Back when his old band was still together, Ringo Starr didn't just play a reliable backbeat or sing the occasional number penned especially for him, like "Yellow Submarine" or "With a Little Help From My Friends."
The Beatles' percussionist, when he wasn't keeping time behind his drum kit, was also an indefatigable shutterbug. That much is clear from the scores of images he dug out of his personal archives to put on display earlier this month at the National Portrait Gallery in London, images that also form part of a collection he released last week as a coffee-table book titled Photograph.
"I'd opened a case that came out of an old storage of mine," Starr tells The Week. "I'm like — what's in this trunk? It was full of photo books and negatives. Hundreds and hundreds of negatives. I was like — wow! I've got some great photos."
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The resulting large-sized volume he assembled is a veritable treasure trove for Beatles fans, packed with the kind of candid shots of the group in its happy days that only one of four people in the world could have taken. Shots like the one of Beatle guitarist George Harrison leaning against a studio window to smash his nose against it, trying to make Starr laugh.
They were still an unbreakable unit back then, and the drummer was clearly indiscriminate, wanting to record it all.
During one particular U.S. tour, never mind the "80 policemen on motorbikes" that Starr recalls were accompanying them at the time, a carload of gawking fans pulled up beside the band while on the road. (Snap!) John Lennon and Paul McCartney huddled together often, singing around a studio microphone, just a few feet away from Starr and his camera. (Snap!)
Starr's photographic habits are a bit different these days, he tells The Week. He has an iPhone and iPad to complement his traditional cameras. "The photos are very small these days," he laments, in his familiar Liverpudlian brogue. "It's hard to get actual film and harder to get it developed. But I still love to take photos."
Which is good for him, because the camera-happy ex-Beatle still has plenty to photograph at the moment.
2015 has actually proven to be one of Starr's most eventful since the breakup of what he once called "the greatest show on Earth." This spring, for example, McCartney inducted him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame not long after Starr had released Postcards from Paradise, his 18th studio album.
This summer, Starr also turned 75. McCartney tweeted him a "Happy Birthday" message on his big day, adding, "It's my dad's too — he would have been 113!"
To celebrate, Starr gathered some friends and invited the public to a celebration in July at Capitol Records in Los Angeles, an event he broadcast on the streaming service Periscope.
He could be seen at one point laughing with a friend about McCartney's tweet.
At one point, Starr walked outside, basking in the enthusiasm of the crowd that he was watching through the iPhone in his outstretched hands. He was live-streaming the whole thing on his phone, and as they cheered, he looked out at them all and exclaimed: "You're on Periscope!"
This week, meanwhile, Starr is kicking off his fall tour with a show at the Masonic Lodge in San Francisco, a tour that wraps up on Halloween at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn. And then, of course, there's the new book, with its photographic evidence of what Starr meant on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album, when he proclaimed to the world how he happily "gets by" thanks to a little help from his friends.
"Everybody supported everybody in that band," Starr said, of The Beatles. "That was why it worked. We were all really good players. We had ups and downs, but as soon as we heard the count-in, everybody gave 100 percent. That's why it worked, and I'm really proud of that part of our togetherness."
Starr's post-Beatles career never had the chart-topping highs of McCartney's or grabbed the headlines like Lennon's did. But he nevertheless remains today what he's always been — happy either banging away on his drums or out in front of them, singing simple tunes for the joy of it.
He mines familiar territory on his latest record, singing about the good old days, when he was just starting out as a working musician; about getting old; about not forgetting to have a good time along the way.
One thing that hasn't changed is his no-frills philosophy about the role of a drummer within the context of a band.
"I believe the role of a drummer is to hold back those charging horses standing in front of you with guitars," he said. "They get too excited, and you've gotta hold ‘em back a bit. You know what I mean? I was blessed with good time. I keep good time. I'm sensitive to the song. Sensitive to the singer, of course. And I don't believe you need me to be doing drum fills while the person is singing a beautiful part of the melody.
"Give it a little kick when it's going up. Bring it down slowly — all in the same tempo, of course. It's something I love to do. And I did it with three of the finest friends and musicians and writers in the world."
Nostalgia only goes so far with him, though. He's actually dumping a lot of Beatles-related memorabilia later this year, putting things like a guitar Lennon gave him and a drum set Starr used in scores of Beatles recordings up for auction in December.
According to news accounts, Starr and his wife Barbara are parting with several hundred items that are expected to collectively raise between $5 million and $10 million at auction. Much of the proceeds will go to The Lotus Foundation, a charity founded by the musician and his wife.
Meanwhile, he's heading back out on the road. And the indelibly happy-go-lucky drummer still, like the song says, wants us all to lend him our ears, and he'll sing us a song.
"The past is the past," he tells The Week. "‘Forget about the past, and all your sorrow, the future won't last, it will soon be your tomorrow.' I wrote that a long time ago, and I still believe that. God knows what's going to happen tomorrow, and whatever happened yesterday is done anyway. So I — it's how it is. I try and live how it is. This is how it is today. And so far … it's a beautiful day."
