The Beatles or Rolling Stones? Paul Explains Why The Stones Are Second Best.
By tsell on April 18, 2020
Paul McCartney explained to Howard Sterne why he thought the Beatles were “better” than the Rolling Stones
By Trent Sell
On Tuesday morning this week, Paul McCartney called into The Howard Sterne Show to chat about current life and some Beatles’ nostalgia. The most interesting topic came up when Howard suggested that the Beatles were a better band than The Rolling Stones.
This friendly music rivalry has been going on since both bands rose to fame in the early to mid-’60s, but Paul agreed with Howard on who had the edge. Paul responded with a laugh and the following statements, “You know you’re going to persuade me to agree with that one.” “They are rooted in the blues. When they are writing stuff, it has to do with the blues. We had a little more influence. … There’s a lot of differences, and I love the Stones, but I’m with you. The Beatles were better.”
The Beatles definitely paved the way for bands like the Rolling Stones, and so many others. They started to notice that the Stones were following “their lead” in some retrospect. Paul said, “We started to notice that whatever we did, the Stones sort of did it shortly thereafter.”
Howard mentioned that the Stones followed up Sgt. Pepper with their similar psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request. Pauls explains, “We went to America and we had huge success. Then the Stones went to America. We did Sgt. Pepper, the Stones did a psychedelic album. There’s a lot of that. We were great friends, still are kind of. We admire each other. … The Stones are a fantastic group. I go see them every time they’re out. They’re a great, great band.”
Listen to that conversation HERE.
Upcoming Beatles documentary
Paul also spoke on behalf of a new upcoming documentary, “The Beatles: Get Back,” directed by Peter Jackson. The documentary pulls from unseen footage from the filming of the 1969 documentary, Let it Be. Surprisingly, the majority of the footage never made it into that original documentary. “[Jackson] has gotten ahold of about 54 hours of film footage,” explained Paul. “I’ll tell you, Howard, it’s great. I’m not ‘BSing’. You see this kind of thing, this relationship between me and John and me and George. You’ll get it.”
The new doc is scheduled to hit the theatres on Sept. 4th, but that date may be pushed back due to the global pandemic.
