Name: Pete Best Reveals Why He Was Kicked Out Of The Beatles | Letterman
Uploaded: 2023-03-29T16:01:41.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Pete Best Reveals Why He Was Kicked Out Of The Beatles | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-03-29. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Pete Best Reveals Why He Was Kicked Out Of The Beatles | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-03-29. Transcript available.

this is a uh uh do i hold this up now okay all right we're going to take a look
now at a picture
of the beatles in 1960. uh john lennon george harrison and paul mccartney of
course are easily
recognized but the fourth member of the group doesn't really look much like
ringo star and that
of course is because he is not uh he is pete best he was the original drummer
in this group until he
was bumped for ringo that took place in 1962 he is now out of the music
business and is making a
special appearance here tonight we're pleased to welcome mr pete best ladies
and gentlemen
is there no balloons attached to the stage no there's no that's no no balloons
we had a guy here the other
night who went up in a lawn chair with the balloons attached to him uh welcome
to the program you're
honestly one person i never thought i would get the opportunity to meet but you're
somebody that i've
known about uh well since 1962 essentially um let's just uh start at the
beginning what how did how did
the relationship come about between yourself and john lennon and george harrison
and uh ringo star well
very shortly um i first met the guys when they opened my mother's club the casbah
way back in 1958 when
they were known as the quarry men then and there was john george and paul
another guy called ken brown
but we needed a group to open the club saturday night this is a club that your
mother operated that's
right yeah under the basement of a house and how old were you at that time oh i'd
be about 16. and uh
uh the the other guys were roughly the same age also yeah you know yeah we were
uh couldn't give
a damn attitude you know just high school kids yeah yeah but uh funny thing was
the club needed some
decorating so john in his wisdom for those of you who don't know john was a
little bit short-sighted
uh we were painting the club ceiling black and it was supposed to be matte
paint so john did it in gloss
paint and uh that was it you know so when um now the you and the rest of the
guys were helping to
finish or fix up this club in order to open it for business they came over and
were painting and so
forth that's right yeah now when did you get to be part of the uh uh the
musical group well uh just
listen aside i joined them uh august 1960 uh simply because of the fact that
they disappeared and they
went and had an audition for a guy called larry parnes and by this time they
changed the name to
the silver beetles and there was a guy who joined them called stew suckliffe
who very tragically died
a couple years later but uh after this particular tour when they uh went up to
scotland there was a guy
called tommy mo who was playing drums with him and he came back and he said
whoa he said i've had
enough he said i'm quitting so paul knew that i'd been uh playing drums and uh
he said pete
you know we've got the offer to go to germany so uh he said he interested i
said yeah very much so
and he said come down and audition which is what i did do and went down the
next day
bashed off about six numbers and uh five minutes later they said yeah pete you're
in yeah so uh what
was the extent of your musical background at that point i mean you were good
enough to pass the
audition obviously but what did you had you done much drumming before oh for
about uh two years on
and off i had a small combo my own you know which was like a fun group yeah but
nothing sort of
professionally based because uh i knew the guys had to go back to job go back
to school yeah so now when
you went on the tour to germany was this the beginning of the feeling that this
thing may go right
through the roof or was this still a little earlier no when we went over to
germany and uh
we've out there for about a month and we suddenly realized you know hey german
audiences are going
wild about this and uh there was always an inner feeling dave which it was
funny to explain but we
knew you know that uh you know in fact we had a saying a lot of people don't
know this but uh we used
to get on stage and we used to stand there you know and say you know where are
we going guys
to the top now that was the inner belief which we had amongst ourselves right
and it was funny but
we knew that somewhere along the line we were going to make it big now truthfully
wise i don't think
even they would have envisaged that we want to become the phenomena they were
yeah uh were you close
to these gentlemen at the time were you all really good friends did you get to
be a really tight unit oh
sure yeah i mean you know when you're playing take hamburg for instance seven
hours a night seven
days a week you know 15 minute break if you were lucky or something like that
uh we grew up together
yeah you know a lot of hard times a lot of fun together so we were a close
compact unit okay let
me uh pause here for a second pete uh we're gonna uh run a commercial or
something and uh we'll be back
to continue this discussion with mr pete best welcome back to the show this
gentleman is pete best
and we're uh talking about his uh was the drummer for the beatles prior to ringo
star you would went
on the tour to germany and you were their drummer for two years at least yeah
