The Love You Make (62 page)

Their arrest was widely reported in the press back home, and in a move that only seemed to exacerbate the incident, Paul’s next Wings single was called “Hi, Hi, Hi,” which was understood to be a drug reference. The song was banned by the BBC and was a relative commercial failure in America. To pour salt in the wound, a few months later a local constable in Campbelltown, Scotland, snooped around Paul’s farm when he wasn’t there and found marijuana plants growing in the greenhouse. With the utmost of leniency, the courts fined Paul only £100. Paul testified that an American fan had sent him the seeds, and he didn’t know what they were when he planted them.

Always the workaholic, Paul kept busy with a second Wings LP entitled
Red Rose Speedway.
Although not very distinguished by Paul’s standards, it was a million selling commercial hit and spawned another one of Paul’s brilliant, albeit saccharine, love songs, “My Love.” Paul also composed the internationally acclaimed theme music to the James Bond movie
Live and Let Die,
which was produced by George Martin in his first work with a Beatle since the breakup. “Live and Let Die” was one of the biggest singles of the year and earned Paul an Oscar nomination for best song. In late spring of 1973, Paul also undertook the first scheduled commercially booked tour of an ex-Beatle in Great Britain.

It was on this British tour that Paul’s overbearing nature started to cause him trouble again. During their off hours much of the band’s time was spent composing and rehearsing Wings’ next album, this one to be recorded in the exotic surroundings of Lagos, Nigeria, just for the fun of it. One day during rehearsals, Paul insisted that Henry McCullough play the guitar part in just a certain way—the way
he
wanted it—something Paul used to do quite often to superstar George Harrison. Well, McCullough wasn’t a superstar, but he was no sideman either. He tried to avoid a head-on confrontation by telling Paul that the guitar bit couldn’t be played the way Paul wanted it. “I, being a bit of a guitarist myself,” Paul said, “knew it could be played, and rather than let it pass, I decided to confront him with it, and we had a confrontation. He left rehearsals a bit choked, then rang up to say he was leaving…”

To complicate matters, Denny Seiwell also rang up Paul in London just hours before they were supposed to leave for Lagos to tell him that he couldn’t face playing with him any longer. Characteristically determined, Paul left for Lagos anyway with Linda, the children, and Denny Laine. They rented a two-bedroom house near the airport at Ikeja and drove to a recording studio nearby in the late afternoons. They would record far into the night, just the three of them, with the occasional help of an African drummer Paul hired for a few sessions.

Even this did not go well. The local gossip was that Paul had come to Lagos to steal the black man’s rhythms. One night a fight developed in a local nightspot, and Paul reportedly told one of the owners, “I’ve done perfectly all right without your music so far. Nobody’s gonna steal your bloody music.” Lagos didn’t have the prettiest terrain or the most pleasant weather, either. It was a steamy, dirty, often frightening place. The humidity made Paul think he was having a heart attack one day, and Linda summoned a doctor. On another occasion late one night, while returning from the studios, they were chased by several black men in a car. Trapped on a dark street, the men herded them into a doorway and held them at knifepoint while they searched them and stole their wallets and jewelry. Linda kept screaming at them, “Don’t hurt him! He’s Beatle Paul! He’s Beatle Paul!” The authorities later said it was a fortunate thing Linda had done this, otherwise they most certainly would have been killed.

The tension, danger, and sense of furtiveness of Lagos, combined with the success of Paul’s James Bond theme music, gave him a sense of confidence and power in these recording sessions. The results are evident on the album, appropriately entitled
Band on the Run.
Released in December of 1973, this is an inventive and unique album, which spawned three hit singles, including the title song and “Jet,” which were both number one on record charts the world over.
Band on the Run
sold six million copies, the highest amount of any ex-Beatle and an amount equaling the group’s biggest success,
Let It Be.

Rejuvenated by the success of
Band on the Run,
Paul formed yet another band called Wings. The new drummer was named Geoff Britton, who was perhaps best known for representing Great Britain in an international karate tournament with Japan. Britton auditioned with fifty-two other drummers for the job. The new guitarist, Jimmy McCulloch (a name strikingly similar to the McCullough he replaced), was only twenty years old and had played with several second-string rock groups since he was thirteen.

