COMING SEPTEMBER 16, 2008

THE NEW PETE BEST BAND CD

FEATURING THE SONGS "Broken" and "Everything I Want." 

Visit Pete Best online at www.myspace.com/thepetebestband , or www.petebest.com

EARLY BEATLES TRUE BEGINNINGS

Cottage Views Exclusive Interview with The Beatles' Pete Best

left:  Cottage Views' Michael A. Cimino with Pete Best, 2003.

Mona Best will always be remembered by Beatle-files as the owner of the Casbah Coffee Club where The Beatles got their start, and the mother of their original drummer, Pete.  What many fans don't know is the depth, and vision, of this strong woman and how she helped change history.

Now, with the release of the new, beautifully conceived, coffee-table tome The Beatles - The True Beginnings (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press) written by her youngest son Roag, along with brothers Pete and Rory, we find a revealing portrait of what the excitement was all about in Liverpool, England, 1959.

Even die hard Beatle-fans will be amazed a the detail and previously untold stories that are contained within.

In an exclusive interview with Cottage Views publisher Michael A. Cimino original Beatles drummer Pete Best elaborated on the book, his current band, and his first full blown tour of America since the Swinging Sixties.

Michael Cimino:  With all of the words written about this particular subject you would think that there were no stones unturned, and yet within the first few pages of your book we discover that your mothers club, the Casbah, was directly responsible for the formation of The Beatles.  What do you recall about that very first night that John, Paul, and George performed at the Casbah, and how did it come together?

Pete Best:  Well, it came together simply because the fact, funnily enough, that the band that was supposed to open the Casbah - the Les Stuart Quartet - broke up a couple of weeks beforehand and George Harrison and Ken Brown, who were founder members, came down and saw my mother, Mona, and explained the situation to her.  It left her in a bit of a predicament, actually, but George turned around and said, "I happen to know a couple of guys who I used to play with who aren't doing anything at the present moment.  They may be interested in accepting the residence at the club."  So my mother, basically, turned 'round and said, "Bring them down, I'll put the deal to them."

They turned up the next day and they were John Lennon and Paul McCartney.  She put the deal to them, they accepted it, they went into the club and had a look around, realized the place needed a bit more decorating, rolled their sleeves up and helped decorate the club prior to opening night.

It was great having them working in the club.  And then, of course, opening night came and as we've said for many, many years, 'Total excitement, August the 29th, 1959, Saturday.'  We were expecting a big crowd.  The club was due to open up at half past seven.  Six o'clock in the evening the queue started to form and by half past seven it was out the gate.  It was incredible.  The atmosphere was absolutely electric.  No matter what you did the adrenalin was flowing.  Of course, we delayed them from going on stage 'til about nine o'clock so that more and more people could see them.  It was like, 'No, don't put the band on stage yet.  Let's go in!'  They finally went on and I stood in the audience and I watched them.  It was very recognizable from that early stage that there was something magical about them.

M. C.:  Having not been there myself, and only read about Liverpool's coffee bars, I was surprised to read that so many people attended that opening night.  Was the Casbah unusually large in comparison to the other coffee bars that sprung up later?

P. B.:  No.  It was a different layout.  A lot of the coffee bars in Liverpool at that time weren't coffee clubs.  They were somewhere where you could go and buy a cup of coffee, sit at a table, read your newspaper, and disappear.  The coffee club concept was my mothers.  She wanted it to be a members club - a little bit exclusive.  Exclusive is probably the wrong world.  It was exclusive for the kids that were coming - in that they would have something special.  It was different in layout.  It was the basement of our house, so it wasn't one big room.  It was small chambers and corridors.  There was mystique there as you wandered around.  It was very much a case of 'Oh, there's one room here, but it leads into another room, which leads into another room, which leads into another room.'  That was the adventure - the mysteriousness of it, the macabre atmosphere.

The way it was decorated was years ahead of its time.  The walls were clad in wood.  The ceilings were painted by the lads - John, George, Paul - the star concept, the coffee bar itself, the whole layout was totally different.  Plus the fact that my mother wanted live music.  The excitement of live music actually being played while the club was full was totally different from any other club in Liverpool at that time. 

M. C.:  How many times did The Beatles play there before you joined the band?

P. B.:  Oh, I think they played there 'til...  they opened the club in August and I think it was around about the middle of October, or November, [that] they had a disagreement about some money with Ken Brown and they basically turned 'round and said, 'We're not going to play the club anymore.'  But in fact, they did, as the world knows today.  When I actually joined them we went to Germany, [then] came back and played as The Beatles.  That was the start of Beatlemania.  It originated at the Casbah. 

M. C.:  History always depict that it was your residency as the Cavern club as the most important.  What was it about the Cavern that was different from the Casbah?

