"I was actually competing with myself. I was thinking The Beatles was just four kids making a huge phenomenal success. And this - Wings - well, now one of those four kids has got married and has his own kids and is now going to try doing it again, but with the shadow of the Beatles hanging over him. "I was also trying to raise a family. I wanted the band to grow organically and evolve. "It was back to square one. We turned up at universities unannounced. I would send in a roadie and tell him to go in and say 'Paul McCartney's in the van and wants to play. "He would say 'yeah, pull the other one, mate'. Then he'd come out and there was a me in this van - saying 'well, can we play?'. "I remember we could never find a decent hotel. There would always be a conference on. Well, that's what they told us. Mind you, we had dogs with us as well. We didn't have expensive equipment either just small amps or we'd use their PAs. Our attitude was 'we'll manage and have a laugh', even with the scabby hotels. "I liked the whole Wings thing because I'd never formed a group before. I joined the Quarrymen they were an already made band. So I wasn't used to all that. I had no experience.
Despite their sell-out concerts from Liverpool to every corner of the world, Wings' multi-million selling albums and singles, their career ended when Paul was thrown into a Japanese jail for nine days in 1980. He says he regrets the whole episode which left bitter feelings in the rest of the band. "I certainly didn't intend that to happen. To this day I really cannot believe I did that. Wings were flying from New York to Tokyo and we'd been told not to take anything to Japan. We'd been told endlessly, so it wasn't like I didn't know. "The terrible truth of it was we were into smoking pot at that time and we had this stuff that we didn't flush down the bloody toilet. I do no not know what possessed me to stick it in my suitcase "Wings really finished then. It had sort of lost its charm; it wasn't fun anymore and the 'pot bust' had definitely cemented that. It was like 'Oh God, who needs all this?'. "I really cannot understand certain things about my life and that is definitely one of them. "Wings didn't fold . . . they dissolved like sugar in a cup of tea." Looking back, Paul has his own theory on the success of Wings. Paul looks out of the window onto London town and smiles a wide smile: "They didn't stick to any particular rules. . . there was matey-ness and companionship like in The Beatles you had John and Paul. In Wings, it was Paul and Linda. "I thought that you couldn't follow The Beatles. Well, Wingspan is the story and the sound track of how we set out to do it. "There was so much bitterness in the wake of The Beatles break-up that with Wings with Linda and me there was an element of "we'll show you . . ."
 Read Part Three of this interview here |
Read Part One of this interview here |
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Everyone was looking for the next Beatles. Some bands have this weight around them like Echo and The Bunnymen had people saying they were the next Beatles instead of letting them just get out there to be themselves. 
