RINGO IS WORKING ON A NEW ALBUM FOR 2017

For over twenty-five years, Ringo has failed to produce an album with his All-Starr band. He managed to round up the members of his latest tour lineup for one track on his 2015 release, Postcards From Paradise, but the former Beatle has yet to sit down with the band and create a full album together. “I have tried over 25 years now with the All-Starrs to get in a room and write songs and make a record, and it never worked,” Ringo tell: “We know it can work, but everybody has other stuff to do as well. Todd [Rundgren], I think he’s had two days off ’cause he’s on tour himself. Lukather’s out there with [Toto]. Greg [Rolie] did the Santana getting back together stuff. I think if we were going to get into this like that, then I think we’d have to forego a lot of the outside issues that we have.”

That hasn’t stopped Ringo from making new music with some of his All-Starr members, though. The drummer is currently working on eight new songs, two of which were co-written with his current All-Starr Band guitarist, Steve Lukather. “We’ve got the tracks down; now we have to write the words,” Starr says. “We know where it’s going. We’ve got the idea. We’ve got the first verse of one of them. The second will be a ballad. We’re gonna finish them while we’re on the road.”

A third track features Dave Stewart, which was originally written for a country album they intended to work on together before Ringo’s current All-Starr tour was scheduled. “We thought, ‘Well, we’ll get some songs together,’ so we did,” Starr says. “So there’s stuff around. We’ll do the country album another time now. There’s lots you can do.”

Other tracks will feature All-Starr Band regulars Gary Burr and Gary Nicholson, and former members Richard Marx and Van Dyke Parks. “I love working with Van Dyke,” Starr says. “I only need a line, and we write a song together. I’ve known him since ’76. We’re good friends and, y’know, he’s a genius. I’m lucky; I have a lot of fun with a lot of friends.”

Ringo said: “I feel like we are a band; maybe my name is in the front, but we’re a band,” Ringo says about his All-Starr Band. “We support each other and we know each other and we have a lot of fun. We play well, the songs are great and the audiences love it, but it’s also sitting on the plane, sitting in the bus, sitting in the van — it’s all OK. Every time we end a tour, I say, ‘OK, that’s it,’ and then [my manager] will say, ‘Well, what about October?’ and I say to the band, ‘You want to go in October?’ and we all say ‘Yes!’ So it’s good.”