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July 6, 1973 Birmingham EnglandSteven: Has it been difficult for you putting together a new band? There would seem to be an extraordinary amount of pressure on you to come up with a group ofmusicians that could compete with the Beatles.Paul: It was a bit touch and go at the beginning because it was a bit difficultfor me to just suddenly develop a new band. Because lets face it, the Beatles played Hamburg for like a year solid, playing eight hours a day before we ever were

anything. Then we still came back to Liverpool and played for years at these little places, Litherland Town Hall and the Aintree Institute. So it took a long time but that was the idea. We felt, Well, we cant take quite as long with this band but were gonna kinda duck out of the press thing and do little anonymous gigs. We did our university tour and we did a Europe tour which was a bit more kind ofpress but we thought weve got to swallow our pride and go right ahead.

Steven: Were those considered breaking-in tours?Paul: Definitely, for us. It was to get the band used to playing. Because if youget any five people, its pretty hard to get a band out of it unless youve been going a year or so. It takes that long for five people to begin to understand eachother.

Steven: After playing with the same three musicians for such a long time, was itdifficult to find new players? When you chose the people in Wings, were they your first choices?

Paul: Yeah, they were all first choices. I didnt do it like thinking, OK, who arethe best musicians in the world? and get it together like that. It was all done very kind of random, really; there was like a great element of randomness in it.I went to New York and we auditioned drummers which everyone said later was about the uncoolest thing you can do because these drummers are like the worlds top.And theres me, I just got them all down in a basement and said, Alright, lads And theyre sitting there and theres no band, each drummer is just sitting there. But Denny (Seiwell) was the one who kind of appealed to me; I thought he looks good, h

e sings, and he can drum great. And hes picking up a lot of compliments now frommusicians who think hes a red hot drummer. Brinsley really digs him, Brinsleys drummer goes crazy over Denny. Thats Billy (Rankin).

Steven: Was that your idea to bring Brinsley Schwarz on the tour?Paul: We did that special, that TV special, and that was kind of the end of ourbreaking-in period. We really hadnt played very well, I dont think any of us thought we played very well as a band up until the end of that special. And the lastnight, we did a concert for the special which we didnt dig too much, it just didntget enough on for us. It was a bit of a dead audience.

Linda McCartney: And the audience was just sitting there all hot.

Paul: And they were all lit (with lights) and it was very. But we did a gig at the Hard Rock Caf in London which is a real tiny, little thing for kind of charity. And Brinsley Schwarz were on before us and they kind of warmed it all up and they got a standup. Once youve heard a band rock a bit you cant go on and not rock,youve got to play better. So we thought,Great, and we went on after Brinsley and that was the first night we thought we played at all well. We were all double made up with that night. We rocked a bit that night.Steven: What are you going to do for a second encore? Youll have to have one now.

Paul: There are a lot of features with the act that are still a bit raw. Our opening is still possibly a bit raw, and the end we could go on a bit longer, but this is all fine tuning. The thing for us, the way weve done it is the idea of hav

ing places to go still. This is only our third thing really university tour, European tour and this.The aim was just to have a band, pure and simple. Have a good band. As to where

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we play, were easy. Well play down a pub if its cool, if we feel like it and they like it. But thats the thing for us, we wont naturally just play 50,000-seaters. Thats the interesting thing, we got Denny from New York, we auditioned some drummersthere, and I knew Denny (Laine) was a good guitarist and good singer and stuff.So I just rang Denny up. And Henry was a kind of friend of Dennys and Ians and heturned up one day at a rehearsal we were doing.

Henry McCullough: Drunk!

Paul: Drunk again. We didnt really know, we were just thinking about it and stuffand he turned up and he played good stuff and thats the kind of thing I meant about the element of random. It wasnt like, OK, now lets audition another fifty guitarists and lets see whos who and whats what. We just thought, Great, lets see how ites and we had a band together then. It worked out good.Henry McCullough: Everybody got to know each other; you know me, I know you, andwe took each other for what it is. We were a little bit scared of each other. It started off we were a little bit apprehensive and it was Whos this weve got in the group? but we managed to cool out.

Steven: Did you have plans from the beginning to include Linda?Paul: Yeah, Linda was a kind of first inclusion because wed done Ram together. Iworked her so hard in New York because it was all very well having Linda on harmonies but Im not having her do bum harmonies. So I only worked her like mad. I mean she had never done it before, shed never done a thing before. If you listen toRam, all those harmonies on there are just me and Linda. Pretty good, some of them. It was quite hard work as I said. I worked her hard on that album. There was a bit of (mimics Linda), What do you mean Im singing flat? But in the end it wasOK and we did it.Steven: You must have noticed tonight that the more rock tunes you did created abigger response. Will you emphasize those more and more?Paul: Thats what were thinking, thats the way were going to include a few more of those kinds of numbers. The main thing in performance, an average audience always

go for numbers they know. Witness tonight when we did C Moon; as soon as we hit C Moon, which was a hit in Britain but not in the States, how the audience reacted.

Linda McCartney: On the university tour, we did some numbers twice.Paul: But rather than go back, wed like to do new numbers in the same vein. And on the next album well have another bunch of numbers from which to choose. And bythe time that album is done the whole act will be there.

Steven: How did it feel getting back on stage?Paul: Its now beginning to feel really good. It feels good to have a gig. If yourejust recording its very nice but you get a bit sterile. Its a bit testtube, a bitlike being in the laboratory. And if you go out and play, its the difference between sex and artificial insemination. Do you get what I mean? Thats what I think audiences. Its true enough, isnt it?

Steven: Being on stage, then, must be a natural place for you.Paul: You see Ive always been, I suppose, a bit shy about getting up on stage. Iremember the first time I ever got up on stage, I hauled my brother up with me.He had his arm in a cast, hed broken his arm at scout camp, and I brought him upthere with me. I brought my guitar with me and guess what I sang? Long Tall Sally. I was eleven and still doing it.

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