Paul spent the next year traveling extensively with his new group. He passed the summer of 1974 in Nashville recording singles and then went on to New Orleans in January and February of 1975, where he recorded Wings’ next LP,
Venus and Mars,
another best-selling, workmanlike LP that spawned the hit single, “Listen to What the Man Said.”

That same summer I heard from Paul unexpectedly one Sunday night. I was staying in the Beverly Hills Hotel on business for the Robert Stigwood Organization. Paul and Linda and the kids were living in a rented house in Los Angeles and vacationing around southern California in a rented car, just like any family from Orange County. It was near midnight when the phone rang in my room. Paul was calling from the house phone in the lobby. He said there was a bit of trouble and asked if he could come up to my room to see me. When he appeared at the door I could see he was as pale as a ghost and very upset. He and Linda and the kids had been returning from a day’s outing, driving along Sunset Boulevard in their rented car, when they jumped a red light. Two officers of the L.A. Police Department pulled them over to the side of the road and asked Paul to produce his license and registration. By the time the officers realized who it was they had pulled over, they also had taken a good whiff of the marijuana odor emanating from the closed car. The police conducted a spot search and found marijuana in the glove compartment. Because Paul was a foreigner on a visa—and already had two pot busts on his record—Linda took the blame, saying the grass was hers. She had been arrested and was being held at the station house. Bail had been posted at five hundred dollars, but Paul had only two hundred dollars in cash and traveler’s checks with him and needed to borrow the rest. Unfortunately, I had only one hundred and fifty dollars in cash with me, and the hotel cashier, although sympathetic, was unable to help because the safe was locked on a timing device. I finally borrowed the money from a friend, and Paul went off to get Linda out of jail. John Eastman flew out to Los Angeles to handle the case. The judge at first suggested that Linda see a psychiatrist for drug rehabilitation, but the case was later dismissed.

This third pot bust was enough to mark Paul as a habitual drug offender by most authorities, and he began to experience difficulties getting work visas in foreign countries. In fact, an elaborate tour of Japan had to be canceled because the authorities would not grant Paul a visa. It took three years before the Japanese would relent and allow Paul into Japan, in January of 1980, for what was to be the first Wings tour there. You would think that Paul would have learned his lesson, but upon arriving at the Narita Airport, nearly a half a pound of marijuana was found in their luggage. Allegedly, this was marijuana that Linda had picked up at a stop in New York on their way to Japan, and Paul knew nothing about it. He was handcuffed and led away by the police, begging the photographers not to take his picture as he was escorted into jail. Paul was in for one of the worst nightmares of his life. At first it was reported that he would be treated like any drug smuggler, and he might face a long prison sentence. His clothes and belongings were taken from him, and he spent his days sitting on a mat in a prison cell, writing a diary to keep him calm. Linda and the kids checked into a hotel and frantically tried to obtain his release through both lawyers and political diplomacy. Paul spent a total of ten days in jail, after which he was deported from the country on January 26. He intended to publish his diary, which he titled
Japanese Jailbird,
but thought better of it. It was reported that Paul was at the end of his rope with Linda and that their marriage was going to split up, but if anything their relationship seemed stronger than ever.

Curiously, while so many drug arrests would smear the public reputation of most artists, Paul’s image as a kind of goody-two-shoes family man remains intact. He is the most commercially successful of any musician in history, a certified
Guinness Book of Records
entry. His personal worth is estimated at close to $500 million and climbing. Among his other profitable investments, he has purchased many valuable music catalogs, including all of Buddy Holly’s music, Paul’s special favorite.

In the beginning, after their breakup, Paul tried to keep in touch with John, but there was never a renewal of their friendship. Once, early on, Paul was in New York and he called John at the Dakota to say hello. Not more than three sentences were exchanged before the conversation disintegrated into a screaming match about lawsuits and tax liabilities. “But what about the fuckin’ tax!?” John screamed at him. Paul slammed down the phone and then quickly looked through his phone book for the number of John Eastman, but in his haste he mistakenly called John Lennon’s number again. John picked up the phone on the first ring.

