Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion (11 page)

I said, “You have to remember, Paul, we’re different from any other band in the world. Nobody’s got what we got.”

He said, “What’s that?”

I said, “We’re on this planet forever. For fookin’ ever.”

Paul said, “Yeah. I’m well aware of that, y’know. What does that have to do with our band?”

I said, “Ten years from now, do you want to be some sad cunt cranking out Chuck Berry tunes at the Cavern Club for ten shillings and two pints?”

He said, “Erm, I suppose not.”

I said, “Ten years from now, do you want to be playing at, I dunno, Wembley Stadium in front of tens of thousands of people?”

He said, “That sounds good.”

I said, “Yeah, but here’s something that sounds better: ten years from now, do you want to rule the world?”

PAUL M
C
CARTNEY:
I laughed so hard that I almost chundred my champagne. I asked him, “Okay, mate, you’ve been talking this shite for years, y’know. What the fook do you mean, ‘rule the world’?”

He said, “Just like it sounds. Do you want to rule the world?”

Now, one of the things I’ve always loved most about John is that he thinks big, an’ that. I was happy making slow moves, taking baby steps: play for a few people at a little party, play for a few more people at a big club, make a record, play at a
bigger
club, get on the radio, play an even
bigger
club. Up the ladder one rung at a time, y’know. John, on the other hand, apparently wanted to go immediately from the Kaiserkeller to the moon. After I got my laughter under control, I readjusted my hand, which I’d done a lousy job of reattaching, and asked him, “Erm, why, Johnny? Why d’you want to rule the world?”

He said, “We’re a bunch of yobbos from Liverpool. It’ll be a laugh. Plus, those Hammer movies are pretty cool, and if we get big, maybe they’d make one about us:
The Curse of the Beatles
or something.”

I said, “Erm, okay. Not the best reasons, but I’ll accept it. And how exactly do you intend to take over the world?”

He kneeled down on the floor, gave me a huge grin, and said, “
First of all, we have to get to the Toppermost of the Poppermost.”

Again with the Poppermost. I said, “Give me a straight answer, Johnny: what the bloody hell is the Poppermost?”

He got a dreamy look in his eyes, then said, “The
Poppermost
is the
Toppermost
, man, the
top,
the summit of the mountain, the place where we can do
whatever
we want,
whenever
we want. In the Poppermost, if we feel like starting a zombie colony in Glastonbury where the undead can roam free without fear of being popped with a diamond slug, we can. Or if we want to draw and quarter Cliff Richard, then cook his cortex for supper, we can. If we want to zombify Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers so
The Goon Show
can live on forever, we can.
Whatever
we want,
whenever
we want.”

I said, “That sounds brilliant. But again, how do you plan to do it?”

He asked me, “What do we do best?”

I said, “I suppose we’re good at being a nice little rock ’n’ roll band.”

He said, “Right. Now we have to figure out how to become a nice
big
rock ’n’ roll band. First, we have to start writing more of our own songs. Fook playing covers. That isn’t gonna get us out of the small clubs.”

I wasn’t sure what writing tunes had to do with world domination, but in terms of advancing the Beatles, that made solid sense. I said, “Right. I can get behind that. What else?”

He said, “We tour and tour and tour and tour, and we try not to cause any trouble … or, at least, not get caught. I know we have to eat—and sometimes we have to eat a lot—but no obvious murders, no public decapitations, no castrations just for the fook of it, kill only those who deserve to be killed, no sex slaves …”

I said, “I haven’t made any sex slaves.”

He said, “
Yeah. Right. Sure. And neither have I. Wouldn’t even consider it.” He said that in his famous John Lennon sarcastic tone, which made me certain he
had
created a few sex slaves. But I’d never know for sure, because there’s an unwritten zombie code: keep your sex life to yourself. You could talk about drinking the postman’s brain fluid all you wanted, but a discussion about how big of a dustmen pile you blew on some bird’s bum is a no-no.

I said, “Right, then. No sex slaves, an’ that. Next?”

He stood up and scratched his head, then said, “I haven’t quite gotten that far yet. I’ll figure it out when we get there.”

I got up, then clapped him on the shoulder, and told him, “Sounds like a plan, mate. Let’s get rolling on this next year, cool?”

He said, “Cool. But this being the holiday season and all, I don’t think we need to put our plan into effect until January second. So what d’you say we go and cause some trouble?”

I said, “Absolutely.” And then, right after midnight, John and I snuck down Neil’s back stairs, went down to the Mersey River, and feasted. Over many glasses of champagne and many handfuls of fresh, firm, warm brains, we decided that 1961 was going to be a big year.

T
he year 1961 saw a major change for the infrastructure of Liverpool’s soon-to-be-finest: with Stu Sutcliffe back in Hamburg guzzling down all the German blood he could get his fangs on, the quintet became a quartet, forever and ever, amen. They booked dozens and dozens of shows throughout the UK and soon realized that driving the van and hauling their gear themselves put a crimp in their style, so they asked Paul and George’s childhood pal Neil Aspinall to become their roadie. A loyal, hardworking sort, Aspinall stayed with the band until the end, becoming one of the many so-called Fifth Beatles.

