Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion Page 5

  Paul would say, “What the bloody hell is ‘Poppermost’?”

  John’d say, “Don’t worry about it. So listen, I’m transforming Stu.”

  Then Paul’d say, “No. Don’t. We need somebody in our group who has blood coursing through his veins. The audience has to have one person onstage—just one—who they won’t be afraid of, y’know.”

  John’d then say, “Stu’s a pussycat. Nobody’s gonna be scared of him, dead or alive.” Frankly, he was right about that one. Nobody was ever scared of me. Even now, even when I’m trying to suck the blood out of some poor soul, they’re like, “Oi, Stu, lookin’ good, mate! Properly pale, an’ that! Talk to Johnny Moondog lately?” Why do you think I always wear shades? It adds mystique, brother … and maybe a tinge of fear.

  And then one day—it was a Sunday afternoon, I recall—Paul let his true feelings out: “The man can’t play, John. If you zombify him, we’re stuck with him, y’know. Forever.” Obviously they didn’t know I was eavesdropping.

  John said, all quietlike, “I don’t have a problem with that, mate. He’s the kind of guy I’d like to have around forever.”

  Paul said, “Yeah, he’s a decent bloke, I suppose, but if you want this band to make it—if you honestly, honestly want to take over the world like you’re always bloody saying—we need to keep our options open. If he’s undead, he’s with us for eternity, y’know. If he’s alive, we can sack him whenever we want.”

  I couldn’t listen to any more, so I tiptoed out of the house and headed home. Music wasn’t my true artistic love—I was a painter first and a bass player second, or maybe even third—and Paul wasn’t exactly my best mate in the world, so I wasn’t particularly concerned what he thought about me. But I did respect him, and hearing him say that hurt.

  And by the way, that particular Lennon/McCartney discussion led to a, ehm, physical altercation that left Paul with a cracked guitar, and John with a missing ear … which George discovered when he slipped on it at rehearsal the next day.

  GEORGE HARRISON: I tried my best to stay out of the arguments. John wanted Stu in the band, and Paul didn’t, and I kept my opinion to myself. As a matter of fact, I’m still keeping my opinion to myself.

  They argued about everything, those two. After the blokes from Quarry left the band, John wanted us to be called Johnny and the Maggots. Paul said no way, and if John wanted it to be Johnny and the Something-or-others, it would have to be Johnny and the Moondogs, because he’d heard that moondog was an American slang term for “oversize zombie pecker.” I actually spoke up that time and took Paulie’s side.

  STUART SUTCLIFFE: I should note that Paul fancied me enough to keep me around for the Larry Parnes thing. Man, witnessing that cock-up was worth the price of admission.

  A well-known English club owner and music impresario who shaped the careers of pseudonymous teen sensations such as Duffy Power, Lance Fortune, and Dickie Pride, Larry Parnes allowed John, Paul, George, and Stu to audition for him in 1960—not, however, as an entity unto themselves, but rather as backing band to one Ronald William Wycherley, aka, Billy Fury.

  The audition was held at the Blue Angel, a Liverpool club owned by Allan Williams, a local music heavy who’d taken on the position of manager for the artists temporarily known as the Moondogs. Several Liverpool bands and a whole bunch of hangers-on were at the Angel that day, but only one was able to speak about the audition on the record. Neither Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, nor Sutcliffe wished to discuss what went down that afternoon, and Parnes and Fury had both been dead for decades, and who the hell knew where all those other bands disappeared to. So, in December 2003, after dozens of unreturned phone calls, letters, and emails, I had no choice but to invite myself over to Allan Williams’s house in Liverpool.

  Williams greeted me at the door with a big smile on his face and a bigger shotgun pointed at my schnozz. Knowing he was a rabid jazz fan, I came armed with a copy of Hard Bop Academy, my biography of jazz drummer Art Blakey, which had been published back in 2001. His smile expanding by the second, Williams took the gift, tossed it into the air, pulled the trigger of his Remington Express Super Mag, and blew my book to confetti; it was literary skeet shooting at its finest. He then invited me in, prepared me a cup of tea, and told me exactly what happened on May 5, 1960.

