Whythefifth Beatlewassacked
With a newplay, Pete Best says there is still unfinished business between him and Paul McCartney
Pete Best leads me into a cupboard under the stairs of his family’s former home in the West Derby suburb of Liverpool. We descend a narrowstaircase and arrive at awarren of dark vaults. Beatles posters cover thewalls. In one corner, theword “John” is crudely carved into thewooden panelling. A stretch of ceiling is painted in multicoloured strips, the handiwork of a teenage Paul McCartney.
This is the Casbah Coffee Club, a club opened by Best’s mother, Mo, in 1959. And before the Cavern, the Casbahwas The Beatles’ home. “We ran riot here,” says Best of that period, when queues would form down the road. “The foresightmymum had for the Liverpool music scenewas incredible.”
As the one- time Beatles drummer, Best performed with the band 76 times Pete Best. at the Casbah. However, in August 1962— justweeks before LoveMe Do kick- started the band’s journey to megastardom— McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison sent manager Brian Epstein to tell Best theywanted to replace him with Ringo Starr. Not for nothing is the 76- year- old grandfather dubbed the unluckiest man in music.
Best joined another group, but events obviously affected him. He attempted suicide in the mid- Sixties and gave up showbusiness in 1968, going on towork in a bakery and then at an employment exchange as a civil servant. He married, had children and, in the late Eighties, started playing again as the leader of The Pete Best Band.
He’s keeping his Beatles connection alive in otherways, too. Later this month, he will appear as himself in Lennon’s Banjo, a play at Liverpool’s Epstein Theatre, about the search for the long- lost instrument on which Lennon learned to play. Best says it’s based on fact and full of pathos and “Scouse humour”.
But it’s clear that some rawness from that fateful day in 1962 still lingers. He doesn’t knowwho made the decision, and it still rankles Best that the band members didn’t sack him themselves, face- to- face. “I’m not saying I’d change the outcome, but at least giveme the decency of being there and [ letting me] confront them,” he says.
After the firing, Lennon admitted they’d been cowards. While Best stops short of repeating the accusation, he says they clearly felt guilty afterwards.
Does he think McCartney owes him an apology? “Ask him.”
Would he like one? Best says he’d like to meet him— he hasn’t spoken to McCartney ( or Starr) since his sacking.
“Paul has always hinted that he’d like tomeet up. The door’s always been wide open. I’m not the guilty person, you know? Whether hewants to do it on a public basis or a private one, it’s his call.”
Iwonder what Bestwould say to him? His answer iswonderfully conciliatory: “We’re senior statesmen now. Howmany yearswe’ve got left on the planet is really predictable. Let’s talk about things in general. Let’s have a good old bash.”
Conspiracy theories abound about why hewas sacked: Paulwas jealous of his looks, Best kept his Tony Curtis quiff while the others got “Beatles haircuts”, hewas aloof in Hamburg, they did drugs and he didn’t.
Although he thinks about what could have been, Best says hewouldn’t change his life for “all the tea in China”. He’s glad he’s not a “showbusiness commodity”.
Besides, as the fifth Beatle he will always have his own place in rock’n’roll history. “Yes, they are themost famous musicians in theworld. And regardless of what happened, Iplayedakeypart inthat.”