A short conversation with Ringo, to accompany the review of Vertical Man in MOJO, August 1998. You can see the much fuller interview, from which this extract was taken, here.

It’s been called your best album since 1973.

Well, I keep saying that. I think it’s the best since the Ringo/Goodnight Vienna period, really. You look at my musical career and from Goodnight Vienna it started going downhill. And now we’re on the way back. I had the Time Takes Time album (1992) which I thought was brilliant. But people didn’t seem to want to go for it.

It wasn’t widely heard over here.

No. Well it was on Private Music. Which was so private… you had to be a member to hear it. Ha ha! No, I could make excuses, but you put your record out and you hope for the best.

You’re putting yourself about a bit, promotionally speaking.

Sure. Being with the new label I thought, I’ll do my bit, and this is what you have to do. It’s not like the old days where you put a record out and said ‘Hey! My name’s Ringo’ and that was all. Now you’ve gotta go and promote the hell out of it.

You’ve covered Love Me Do, though George Martin didn’t let you play on The Beatles’ version. Do you think you’ve got the hang of it now?

Yeah, I’ve got the hang of it now. Love Me Do was a party. We worked out the key and did it quickly. Originally we backed off the John Lennon harmonica line, because I thought that might be pushing it. So Steven [Tyler] did some sort of scat version, then the next day I said ‘No, c’mon, it’s so silly we’re hiding from this.’ So he did the harmonica again.

Is that George playing guitar on King Of Broken Hearts?

Yeah. I went over to visit him one evening and I played him some of the tracks and said, Here’s King Of Broken Hearts, I’d like you to be on the album. Anyway he wasn’t in the mood. Two weeks later I phoned him up from LA just to say Hi and what are you doing? ‘Oh I’m in the studio playing with the Dobro.’ I go: Ooh, a Dobro would sound good on my album! So he goes, ‘Oh all right, send it over then.’ I wanted that slide guitar. His soul comes out of that guitar, it just blows me away.

You’ve said the album’s key line is “Let’s all get well together”?

Yeah, I think it’s great. Let’s all get well together. It’s how I feel now. Peace, love and understanding. Let’s all get well together. If only we could. We’re all doing our best. I also sing “Be your own guru.” Well, there are many gurus out there who can help you. But it’s true, you’ve got to help yourself as well. Then you can pass that on. But I don’t mean, ‘Help yourself, let’s go down the market and grab a few T-shirts!’