  ALLAN WILLIAMS: The boys’d played a few shows at the Jacaranda in Liverpool, but nobody paid them much mind—nobody except me, of course, because I was the only bastard in the whole city who had any ears. John and Paul were frustrated with the less-than-enthusiastic response, so a week or three before the audition for Parnesy, I suspect in order to bolster their confidence, they did a few gigs at a place in Caversham called Fox and Hounds. Since it was just the two of them, they didn’t want it to be a Moondogs gig, so John suggested they call themselves the Rotting Oozing Fetid Corpses. Fortunately for everybody, Paul convinced him that the Rotting Oozing Fetid Corpses was a tad too long for the marquee, and he suggested they call themselves the Nerk Twins, NERK being an acronym for Never Eat Road Kill. They both found that hilarious, but I didn’t get it. Zombies have an odd sense of humor, I’ve found.

  They played all right for Parnesy at the Blue Angel, the four of ’em did. I don’t remember what they started out with—probably some Buddy Holly song or some blues tune or another—but it sounded fine, just fine. They weren’t world beaters yet, but anybody with even an iota of musical know-how—like me, thank you very much—could tell they had something. Little Billy Fury, however, didn’t even crack a smile, but I don’t think the boys were particularly concerned with his opinion. I know I wasn’t, because the bloke was, at best, semitalented. No, Parnesy was the one we wanted to impress. He had a proven track record, and if he got behind the boys, he’d be able to get them some gigs and some dosh. And that’d make me look good, damn good.

  So they finish up the second song, and Parnesy doesn’t move a muscle. No nod, no smile, no thumbs-up, no clapping, no comment about Stuart playing with his back to the crowd, no nothing. All you could hear was crickets, and I don’t mean crickets of the Buddy Holly variety. Paul looked over John, then back at Larry, then he gulped and said, all dodgily, “Er, wouldja like to hear something else, Mr. Parnes?” That was the first and last time I ever heard Paul McCartney sound nervous.

  Before Larry could answer, I stood up and said, “Hold on, lads,” then I ran over to John and Paul—the zombie brains of the outfit, at that point—and gently led them into a back corner. I told them, “As your manager, I’d like to make a business suggestion. I recommend that you put down your instruments and do that hypnotizing thing you always talk about. Make him give you the gig. You deserve it. Shit, we deserve it.”

  John glared at me, and for a minute, I thought he was gonna tear my head off. He said, “Listen, Allan, we will never, ever, ever use fookin’ hypnosis to get a gig. I’ll take a job only if we’re hired on merit. If Parnes likes us, great, and if he doesn’t, sod him, we’ll find somebody who does.”

  I told him if that’s the way he feels, I was behind him 100 percent. I’d seen what an angry zombie could do, and even though I wanted to earn a few bob off these blokes, I didn’t want to die doing it.

  So we all went back to our proper places, then Paul counted off “Bye Bye Love,” and despite the fact that Stu flubbed note after note after note, they were spot-on; in comparison, the Everly Brothers sounded like rotting oozing fetid corpses themselves. Billy Fury clapped for a bit, until he noticed that Parnesy still wasn’t moving, at which point he folded his hands on the table and said, “That was all right, I suppose.” Billy Fury wasn’t one to cheese off the boss.

  Parnesy walked over to the bandstand and said, “Boys, boys, boys, I don’t hear it, I don’t feel it, and I don’t want it.” He pointed at John and said, “You can sing a little.” Then he pointed at Paul and George and said, “And you two can play a little.” Then he pointed at Stu and said, “As for you, well, I don’t know what the hell you’re doing, mate. If I were you,
I’d take off those shades, cut my hair, throw that bass in the river, and apply for a job down at the local chemist.”

  Now even at that early date, there was no love lost between Paul and Stu, but seeing one of his bandmates get blasted set Paulie right off. He dropped his guitar and said, “Excuse me, Mr. Parnes? Can you repeat that?”

  Parnesy shook his head. “Not necessary. You heard what I said, mate. Loud and clear.”

  John put down his guitar, very calmly—too calmly, as far as I was concerned—strolled up to Parnes, grabbed his earlobe between his thumb and index finger, and lifted him off the ground, then said, “Paulie asked you to repeat what you said, mate. If you do, maybe I’ll let you live. Maybe.”

  Parnes was a soft cunt who probably hadn’t been in a fight of any kind since primary school, and he was pissing his pants. Literally. George pointed at the front of Parnesy’s trousers and said, “Looky, looky, Parnesy went wee-wee.” Back then, George generally kept quiet in public, and he was rarely snarky, so for him to have opened his mouth, you know he was cheesed.