Nobody knows for certain if John, Paul, or George jammed their respective tongues into Aspinall’s neck and gave him eternal life, because nobody could ever tell whether or not Aspinall was a zombie. He’s always sported that gray English pallor, but that could be credited to living in Liverpool. He has an ageless look about him—he could be forty or ninety or anywhere in between—but that might be due to, I don’t know, cigarettes or something. He refuses to discuss whether or not he’s a living being, but any other topic is fair game, as I learned when I spoke with him in January 2006, two years before he either passed away or relocated to the Liverpudlian sewers.

NEIL ASPINALL:
I couldn’t tell you exactly how many concert dates we did in ’61. I’d say as few as one hundred and as many as two-fifty. It became a blur.

John told me right after I was hired that they were going to be good lads, or, at least, as good as they could be, and his definition of being good meant no deaths—or, at least, no
obvious
ones. Like all Liverpool zombies, the boys ate people food for enjoyment, but they had to eat brains to survive, so they had no choice but to, ehm, take care of their business every once in a while. I can’t blame them. If you crave a fried Mars bar, you go and get a fried Mars bar. If you crave a brain, you go and get a brain. End of story.

As far as I know, nobody died in ’61 at the hands of Lennon, McCartney, or Harrison, but that’s not to say they didn’t feed—trust me, they fed. That somehow didn’t hurt the development of their loyal fan base. I’d suspect that if you loved a zombie band, you’d be thrilled to have one or both of their lead singers murder you.

But John and Paul didn’t do all the killing. George took on his
fair share, and the interesting thing about that was, all the folks George reanimated that year became virtuoso guitarists.

GEORGE HARRISON:
Back then, the thing I lived for the most was music, and I figured if
I
thought that way, then
everybody
should think that way. So whenever I had a brain craving, I’d pack up my trusty Gretsch 6128 Duo Jet and head over to the trendiest part of whatever town we were gigging in. I’d look for a cool-looking guy or girl in their late teens or early twenties who was carrying a guitar; if they recognized me, so much the better. Then I’d invite them for a walk, and if they needed a little nudge, I’d look into their eyes and bend their will, but thanks to either my Beatle status or the fact that I was carrying a cool guitar, most came willingly. I’d ask them if they wanted to go back to their place and jam on some Leadbelly; if they said no, I’d move on, but if they said yes, it was off to their flat.

Once there, after a few tunes, I’d put them to sleep, then, after a quick cuppa cuppa, I’d take the traditional zombie chomp right beneath their earlobe, then, after I did the brain fluid switch, I’d jam the fretboard of my Gretsch into the wound and circle it around for a bit, like for thirty-one seconds, then I’d replace the divot, seal it shut with my tongue, and voila, an undead teenager who could play the hell out of their axe.

I purposely never found out any of their names, so it’s possible that some of them became stars. If I were to venture a guess about who I turned into an undead fretman, I’d go with Dave Davies. I mean, just
look
at the bloke. Those’re some zombie eyes if I’ve ever seen ’em.

A
rguably the Beatles’ most important moment of 1961 went down at the end of June, when the boys took to producer Bert Kaempfert’s studio to record a backing track for UK rock crooner Tony Sheridan. Sheridan, who refused numerous invitations to speak with me, was going to have his name front and center on the record sleeve; for that matter, there was the possibility the Beatles moniker wouldn’t appear on the cover at all, a fact that either wasn’t communicated to or understood by the Beatles.

GEORGE HARRISON:
I left the studio before most of the bad stuff went down at the Sheridan session, and what I did see was a bit of a blur. But I think Pete was the instigator.

PETE BEST:
I was a troublemaker, but my trouble was mostly juvenile shite—you know, messing about with girls I probably shouldn’t have messed with and playing practical jokes, that sort of thing. I wasn’t into destruction for destruction’s sake.

No matter what anybody says, I had nothing to do with what happened to Bert’s studio. Seriously, how could I? I was a regular living human being and didn’t have anywhere near the strength necessary to cause such a ruckus. But they tried to pin it on me, John and Paul did, and I think for yours truly, that was the beginning of the end, although the end wound up being quite a ways away.

Besides, I know for a fact that Paul started it. I saw it with me own two eyes.

PAUL M
C
CARTNEY:
I didn’t start it, y’know. I mean, you’ve seen the pictures of Pete’s drum kit, right? It was
obvious
that he started it.

John and I might’ve finished it, though.

JOHN LENNON:
That hour or two is a little hazy, but I’m pretty certain it wasn’t Pete or Paul. I think I cast the first stone. I think I threw the first amp. But I refuse to accept the entire blame. I was bad, and Paul was bad, but Pete was worse.

PETE BEST:
Here’s what really happened, and if any of those undead fookers tell you differently, they’re feeding you more shite than you’d find in the sewers.

So we run through the arrangement a few times, and once Bert and the engineer are pleased with the mix, they give us the go-ahead, and we rock out for forty-five minutes. Bert says he’s happy with the material, and thanks for coming, then John puts down his guitar, walks right up to Kaempfert, and says, “That’s it?”

Bert says, “Yes, that’s it, Mr. Lennon. Were you expecting something else?”

John says, “I was under the impression we’d get to do a couple tunes of our own.” I don’t know where he got that impression from.

Bert says, “Ehm, no, I’m afraid not. This was always Tony’s session, and Tony’s session alone.”

John says, “That’s not what Tony told us.” Truth is, Tony didn’t tell us fook-all. We had, maybe, five words with the bloke.

Bert says, “Well, that’s between you gentlemen. You have thirty minutes to pack up. Please turn the lights out when you leave.” And then he splits.