Legendary drummer Ringo Starr, who rose to fame as a member of The Beatles in the 1960s, continues to tour with a group of friends and fellow musicians, showing no signs of slowing down at age 85.
The group, known as Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band, held two days of rehearsals in Milwaukee before kicking off the tour on Wednesday night at the Chicago Theatre. The band is set to play the Miller High Life Theatre in Milwaukee on Friday night.
Starr and his bandmates gathered at the Riverside Theater, where they’ve been rehearsing this week, to speak with media members.
“We were thrilled to host Ringo along with his band and crew,” said Gary Witt, president and CEO of the Pabst Theater Group. “Through hosting Ringo’s shows over the years, we’ve grown to be a trusted partner and have developed a very positive relationship with his team. With the assistance of our friends at Marcus Hotels, we were able to accommodate their needs and make Milwaukee a place where he and the band could get some rehearsal time in prior to the start of their tour.”
Starr launched the group in 1989 so that he could tour with a changing lineup of musicians, with each member performing their own hits alongside Starr’s from his solo career and, of course, The Beatles, who made their only Wisconsin appearance at the Milwaukee Arena on Sept. 4, 1964.
“I started just calling friends in my phone book – it was a book in those days,” Starr said about the genesis of the band. “And nobody said no. It was so far out that I had to stop, because there would have been 20 people on stage. From that day, I’ve loved the All Starrs.”
The band’s current lineup features Steve Lukather (Toto founding member, lead guitar), Colin Hay (Men at Work, guitar), Hamish Stuart (Average White Band, bass), Warren Ham (best known for playing with Toto and Kansas, saxophone), Buck Johnson (Aerosmith, keyboards) and Gregg Bissonette (jazz and rock drummer/vocalist, drums). They, along with musical director Mark Rivera, took part in the press event.
Their fall tour is centered around a residency at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas and stops at just five other cities, including Milwaukee.
Starr, sporting long hair and a beard and wearing blue-tinted glasses, a jean jacket and a T-shirt with a peace sign and the “peace and love” slogan he’s made famous, offered a simple explanation for why he continues to tour after seven decades in the music industry.
“We have to tour to get the pleasure of playing to people,” Starr said. “I just love playing live. It just works, that’s all I can say.”
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The band’s setlist from the early summer portion of the tour included Starr’s own songs, such as “It Don’t Come Easy” and “Photograph,” as well as selections from The Beatles, including “Yellow Submarine” and “With a Little Help from My Friends.” The band also performed Toto’s massive hit “Africa” and Men at Work’s “Who Can It Be Now?”
“To be able to play with these legends and all their great, wonderful songs, it’s a dream come true for me, and to share the stage and play for people who love Ringo,” Johnson said. “It’s more than just music, it’s almost spiritual.”
Lukather has been touring with the band since 2012 and although he had a slew of hits with Toto, including singing lead on the million-selling “Rosanna” described touring with Starr and his bandmates “as the best 13 years of my life” and the most meaningful period of his long career in music.
“All these years later, to get to be your friend and be a part of this with all these great cats, I love you, man, thank you for having me,” Lukather said to Starr. “Every day’s a joy.”
Bissonette has been with the All Starr Band for 17 years. “If you would have told me in 1966, when I saw Ringo in Detroit, that I’d be playing five feet away from him since 2008, I would never have believed it,” he said. “One of the great things about this band, too, is that we do our own take on all these great songs that everybody has. We do it our way, which is super fun.”
Continuing to perform on stage has many benefits, Starr said.
“It’s not like we don’t have hard times, but playing gives us a different mood all the time,” Starr said. “I love to play, and I know this band loves to play. … It doesn’t take our minds off the rest of the world, it just centers the musical part of our brain in our hearts, and we do the best we can.”
The interactions with audience fuel the band, Bissonette said. “One of the greatest parts is looking out in the audience, and you’ll see somebody with a yellow submarine cutout, and somebody in the pink [Sgt.] Pepper suit. You give love, and they give love back, and that’s so energizing.”
Starr’s ongoing work goes well beyond the current tour. An exhibition of his artwork is being held at the Animazing Art Gallery at the Venetian Resort; he released a country album with T Bone Burnett in January, leading to his Grand Ole Opry debut; and his latest book Beats and Threads chronicles the musician’s sartorial style for more than 70 years.
Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band take the stage at 8 p.m. Friday at Miller High Life Theatre. For more information and tickets, click here.
