At 85 years old, the iconic former Beatles drummer remains as laid-back and approachable as ever, greeting an interviewer at West Hollywood’s legendary Sunset Marquis Hotel — a longstanding luxury retreat for rock icons tucked just off the Sunset Strip — with one simple request: Call me Ringo. Though he received a knighthood in 2018 for his decades of contributions to global music, the man legally knighted as Sir Richard Starkey brushes off formal honorifics with a laugh. For him, there is no need for stuffy titles; the only thing that matters is talking music.
Long a Los Angeles transplant who has owned a home in the city since the 1970s, Starr says he has always fallen for the laid-back, welcoming energy that defines the city. “I love the heat and the light, it’s just been a good place for me,” he notes, his signature catchphrase “Peace and love” coming naturally as he puts his interviewer at ease. A lifelong collaborative musician, Starr says he has never been one to practice alone — a habit born from childhood, when his early solo drumming sessions drew noise complaints from his Liverpool neighbors. He now shares that lesson with his grandchildren: instead of holing up to practice alone, get together with other people and play. “If you play piano, bass, saxophone, I will play with you all night,” he says. “Get with people.”
That collaborative spirit takes center stage on his brand-new country album, *Long Long Road*, recorded alongside revered producer T Bone Burnett — best known for his 1970s work as a guitarist for Bob Dylan — marking their second joint project in less than two years. The pair co-wrote the full album, splitting recording sessions between Los Angeles and Nashville, with A-list guest artists including Sheryl Crow, Billy Strings, and St. Anthony stepping in to contribute. Starr says Burnett’s deep connections to Nashville’s tight-knit music community meant top-tier musicians could drop in spontaneously to lay down tracks, creating a loose, organic energy that runs through the entire record.
Starr’s love of country music is not a new, trendy pivot; it stretches all the way back to his 1950s childhood in Liverpool, which he describes as “the capital of country music in England” at the time. Merchant sailors bringing records into the busy port city exposed him to genres from across the globe, including hundreds of country records shipped up from Texas. After finishing secondary school, he even came close to moving to Texas at 18 to live near his blues hero Lightnin’ Hopkins — a plan he abandoned only after growing frustrated with the endless immigration paperwork. Even during his time in the Beatles, his self-penned tracks carried country flair: he only wrote two tracks for the band, 1968’s *Don’t Pass Me By* and *Octopus’s Garden*, and the former was recorded with an explicitly country sound. “I think it would be more country now if we did it with T Bone,” he jokes.
Starr reflects that his early songwriting attempts with the Beatles drew gentle teasing from bandmates John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison, who laughed that he was often just rewriting existing tracks. It took him time to find his own voice as a songwriter, but today his work has earned the respect of his surviving bandmate: McCartney and Starr recently recorded a duet called *Home to US* for McCartney’s upcoming album *The Boys Of Dungeon Lane*, set to drop next month.
When he hits the road for a West Coast U.S. tour this May and June to support *Long Long Road*, Starr will pull double duty as lead vocalist and drummer. The stage will hold two kits: when he moves to the front to sing, longtime collaborator Gregg Bissonette takes over drums, a setup Starr says keeps the energy loose and fun for the whole band.
The interview also touches on the decades of headlines that have followed Starr through his career, clearing up some long-circulated bits of Beatles lore: he confirms he was the one who coined the phrase *A Hard Day’s Night*, which went on to become the title of the band’s debut film, hit single, and first studio album. He also admits he was the first Beatle to try marijuana, and stands by his longstanding dietary rule: he has never eaten pizza or curry in his life.
Looking ahead, one of the most highly anticipated Beatles projects in recent memory is on the horizon: director Sam Mendes will release four standalone Beatles films, one focused on each band member, in 2028, with Irish actor Barry Keoghan tapped to play Starr. Keoghan recently met up with Starr in Los Angeles for a casual hangout, not a formal method acting deep dive. “It wasn’t like one of those in-depth things,” Starr says, joking that the actor never grilled him on trivial details like “which hand do you use to pick your nose. It was just hanging out and saying ‘hi’.”
Starr notes he initially struggled to wrap his head around the project, assuming it would be a documentary, but has adjusted to the idea of a fictionalized retelling. He brushes off concerns about box office performance or whether his film will outdraw the other three, instead suggesting fans marathon all four back-to-back. “Put us all on,” he says. “That would be cool to sit there. Bring sandwiches.”
Starr also praised the recent wave of mainstream country music success, including Beyoncé’s Grammy-winning album *Cowboy Carter*, calling the project a great work that continues a long tradition of cross-genre collaboration in country that he has long been part of.
