Ringo Starr Talks 2017 Album Plans & All-Starr Band Tour: 'I Have a Lot of Fun With a Lot of Friends'
With his latest All-Starr Band tour about to start -- a 19-date U.S. trek kicking off Friday in Syracuse, New York -- Ringo Starr is eyeballing a new album release for early next year.
Starr, who's been recording at his home studio in Los Angeles, tells Billboard that he has eight songs in motion, mostly needing lyrics. Two are co-written with Toto and All-Starr Band guitarist Steve Lukather and will be finished during the upcoming tour. "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." Another track, meanwhile, is a collaboration with Dave Stewart originally intended for a country album the two were hoping to make this month before the 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 collaborators for the follow-up to 2015's Postcards to Paradise include Starr regulars Gary Burr and Gary Nicholson, All-Starr Band veteran Richard Marx and Van Dyke Parks, who's been part of Starr's last several albums. "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."
By: Gary Graff
Source: Billboard