“John?” Paul said. “This is Paul. You wouldn’t believe what that fuckin’ asshole John Lennon just said—”

“Fuckin’
who?”
John demanded.
“I’m
fuckin’ John Lennon!”

Paul, realizing his mistake, slammed down the phone again.

As time passed and the lawsuits were settled, things cooled down and the two of them visited from time to time in Los Angeles and New York, but never more than an hour or two and never to effect any great reconciliation. The last time I saw Paul was at his country home, Waterfall, some 90 miles south of London. The house is circular, like a large gazebo, with the rooms cut up like pieces of pie. This odd architecture leaves little privacy, as you can hear every sound from room to room. There are few trappings of a rock star or even of a rich man. The gold records and expensive stereo equipment are in his offices in London. The furniture in the house is simple and well-worn, the floors littered with newspapers, magazines, and children’s toys. There are so many books and plants and knickknacks everywhere that it’s easy to miss the black baby grand piano in the corner.

Paul spends most of his time in this house with Linda and his three young children. He is a caring and attentive father and is particularly attached to his young son, James. It was amusing to watch him trying to discipline the children while remaining Beatle Paul. While I was there, Heather, who is now a young woman and living in her own apartment in a nearby town, brought her boyfriend home to meet her dad. I suppose it’s hard enough to meet your girlfriend’s father without him being a Beatle. To top it off, the young man was an aspiring musician himself, just starting out with his own band. As he was introduced to Paul he stared down at the floor and shuffled his boots nervously. Paul was charming. “What’s yer band called, son?” he asked. It was a long way from the cherub-faced skirtchaser I knew at the Cavern Club.

That same visit John’s last album,
Double Fantasy,
was about to be released. It was his first record in over five years, and Paul was curious to hear it. I could see he was still threatened by John. John and Yoko had recently given an interview to
Newsweek
magazine and for no reason had lashed out at Linda and Paul. In the interview John mentioned turning Paul away from his door. Linda said to me, “Is this new album all of John’s music or does it have
her
on it too?” When I said it was half Yoko’s music, Linda sneered at the thought.

I asked Paul if John had really turned him away, and he told me the story. He was in New York on business, and he had his guitar with him. He felt a few pangs of nostalgia and decided to take his guitar and just drop in on John at the Dakota. Paul went past the guarded gate, through the arched entranceway, and into a small, mahogany-paneled office where another guard sat behind a switchboard. John didn’t believe it was really Paul McCartney at first, but when Paul got on the phone to confirm it was really him, he was greeted with a cold silence on the other end of the phone. “I’m sorry,” John finally said, “but you can’t come up now. You just can’t drop in on people in New York like you did in Liverpool. The old times are over.”

chapter Twenty

—Justice Thomas P. Greisa
New York Federal Court
July 13, 1976

Between recording albums and singles,
bed-ins, concerts and various other international shenanigans, John and Yoko managed to turn out a prodigious number of 16 mm films. These films were sometimes aired on European TV or shown at minor film festivals. One of their early attempts was entited
Rape,
a metaphor for the media’s treatment of them. In
Rape
a camera relentlessly pursues a young girl, finally reducing her to tears.
Erection
was only a movie of a building being constructed in stop-action time, but
Self Portrait
turned out to be the real thing. This is a short film of John’s flaccid penis, in close-up, almost imperceptibly growing tumescent in slow motion. The special slow-motion effect was achieved with a Milliken high-speed camera. This noisy camera sends film through the gate so fast that there’s no way to shut the camera off once it’s been turned on until the film runs out. This meant that John had to become erect on cue. John stood poised in front of the camera and lights, thinking erotic thoughts, and said, “Hit it!” But every time the camera went on he panicked. Thousands of feet were wasted without any results. Finally, the crew was asked to leave the room, while Yoko posed erotically for him. Still no erection. Finally, John was given a copy of
Playboy
magazine, and that did the trick. When Yoko and John were interviewed about the film in their office at Apple, Yoko innocently told a reporter, “The critics wouldn’t touch it,” and she was right.