Age isn’t getting in the way of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, 82: ‘I love to play’

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At 82, Ringo Starr is showing no signs of slowing down.

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On the eve of his latest U.S. tour, The Beatles drummer said he’s never thinking about his “last show,” but always the next one.

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“Playing has never been grueling — I love to play. I love to play with these guys,” said Starr, seated beside his latest All-Starr band members including Toto’s Steve Lukather, Edgar Winter, Men At Work’s Colin Hay, and Average White Band’s Hamish Stuart during a rehearsal break in L.A.

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“I love it and it’s not tiring. I go to the gym most mornings and I get ready. I think we all take a bit more care of ourselves now.”

Starr even asked more dates be added on this trek which begins Friday (May 19) in Temecula, Calif., with another set of fall dates coming. (The closest Toronto stop is Oct. 7 at Detroit’s Masonic Temple).

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“(There were) too many days off,” said the seemingly tireless drummer.

“So I complained so (we) filled in some of them ‘cause if I’m on the road, I want to play. I don’t want to sit in a hotel and relax for three days. With this band it’s great because everybody takes the weight. But Paul (McCartney), he’s like the man. So he has to have time off to get himself back together. But cause we’re this crowd, we could play every night. I promise you.

“But Edgar needs a day off,” he jokingly added.

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Starr admits touring now is vastly different from his very first band days in the pre-Beatles group Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group which he co-founded in 1957 in Liverpool.

“I have a lot to thank Eddie for,” said Starr. “He lived next store to me. We worked in the same factory. We had a friend named Roy who played tea chest bass and we were a skiffle group. And Eddie was great because he was one of those guys who could play anything and I just got this snare drum.”

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Too bad they couldn’t find the right pacing.

“We had no sense of timing,” Starr said with a smile. “We’d be playing a track (starts humming fast) and people would be trying to dance and we had no sense of anything but, ‘You’re on stage! Let’s get crazy!’ And I’ve loved to play ever since. And I played in the greatest band, in my world, (with) my three brothers (in the Beatles). And it’s difficult being a drummer and playing live. I used to have a fantasy. I wanted to a bar room singer and piano player. So I’d play a lot more I think. But I need all these great guys behind me to play (drums).”

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Starr is also set to release two more EPs — one of his, the other a country record to be done after touring, and a third one he made with Linda Perry.

“I finished one just before we started rehearsing,” he said. “And Linda Perry is doing an EP. The only thing I’ll be doing on that EP is playing drums and singing. And I asked T-Bone (Burnett) and he sent me, I promise you, one of the most beautiful country songs, tracks, I’ve heard in a long time. It’s very old school country and so I thought, ‘Hey, I’m going to make a country EP.”

When asked, Starr said the song Photograph, from his 1973 album, Ringo, means more to him now than it did back then but he has no plans to celebrate the disc’s 50th anniversary this year.

“No — it’s another day,” he said.

As for his legacy, Starr said simply: “I had a dream at 13. I wanted to be a drummer and that dream is still going on. I’ve never once not loved doing it. You know, if you’re playing your instrument, you’re not picking your nose. Life is good.”

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