Once a Beatle…

He had the worst title ever—‘the world’s unluckiest man’. But Pete Best made a good fist of it after being dismissed as the original drummer of The Beatles in 1962.

Some people say Ringo Starr was a good drummer. I think he was a time-keeper. There are better drummers and there are worse drummers.

Music was in my genes. My mom played Latin American drums. My own influence, though, came from Gene Cooper. I was a big fan. And I played Latin American rhythms in Liverpool in the 1950s. I played everything, from tom-toms to banjos.

Drumming is tough and stressful to the viewer. But it’s therapeutic to me. You take out a lot of frustrations when you bang the drums.

I did try committing suicide once, though. It was in 1964. People asked me what that was all about. The only answer is: I don’t know. I was a kid. If it had been right after my dismissal from The Beatles, there would have been some logical reason to it. But the fact that it happened a couple of years after that came across as strange.

Well, you get a silly idea in your head that you’re depressed. And you go and do something drastic. I had hit a blind spot. Fortunately, my mother saved me.

I had tried to gas myself. My mom caught me and gave me a dressing down. My brother Rory and mother broke the door down, dragged me out and revived me. She told me, “What the hell are you doing? You’re depriving yourself of a life, and you’re depriving me of a son.” That’s when I thought what a stupid idea it was and made a vow that nothing like that would happen again. Now, life is without regrets.

The most important moment of my life, though, remains the dismissal. It made me less naive and more aware of what was going on. I used to be innocent and naive in 1962, when I got dismissed from the band. Now, I do think there is a bad side to life and people. If there is a heaven, then why shouldn’t there be hell? Hopefully, I get to heaven.

The dismissal also made me not take things or people for granted. It brought out the true value of friendship. That was a time when you needed them and needed family. Friends and family are with you when you go through a shitty time.

As a result of that turbulent time, I have started to believe even more in our family rules—the things which have been passed down to me. Be honest. If something has to be addressed, address it, don’t push it away. Meet life face on. Overcome hurdles if you can. If you can’t, ask for help, don’t be proud. I was never a loner. This is something the media created. I wasn’t a loner, either in school or in the music industry, and not now. Life doesn’t allow it!

Another important rule: don’t have grudges. I don’t regret being dismissed from The Beatles. Whatever happened in 1962 was a learning curve for me. Life has been good to me afterwards. I’ve been compensated in so many ways—health, happiness and a great band now. A great marriage of 45 years, two beautiful daughters. Lovely wife. Four wonderful grandchildren. I would not want to change something like that.

I haven’t met the boys since the break-up in 1961, though the door has always been open. There’s no animosity from my side. It would be nice to sit down for a drink some day. To sit down and not talk about what happened in 1962. We’ve grown up, we’ve all got grandchildren. So let’s talk about the good times.

John Lennon was my best mate in the band. And contrary to popular opinion, I was friends with all the rest. I knew there was another side to John, though. I saw that when we were in Hamburg in 1962.

Though John and I were the last ones to drop out of the bars, we’d reminisce and be quite philosophical. From an early age, I could see a different side of John, his spiritual side, which the world only saw many years afterwards. He used to pray, which was unusual at that time for a band like ours. And that made him a complete man for me.

People ask me if John could have helped me come back to the band. I think he could have done. He was the only guy then from The Beatles who ever said anything. Many years later, he admitted he could have done more to keep me in the band. He even said that the best music the band ever played was in Hamburg in 1962. And then he said, “I can’t change it, I’m sorry. I can’t change the clock.”

I had known the band members for three years, played with them for two. It was very democratic. But the final say was with John and the management. Everything was done in Hamburg. Everybody had a say and helped one another.

What we realised was that we were becoming very strong and very tight in the music we played due to the long hours we were playing. If there hadn’t been the Hamburg tour of 1962, we wouldn’t have been as good as we turned out to be. We’d perform seven hours a night. When we came back to Liverpool after all that work, we exploded on the stage.

We started to realise how good we were and the boundaries we were breaking. We were becoming rock stars and getting contracts. We were doing things no band had ever thought of.

But now, I want to be remembered just as Pete. Pete the family man, the musician, Pete the absolutely ordinary Liverpool guy.

I can do without fame or money. If people say they have to be powerful or rich, then they are missing out on life. Life can be quite comfortable without any of those things.

Who is my favourite drummer of all time? Well, it has to be me!

As told to Rahul Jayaram

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