P. B.:  Well, you've got to remember while the Cavern was still a Jazz cellar the Casbah, through my mothers influences - and the imagination she had, had become the catalyst for the Merseybeat sound.  Every major band was playing there.  If they made the grade then they played the Casbah.  If not, it was go away and rehearse.  The Cavern was basically still a Jazz club.  There had been a slow transition over the years.  The Cavern suddenly realized that Jazz was not on the way out, but they were losing in the popularity market.  Things were moving on.  So they started to mix and match, and then with the demise of the Casbah - it closed in '62 - the Cavern swung over into Rock 'n' Roll every night.  They came out of the ashes of the Cashah.  If the Casbah hadn't have closed then maybe the world wouldn't have known about the Cavern.  It would have been the Casbah. 

M. C.:  I see that Paul McCartney has contributed a quote to the book.  Do you still stay in touch?

P. B.:  Not personally. If you would have asked me that question about fifteen years ago, whether I'd meet up with Paul or if he would have made a contribution to the book or anything like this I would have turned around and said 'no' because of the different walks of life we were in.  This business is very funny.  Life is full of funny little tricks and fate - you never know what's around the corner.  But I think because of the contribution that he's made to the book it's becoming more and more apparent, more evident, that we're drawn closer and closer.  The door has always been open from my side so hopefully one of these days in the future we'll meet up with one another again.

M. C.:  When did you decide to get back into Rock 'n' Roll?

P. B.:  1988, basically.  For many, many years I stayed out of it.  I hung up my sticks in 1968 because I was married and had to look towards the security of my family.  And then for many, many years people had been chasing me - sort of saying, 'Look, get up on stage and let people see what you're all about and what you can do.'  I finally succumbed in 1988 at a Beatles convention in Liverpool and I said, 'Okay, I'll do it, but I'll just get up and play some old Rock 'n' Roll like we used to.'  We threw a band together and I got my younger brother Roag do actually get up on stage.  My mother was still alive.  Even though we were both drummers she had never seen us both perform on stage at the same time so it was an ideal opportunity.  We thought it was going to be a one-off - one for the archives.  By the time we'd finished the set there were offers coming in from Canada, offers coming in from Japan.  My mother said to my wife, 'You don't know it, but your going back into show business.'  And here I am fifteen years down the line touring the world.  I've got a great band and I'm enjoying every moment of it.  

M. C.:  What does your repertoire consist of now?

P. B.:  It's a cross section, basically.  A lot of it is Pete Best oriented, because at the end of the day it is the Pete Best Band.  But, we're not a copy band.  We're not a tribute band.  We're not 1964, we're not the Fab Four, or anything like this.  We play standards.  We play the music from Hamburg - stuff that I was associated with with EMI and Decca.  Of course, we do Beatles songs.

We're a powerhouse outfit.  We have double drums, and everyone sings in the band.  It's a six piece with a front man as well.  It's a powerhouse sound.  Lot's of energy and we like to get the audience involved, so there's lots of audience participation.  We want them to get involved - jump and scream, throw their knickers in the air, do whatever they want to do (laughs)!

M. C.:  Are there any familiar faces in the band?

P. B.:  Familiar to me.  They are a lot younger.  The average age of the band without me in it is about 37.  You put me in and it's about 137 (laughs), but yeah, the people who wanted to play with me - that's the beauty of it.  The format and the lineup has changed over the years.  People drop out.  They get married.  They don't tour anymore, but the boys I've got now - this particular lineup - has been together for 6 years and they are people that are recognized.  They knew what it was about, and knew what I was trying to deliver, and they just enjoyed it and turned around and said, 'Pete, we want to play.'  That's the difference.  They want to do it.  They like the music that they're playing.

M. C.:    Do you think the movie Backbeat was an accurate depiction of your days in Hamburg?

P. B.:   If you wanted to be absolutely knit-picky you could pick holes in it.  The media said it was the story of the five lads in Hamburg and in reality when you look deep into it they were launching the film on the story of Stu and Astrid, their love story, and we just happen to be bit players hanging around in the background.  Like every film about Beatles history you could pick holes in it if you really wanted to knit-pick.  That's not what it was about.  They were trying to get something over, to convey something.  Without being over critical as regards to entertainment I think it did the job.  It was good entertainment.  People could sit down, follow the story, realize the implications that were involved in it.  What actually struck me as being the strongest po9int in it was the soundtrack.  I felt that they had gone through an awful lot of trouble to capture the live, latent, raw, savage sound that we had in those days.

M. C.:  Looking back, what is your favorite memory of being in The Beatles?

P. B.:  Whoa!  To turn around and say 'one memory' - there are lots of them!  I suppose the one that sticks in my mind was the homecoming from our first trip in Hamburg.

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