11 Stories You Still Haven't Heard About The Beatles, Based On Their Earliest Interviews
"We didn't want to appear as a gang of idiots" -- a very young Paul McCartney.
To celebrate McCartney's birthday on June 18, The Huffington Post has pulled together 11 obscure pieces of trivia about The Beatles from their earliest interviews.
1. The Beatles essentially wore head to toe leather on stage for awhile, which McCartney said got them laughed at "more often than not."
For a BBC interview the band did in August 1963 -- George Harrison, John Lennon and Paul McCartney all talked about the early fashion ideas they picked up from Hamburg, Germany. Lennon couldn't remember which of them was the first to don a leather jacket, but eventually they all got their own. When they acquired a bit more money soon after, they all bought leather pants for their stage performances, as well. "It was a bit, sort of, old hat anyway -- all wearing leather gear -- and we decided we didn't want to look ridiculous going home," McCartney explained of why the leather didn't stick with the group. "Because more often than not too many people would laugh. It was just stupid. We didn't want to appear as a gang of idiots." According to the interview, their manager Brian Epstein convinced them that they looked ridiculous and suggested they wear the ordinary suits instead. "So we just got what we thought were quite good suits, and got rid of the leather gear. That was all," said McCartney.
2. When first starting out, The Beatles had one gig where they played backup music for a stripper all week.
New Musical Express' Alan Smith released an interview with the band in early February 1963, where he wrote of an instance where they provided the music for "Janice the Stripper" in a Liverpool nightclub. Smith concluded his article saying the band had a promising future ahead of them, but they wouldn't soon forget their stripper-playing roots. This story has become a bit of a legend since then, with it being now unclear whether the stripper's name was Janice or Shirley, but regardless of the exact, dirty details, it seems as if the incident took place in the summer of 1960. It's said the band's manager at the time, Allan Williams, got a fairly high fee for the band to play the stripper's repertoire of covers for a whole week. Apparently, while they played, the stripper would swing around and bend over in front of the band. As they were just teens at the time, this just overwhelmed the young men more than anything.
By: Todd Van Luling
Source : The Huffington Post
