Today Sir Ringo Starr releases his new EP Rewind Forward, with a couple of big collaborations.
The four-track record’s second song is called Feeling the Sunlight and was written by fellow surviving member of The Beatles, Sir Paul McCartney.
The drummer said of the upbeat tune: “We were FaceTiming as we sometimes do, and I asked him if he had a song or would write one for this EP I am making.
“A week later he sent the track over and he’s all over it – which is great – playing EVERYthing…”
He added with a laugh: “Including the drums!!!!! So, we had to take them off – I did the drums and the vocals.”
Sir Ringo wrote Rewind Forward with his engineer and regular co-writer Bruce Sugar.
The 83-year-old said: “We’ve been writing a song now for every EP. Rewind Forward was just one of those things I say, and it made sense in the moment. Like a Hard Days Night – I thought, why don’t we just Rewind Forward?
“To make sense of it, sometimes it is good to go back and move forward from a place you left off, you don’t ever have to live in the past, but it is good to check it occasionally.”
Opening track Shadows on the Wall was a collaboration with All Starr Steve Lukather and his Toto bandmate Joe Williams.
The Beatles drummer said: “I asked Luke for a song – him and Joe Williams – and they put meat on it – so I wasn’t just getting a basic track I have to add everything to – it has guitar and bass and all I have to do is add my vocals and drums. Of course, I always do the drums and sing – it is my EP!”
Meanwhile, the fourth and final track on the EP is called Miss Jean, which was a collaboration with Mike Campbell of the Heartbreakers.
Sir Ringo said of the song: “We had played together on an Ian Hunter track (which was number 1 on the Heritage chart – whatever that chart is!) and I’d played on a Tom Petty track. But this was the first song Mike has ever written for me, which I loved.
“I put drums on it and sang it and he put everything else on it – that’s how it works.” That “everything else” also included the work of fellow Heartbreaker and one of Ringo’s dear friends Benmont Tench.”
Rewind Forward is out now on digital, CD and 10” vinyl.