Beatles’ ‘Revolver’ reissue: Klaus Voormann talks Lennon, McCartney, cover art

There are millions of people across the world who can talk about how encountering The Beatles changed their lives. But Klaus Voormann’s life was truly transformed by the day he poked his head into a club in Hamburg in 1960 and saw an unruly bunch playing rock ‘n’ roll.

Voormann, who had played classical music to that point and was studying to become a commercial artist, was one of a small group of young Germans who became close friends with the Beatles — close enough that a few years later he briefly shared a flat in London with George Harrison and Ringo Starr. More notably, three years on John Lennon called him up and asked Voormann to create a cover for their new album.

“I was so lucky because the most famous band in the world asked me to do a cover for them,” Voormann said recently by phone from Germany.  He spent weeks creating black-and-white line drawings of each Beatle, melding them into an idiosyncratic collage with other drawings and photos of the Fab Four.

The work adorned the cover of “Revolver,” the Beatles’ seminal follow-up to “Rubber Soul.” While that album had marked a turn toward more sophisticated lyrics, “Revolver” shattered the notion of what rock music could be on tracks as musically diverse as “Eleanor Rigby” and “Tomorrow Never Knows.” The album laid the groundwork for what many consider rock’s greatest album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” although many critics and fans say that nothing surpassed “Revolver,” which was instantly and eternally influential. Voorman’s artwork would earn similar acclaim, including a Grammy award. He even wrote a graphic novel about the experience.

The album is now, in the tradition of other Beatles’ masterpieces, getting the deluxe re-issue treatment with five CDs and a hardcover book.

Voormann would go on to do other covers for bands like the BeeGees, and he also played bass in several bands, including Manfred Mann, and as a session man for James Taylor, Carly Simon, Harry Nilsson and Lou Reed.

But again, it was his work with the Beatles — or ex-Beatles — that cemented his legacy. He played live with Harrison at the Concert for Bangladesh and with Lennon on “Live Peace in Toronto 1969” and joined Lennon, Harrison, and Starr for a dozen of their solo albums. From “My Sweet Lord” to “Imagine,” Voormann is the man the former Beatles turned to for bass.

Q. What were your initial impressions of The Beatles when you first saw them perform and met them in Hamburg?

The big thing was the mentality of those English people was really new to me. It was a shock, a positive one. They were so open and didn’t do the mistakes German people did, like taking care so everybody thinks you’re fantastic and trying to cover up your mistakes. They talked about anything you could think of and weren’t scared of looking silly and they made jokes about themselves. That’s what struck me most.

Q. What about them as individuals? Did they change as you got to know them over the years?

Just imagine you meet a group of people who were young — George was only 17 years old then. [McCartney was 18, Lennon and Starr were 20; Voormann was 22.] So you get an impression of a teenager, with the roughness and crazy stuff they do, even naughty stuff, just because they are young and exuberant. And they grew up. You sort of follow their lives as they grow up. It’s a big change, of course, but they were still the same people as when I first met them in Hamburg.

Q. How did you come up with the concept of the “Revolver” cover? 

I went to the studio and they played me all the songs they had up to that point. The songs were so good and versatile and so rich … and then came “Tomorrow Never Knows’’ and all the crazy, crazy stuff that was on there. It was an amazing and large step for a pop group.

The hardest part in doing a job like this was figuring out who this is for. I did not want to forget all the people who loved those early records, which are very simple songs. I knew the early Beatles fans wanted to see photos. But at the same time, I wanted to stretch out to all those people who liked the newer type of music that was really going into the future. And I knew I wanted to draw something.

It had to be serious but it also had to capture the funny side of the boys — in those photos, there’s a guy creeping out of an ear. And I didn’t want color, even though it was psychedelic and everything psychedelic was in color. The Beatles liked the idea of doing something that was completely the opposite of what everybody else would be doing.

Q. Did you discuss it with them? How involved were they in the process?

Normally, you’d have a whole bunch of people like the record company and the producer and the music director saying, “We want this and that” and “Do something more in this direction.”

I had nothing of the sort. I listened to the songs. I asked the Beatles if they had any ideas. They said, “We do the music. You do the cover.”

So I went home and that made it easier because it was my decision even though it was hard coming up with something so fitting for the project. If something is fashionable and in vogue it might die but if something is good, it’s good forever.  That’s how I see the tongue of the Rolling Stones or the banana from the Velvet Underground and that’s how I see this cover. They are timeless pieces of art.

Q. There was talk after the Beatles broke up that there’d be a new band called The Ladders with John, George, Ringo and you, plus Harry Nilsson. How close was that to becoming a reality?

That was just a joke, I think. It’s Ringo’s fault. He was asked, “Are you putting the band back together?” and as a joke, he said, “There’s a band called The Ladders and Klaus will play bass.” That was a completely invented idea. Nobody ever told me and I don’t think it was in anybody’s head to do a band like that.

Q. You played on many of the Beatles’ solo albums. Do you have favorites?

I liked “All Things Must Pass” a lot. But the “Plastic Ono Band” record is my favorite record because John just came in the studio and I was playing bass and Ringo was playing drums and it was just us. It’s very deep inside of me, especially the excellent messages John had in those songs. As I said before about being open, John was one of those Liverpool people who lets his pants down, putting his feelings on record and doing it so rough and quick.

Q. You played on John’s song “How Do You Sleep,” which was an attack on Paul McCartney. Was it awkward at all or did you worry about your relationship with Paul?

John was really (ticked) off. There were terrible things going on business-wise that I don’t even want to talk about. Naughty stuff. John had real problems with what Paul was doing, so it was an impulsive, direct message about what John was thinking at that particular time. It was a statement and then he put it out. He didn’t say it was a mistake after. That’s John.

Paul was a little upset but not really, because he knew John even better than I did. And Paul had done the same thing to John. [The song “Too Many People” on McCartney’s “Ram” appeared to take digs at Lennon.]

It’s funny when you look at it now because they got together again later and talked with each other.

Q. You came full circle creating the covers for “The Beatles Anthology” in the 1990s. How did that come about?

Neil Aspinall from Apple called and said we want a cover that covers the ten years of The Beatles in one picture — maybe one has an early suit on and maybe another has a Sgt. Pepper suit on, anything that you can think of. I came up with several ideas. And then Neil said seven other artists are bringing ideas, too. But then I got the job.

It was supposed to be four albums. So I thought of four seasons on one billboard, in the snow and a sunset with four separate pictures. Then it became three albums but eight cassettes and it has to be one image that can be split into many parts and still look OK. And then they said, on each there has to be the word Beatles and all four of them on it. Neil had to make it right for everybody. So we had to make compromises and I was more limited. It was not the same freedom I had on the “Revolver” cover. There I could do what I want — all I had to do was get the boys to say yes and everything was accepted the way I did it.