  John then did something I’ll never forgive him for: he let go of Larry’s ear, dropped him on the floor, grabbed him by his wrist, picked him up, twirled him over his head—around and around and around, like he was a football hooligan waving an Arsenal banner—then he threw him across the club, right into the bar, breaking every bottle of booze in the place. That cost me about three hundred pounds, which, in 1960, was a fookload of dosh. Like I said, unforgivable. But if violence was what my boys wanted, I was all for it. Back then, I stupidly supported all their decisions. If I knew then what I know now, I might’ve tossed those cunts out right then and there.

  And then Paul, in what seemed like three steps, bounded across the room, grabbed Parnesy by the ankle, and did the same thing John had done: Arsenal banner spins, then a toss. John caught Larry, and for the next few minutes, Lennon and McCartney alternately kicked and threw Larry Parnes across the Blue Angel. I yelled at them to watch the furniture, and they were somewhat respectful. I asked them if they wanted any help, and they just laughed. Cunts.

  Parnesy screamed and screamed and screamed, and, finally, after Paul accidentally-on-purpose dropped him on his arse, Parnesy said, “Okay, okay, you’re hired, you’re hired. My boys are going on a Scottish tour. Get a drummer, pick a better name, and you can back up Billy Fury.”

  Fury said, “Mr. Parnes, with all due respect, there’s no fookin’ way they’re backin’ me up. I don’t want to fookin’ die.”

  Parnesy picked himself up, dusted himself off, and shot a long look at Fury. After a moment, he said, “Understood,” turned to the lads, and said, “You’ll back up Johnny Gentle.” Johnny Gentle was another singing mediocrite who I wouldn’t have hired to wipe my bum.

  John said, “Brilliant. So you’re hiring us on merit, right?”

  Parnes said, “Fook, no. I’m hiring you because you’ll kill me if I don’t.”

  John grabbed his guitar from the bandstand and brandished it over Larry’s head as if it were a mallet, then said, “I asked you, You’re … hiring … us … on … merit. Right?”

  Parnes cringed and said, “Of course I’m hiring you on merit, Mr. Lennon. Of course.”

  John put down his guitar, smiled, and said, “Great! We’ll take it.”

  GEORGE HARRISON: Picking a name for our band was a contentious struggle, and I wanted no part of it. It was a powder-keg topic, and in those early days, I didn’t offer up an opinion unless I was asked, and even then, I was as noncommittal as possible. You never knew what would set off John or Paul. And if they disagreed with something you said while they were hungry, forget it.

  The day after the Blue Angel audition, John showed up to rehearsal with a long list of name suggestions, and I remember each and every one of them: the Deads-men, the Deadmen, the Undeads-men, the Undeadmen, the Rots, the Rotters, the Dirts, the Dirty Ones, the Grayboys, the Eaten Brains, the Eating Brains, the Mersey Beaters, the Mersey Beaten, the Bloodless, the Graves, the Headstones, and the Liverpools of Blood.

  Paul ripped off John’s right arm and used it to slap John across the face, then he said, “Those’re horrible, mate, just horrible, y’know.”

  John took back his arm, bit off the pinkie, spit it toward Paul’s gut—apparently Johnny didn’t take too kindly to being slapped, especially with his own hand—and said, “I had this dream last night—”

  Stu interrupted him. “Brilliant. Here we go again with the dreams.”

  STUART SUTCLIFFE: It seemed like every fookin’ evening, like at three in the fookin’ morning, John would ring me to tell me about some fookin’ dream he’d had. One night he’d dream about being in heaven and talking with Robert Johnson about the Devil, then the next, he’d dream about being in hell, talking to the Devil about Robert Johnson. Even if it was a good dream, he’d be upset, and I was happy to try and calm him down, but, well, shite, he could’ve called Paulie once in a while.

  GEORGE HARRISON: I ignored Stu and asked John what his dream was about. If nothing else, it would be an entertaining story.

  He said, “Right, then. So I’m sitting on a canoe in the middle of the Thames, floating about without a paddle, and the sky is fookin’ orange, and I see some girl in another canoe, and she’s got two paddles. She’s got these eyes that’re shining like silver or diamonds, and she says, ‘John Winston Lennon, d’you want to eat a piece of pie?’

  “I say, ‘I don’t want any pie, I want one of your fookin’ paddles. This river smells like shite, and I wanna get back to Liverpool.’

  “She says, ‘What if I set the pie on fire, John Winston Lennon? What if the pie has flames shooting out of it? Tasty, tasty flames.’

