Ringo Starr's son Zak Starkey: Roger Daltrey made a mistake and blamed me. A week later, I got the sack
Zak Starkey picks up a life-sized golden skull from a side table in a central London hotel and strikes a Shakespearean pose. 'Alas, poor Roger! I knew him well,' he says with a dramatic flourish.
The snippet tells us plenty about the 59-year-old drummer. Firstly, that he has a scabrous, knockabout sense of humour, with a big dollop of his father Ringo Starr's trademark drollness. Secondly, that the drama around Starkey's recent sackings as the long-term drummer of The Who – that's 'sackings' plural, he was ditched twice in a month – remains at the forefront of his mind. He has plenty to say about Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend regarding the saga, which apparently might not be over yet. But more on that later. We've met to talk about something altogether more other-worldly.
Starkey is the brains behind Mantra of the Cosmos, an indie rock supergroup comprising himself, Andy Bell from Oasis and Ride, and Shaun Ryder and Bez from the Happy Mondays. Mantra's new single, Domino Bones (Gets Dangerous), is a Dadaist slice of punky psychedelia featuring Oasis's Noel Gallagher singing the chorus and Ryder freestyling verses about 'dropping some potion' and things going 'up the junction' like Edward Lear by way of Timothy Leary. Produced by Starkey, it's a clattering monster of a track. 'Dylan, Dali, Ginsberg and a bit of cosmic jibber-jabber,' is how Gallagher describes Domino Bones.
'It's Free Bird for Mods,' Starkey says proudly, describing how he took a chorus that Noel sent him – 'yacht rock' – and chopped and warped it, adding in Ryder's lyrics.
Ryder was meant to be joining us in London but is stuck in Manchester with Covid while Bell and Gallagher are away on Oasis rehearsal duties ahead of next month's reunion tour. But speaking over Zoom from a bedroom at home, a semi-crocked Ryder – who says he keeps falling asleep like 'Dylan the f-----g rabbit in The Magic Roundabout' – describes Mantra's sound as a 'mish-mash of nuttiness'.
'I like doing Mantra with Zak because it's different than the Mondays and different than [his other group] Black Grape. Zak's a f-----g brilliant producer,' says Ryder, who, despite feeling rough, still managed to get 'completely f-----g mashed up' at an 'amazing' Morrissey gig in Manchester last weekend.
Starkey met Ryder after an anniversary recording of TFI Friday in 2015 in which Starkey, Liam Gallagher, Daltrey and others played The Who's My Generation (as well as being in The Who, Starkey was the Oasis drummer between 2004 and 2008). Years later, Starkey was asked by a record industry bigwig to form a 'Britpop supergroup' with luminaries like former Smith Johnny Marr or New Order's Bernard Sumner. But he bridled at the term 'supergroup'.
'No way. What, all that Cream s---? Everyone having a solo, one after the other?' says Starkey. 'Zak didn't want to play that game so he got me and Bez,' Ryder roars, joking that the only more unlikely recruits to the band would have been Donald Trump and 'that baby t--- who wears eyeliner'. Elon Musk? 'No. The other one, with the beard.' J. D. Vance? 'That's it!'
Mantra have an album's worth of songs. A future single, Rip Off, will feature fellow Fab Four offspring Sean Lennon and James McCartney. It's like The Beatles, I say. 'No it's not,' Starkey says, snippily. 'It's like Mantra of the Cosmos with them in it. It's Sean of the Cosmos and James of the Cosmos, it's still my band.' You just need [George Harrison's son] Dhani on it, I add. 'No I don't. Why do I?' Well, because… never mind.
Talking of The Beatles, Starr 'loves' Mantra, Starkey says. 'He wants me to remix all his early singles like Mantra,' he explains. His plan for his dad's 1973 song Photograph is to slow it down and add a 'gospel kind of vibe'. Noel Gallagher has agreed to appear on a couple of tracks.
Despite being the son of a Beatle, Starkey insists he's not wealthy. As well as his drumming projects he has built a recording studio in Jamaica and co-launched the reggae label Trojan Jamaica, neither of which come cheaply. 'And now I haven't got a job,' he says wryly. The other Beatles progeny might have 'loads of money because their dads are dead. James's mum [Linda] is dead. Left him a lot of money. [But] my mum [Maureen Starkey, Starr's first wife] died skint [in 1994] with a whole desk-full of brown envelopes that she never opened because she spent all her money on her friends.'