uh and you you mentioned
you guys were all pretty good friends now how did the the did you have any hint
that you were going to be
leaving the group no that was the amazing thing dave uh when the incident
happened uh you know it just
happened completely out the blue yeah there was no you know forewarning it's
all about it it just uh
was called into brian's office and he turned around i could tell he was agitated
simply because of the
fact that he was you know pacing up and down and you know sort of biting his
fingernails so to speak
but uh after about three or four minutes he turned around and said pete i've
got bad news for you
he said uh in a nutshell you know the boys want you out and they want ringo
star in well i was
completely shell-shocked by this dave uh couldn't sort of get my mind together
or you know whatever
you know trying to sort of get things into perspective did you then go to talk
to any
members of the group uh john or paul or no no funny thing about it was uh after
i was kicked out
very shortly after that i joined a group called lee curtis and the all-stars
and on two occasions i played on the same bill as them one was at the cabin in
liverpool and the
other was at the majestic ballroom and we were playing support to them on these
occasions and it
meant that as we were coming off stage the beatles were going on stage but
nothing was ever mentioned
there was no acknowledgement nobody said sorry peter we'll talk to you later
about it or it was business
or nothing yeah just stony silence yeah and from the the time that you got uh
let go to the time that
did you know ringo at all had you met him before sure yeah ringo and i were
very good friends yeah so
from the time you got let go to the time that they just became an unbelievable
success what what amount
of time was that oh basically they had a record in the english charts within a
month or so me being
kicked out and after that it became history everyone knows about it now what
does that do to a person
uh what is there resentment there is it uh i mean first you had these guys were
your friends yeah and
suddenly they're not your friends that's tough enough but to suddenly see them
uh skyrocket like
that not to mention the economics involved in the thing were you were you angry
at them mad at them
just in a part dave uh they caused me a lot of hardship grief you know
financial embarrassment but
uh i persevered with my own lifestyle and you know that was strong enough in
character to sort of turn
around and say okay no matter what happened in the past let's forget about it
okay and at this present
moment in time i've managed to retain my identity in my own sweet way did you
uh continue in music did
you you mentioned you were with another band did that uh i mean at that time
there was a good chance
that a band coming out of liverpool could be a big success many were oh sure
yeah um i had mediocre
success um i got a couple of records in the charts uh you know a couple of tv
spots nothing fantastic yeah
but uh the gap was always widening you know the beatles were up there somewhere
down on the lower
ranks i was slotted in somewhere yeah so then um what you're no longer in music
what happened after you
used to mention that these uh had some other hits or smaller hits with minor
successes what did you do
then well uh up to about 1968 we uh persevered did a tour of america in canada
had a couple of albums
released over here but uh unfortunately through no circumstances of our own we
had to go back home
and we found when we got back home that things had drastically changed you know
we'd been away for about nine months we got a lot older
and uh the scene had changed and when we tried to break back into the normal
routine
it wasn't there yeah you know we sort of persevered but uh it just didn't
happen
well here is the album uh we'll pause here for station identification we'll be
right back
uh pete best is here in a minute we're going to take our second look at the uh
national fancy
food and confection convection convention you know what i'm talking about it
was held here a couple of
weeks ago we were all there uh and i want to ask you about the album there the
other thing i wanted
to to ask you was what was the reason ultimately given to you for the change at
the position of drummer
in a nutshell dave jealousy um we found out afterwards uh at the meeting they
turned around
and said that i wasn't a good enough drummer but consequently when we sort of
turned around a lot of
people you know found out that uh jealousy was creeping into the act there was
actually uh some some
demonstrations and people in the streets yelling and they were upset at the the
time it was a nice
feeling you know to realize that i had true loyal supporters but uh there was a
hell of a fan
reaction billboards and everything uh and anyway the album which we alluded to
in the last half
hour called silver beetles what is this essentially when people put this on
their machines at home
what are they going to hear well what they're going to hear is uh hopefully so
uh is the decoration
material which was recorded way back january the first 1962 was the first major
attempt for the
beatles still under english recording contract and never before heard uh as far
as you know there
could have been bootleg versions but this is the the one which everyone's going
to go for okay well
i certainly hope this is uh is a big success for you it was a pleasure meeting
you sir it's uh
an interesting tale i'm sorry it didn't work out better for you thank you thank
you thank you