  “I say, ‘It’ll probably improve the scent around here, but I don’t want any pie. If you wanna feed me something, get me some fookin’ brains.’

  “She says, ‘So I can’t interest you in a flaming pie, John Winston Lennon?’

  “I say, ‘No, you can’t interest me in a flaming pie, you sparkle-eyed wench.’

  “She says, ‘You know what? You’re a right cunt, John Winston Lennon. Can I interest you in flaming hell?’ Then she sets me on fire, whacks me on me head with her paddle, and turns into a giant silver bug.

  “I jump into the water so as not to burn, then I say, ‘What’s this Kafka shite, then?’

  “She says, ‘I’m not a cockroach, idiot. I’m a beetle. And you’re going to die a real death. Unless you call your band the Beatles. And that’s Beatles with an a.’

  “I say, ‘What d’you mean Beatles with an a? Are you talking B-E-A-T-L-E-S or B-A-E-T-L-E-S or B-E-E-A-T-L-E-S or A-B-E-E-T-L-E-S or—’

  “She says, ‘Figure it out for yourself, cunt. Figure it out for yourself.’”

  John ran his hand through his hair—which was getting a bit shaggy, I should note—and said, “And then I woke up.”

  See? Entertaining.

  PAUL MCCARTNEY: I was tired of arguing, y’know. By then, I didn’t care if it was the Deads-men or the Deadmen or the Undeads-men or the Undeadmen or the Rots or the Rotters or the Dirts or the Dirty Ones or the Grayboys or the Eaten Brains or the Eating Brains or the Mersey Beaters or the Mersey Beaten or the Bloodless or the Graves or the Headstones or the Liverpools of Blood or B-E-A-T-L-E-S or B-A-E-T-L-E-S or B-E-E-A-T-L-E-S or A-B-E-E-T-L-E-S or A-B-C-D-E-F-G. If Johnny wanted to let a giant dream bug dictate our name, that was his prerogative.

  He declared we would be the Silver B-E-A-T-L-E-S, and I gave it a thumbs-up, because I needed to focus my energy elsewhere. Y’see, I was having some issues with a certain percussionist.

  Sacked just before the Beatles exploded onto the international scene, Pete Best is the unluckiest footnote in rock ’n’ roll history. A solid if not unspectacular drummer and a notorious grump, Pete joined John, Paul, et al. in 1960, right after the Scotland tour with Johnny Gentle, a tour that left the boys miserable and broke. Pete was a classically attractive young man, and, almost immediately, a goodly portio
n of the band’s ever-growing female fan base took to him like flies to a corpse.

  Pete, who still resides in Liverpool, has mixed feelings about his twenty-four months as a Beatle (or, more accurately, his one month as a Silver Beatle and his twenty-three months as a regular Beatle), and during our five-hour, increasingly drunken chat at Le Bateau over on Liverpool’s tony Duke Street during the summer of 1997, his emotional conflict was always evident, and I couldn’t help but feel bad for the guy. But Pete Best doesn’t want you to feel sorry for him. He just wants you to listen.

  PETE BEST: Except for George, who was a couple of years younger than us, we were all about the same age, but John and Paul were clearly the bosses. You know how sometimes when you have a boss who’s really charismatic and mysterious, you spend a lot of time with your coworkers trying to analyze him? Well, that was what it was like with Stu and me. We used to talk about John and Paul all the time: Did John like my snare fill on “Be-Bop-A-Lula”? Did Paul notice that Stu’d dropped a couple of notes on “Long Tall Sally”? Did they mind that I’d scooped that blond bird who was off to the side of the stage, shaking her big titties at us? Were they going to kill me and turn me into a zombie without any advance notice? It was always a head game with Lennon and McCartney, and what with their habit of murdering at the drop of a hat, the stakes were high.

  Two weeks after they brought me aboard, we went to Hamburg to play what seemed like five hundred shows at a sleazy joint called the Indra Club, run by this dodgy bloke named Bruno Koschmider. Bruno ran us ragged: we played seven nights a week, and some nights we’re talking six hours straight. It got to the point we were eating uppers like they were sweets.

  You could always gauge how many uppers John, Paul, and George had taken by their skin tone: If they took four pills or less, they turned green—like as green as a lawn in the middle of the summer. Anything beyond that, they turned bright fookin’ yellow, so yellow that they glowed in the dark. Green and yellow complexions are the best advertisements for undeadness, so everybody knew what we were about. But even with the stench of death that permeated the club, the crowds packed the joint night after night after night.