biggest professional risk?' Paul McCartney answers on which and how many have been risked in his phenomenal career.
When The Beatles took a risk and stopped touring to focus on studio time, they created the era-defining Sgt. Pepper album; after The Beatles, Paul continued as a solo artist and had a US Number One album with McCartney.
It’s fair to say, then, that many of Paul’s risks have often paid off.(Excerpt from official McCartney)
"In the early days of Wings, we decided to go right back to square one, taking a van up the motorway and playing little spontaneous gigs at universities for students, rather than jumping straight in with big live shows."
"I’d doubled back to almost being nothing - just some guy in the band - and now I was earning my fame again. By the time the mid-70s came around when we were doing a big American tour, that was the vindication of it. We were so tight and had come up together, as it were. The risk paid off."
"I’m quite careful normally. There’s a couple of times in life when you are forced into taking a risk. After The Beatles, this was my situation: ‘Do I keep going with music, or not?’ Well, I want to keep going. So, ‘How am I going to do it? Am I going to have a band, or am I just going to busk outside train stations? How’s it going to work?’"
"I’m not a risk-taker. I weigh things up and try to be pretty careful. I was the polar opposite to John. If there was a cliff to be jumped off, John would jump! He would just dive into things, and I would sometimes have to rescue him and say, ‘Hey man, you shouldn’t be doing that!’"
"Obviously, I’m not completely square. I do a lot of zany stuff! That’s in my character too, but I
don’t live my life as a risk-taker. I try and work it out to some extent."