Aah, yes. The job. The Who saga runs something like this. In mid-April, two weeks after The Who played two Teenage Cancer Trust concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, the band said they'd made a 'collective decision to part ways with Zak' after 30 years due to apparent issues with his drumming at those shows. Starkey said he was 'surprised and saddened' by the decision. But days later, he was back in the fold after the resolution of what Townshend, 80, called 'some communication issues'. 'Zak made a few mistakes [at the Albert Hall] and he has apologised,' the band said. Yet on May 19, he was fired again, for the second time in a month.
He remains perplexed and saddened by it, not least because he says he turned down the megawatt Oasis tour because he was in The Who. Which he now isn't.
So were he not in The Who, he would have played with Oasis? 'Of course. Of course.'
What happened, precisely? 'What happened was I got it right and Roger got it wrong,' Starkey claims. He's talking about The Who's performance of 1971 track The Song is Over at the second Albert Hall show.
The band don't usually play it live and Starkey suggested they performed it as a 'treat' for fans. But, he says, a combination of under-rehearsal ('they hate rehearsing') and the fact that Daltrey, 81, 'took a bit out' of the song because it was too long meant that, on the second night, 'Roger [came] in a bar early'.
The Who's performance of 'The Song Is Over' in March that Starkey says led to his sackingThere were no backstage fireworks. Such is the way with live music. The Who are an incendiary live act; Starkey says something 'disintegrates' every third gig and the band just start again. But, seven days later, 'I got a call from Bill [Curbishley], the manager, [and] he says, 'It's my unfortunate duty to inform you' – it's like Porridge or something – 'that you won't be needed from now on. Roger says you dropped some beats.'' It was clear that Daltrey thought that Starkey was in the wrong. 'I watched the show and I can't find any dropped beats. Then Pete had to go along with it because Pete's had 60 years of arguing with Roger,' says the drummer.
Following the sacking, Townshend phoned Starkey to ask if he was prepared to fight to get his place back. Starkey said no. But a week later when Townshend called again, he had changed his mind. 'I said, 'I want my gig back.'' He returned, having been forced to admit – he says – that he dropped two beats. But the reunion was short-lived. 'Two weeks later it was like, 'Roger says he can't work with you no more, and we'd like you to issue another statement saying you're leaving to do your other projects' and I just didn't do it because I wasn't leaving [of my own volition].' Why did Daltrey feel he couldn't work with you again? 'They didn't specify.'
He says Daltrey later told him that 'you're not fired, you're retired because you've got so many other projects', one of which is Mantra. Despite the situation, Starkey regrets the way that some fans sided with him and piled into Daltrey and Townshend. He calls The Who his 'family', which is entirely understandable given he's been with them since 1996. And he says he harbours no ill-will towards anyone. 'I don't blame anyone. I blame The Who because they're unpredictable, aggressive and f-----g insane,' he says. And that's why he loves them. He'd go back in a heartbeat.
So what happens now? Starkey has the Mantra album to finish although that band can't tour because Oasis, the Happy Mondays and Black Grape are all touring this year. You get the impression that, Mantra aside, he's rather twiddling his thumbs. Sad, when he could be touring with either The Who or Oasis, two of the world's mightiest bands. It's as though he's been barged into the still epicentre of a swirling musical hurricane. It's a waste.
At one point, Starkey even claims he's fallen out of love with drumming and prefers the guitar these days. He was taught, aged seven, by Marc Bolan. 'Have you seen what a guitar looks like? It's like a woman. A drum looks like a pot of biscuits. You can't play the drums and watch telly,' he says. But I don't believe him. Because later he says he's written to Bob Dylan to see if he needs a drummer 'because he's the only person that's anywhere near Pete lyrically'. Has he heard back? 'Course not, it's Bob Dylan innit?'
Tantalisingly, things with The Who may not be over yet. 'I spoke to Roger last week and he said, 'Don't take your drums out of [The Who's] warehouse yet in case we need you.'' Starkey leans forward. 'I said, 'Best let me know.''
Domino Bones (Gets Dangerous) is out now on Mantra of the Cosmos records
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