To coincide with the re-release of Wings’ seminal album Band On The Run on February 2nd, Paul McCartney has revealed how Johnny Cash inspired him to form the band.
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Following the end of The Beatles in 1970, McCartney was unsure where to take his career next. After much deliberation, he decided to form a start a new group with a set of relatively unknown musicians and his wife, Linda, which became Wings.
In a new interview with Mojo, McCartney recalled: “After the end of The Beatles I was faced with certain alternatives. One was to give up music entirely and do God knows what. Another was to start a super-band with very famous people, Eric Clapton and so on. I didn’t like either so I thought: How did The Beatles start?”
He continued: “It was a bunch of mates who didn’t know what they were doing. That’s when I realised maybe there is a third alternative: to get a band that isn’t massively famous, to not worry if we don’t know what we’re doing because we would form our character by learning along the way. It was a real act of faith. It was crazy, actually.”
McCartney then revealed how seeing Johnny Cash on television prompted him to start Wings, remembering: “We were in bed one night, newly married, when Johnny Cash came on the telly with a new band he’d formed with Carl Perkins, a big hero of mine. There they were, playing with some country musicians I had never heard of, looking like they were having fun.”
“I thought: here’s Johnny, he’s back, he’s doing it. So I turned to Linda and said: Do you want to form a band? And she went: ‘Sure.’ That’s how our relationship was. Do you want to go and live on a farm in Scotland? ‘Why not?’,” he added.
Last month, Wings founding member Denny Laine died, aged 79, following a battle with lung disease. Following news of Laine’s passing, McCartney said: “Denny was a great talent with a fine sense of humour and was always ready to help other people. He will be missed by all his fans and remembered with great fondness by his friends. I send my condolences and best wishes to his wife, Elizabeth and family.”
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The new expanded edition of Band on the Run is set to be available in a series of new formats such as vinyl, CD, digital and Dolby ATMOS formats on February 2nd.
