Sir Paul McCartney has hinted that he may release an album of outtakes in the future after amassing “millions” of them during studio recordings.
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Describing the outtakes as a “treasure trove” in an interview on his website, the 77-year-old said the material comes from various ab-libbed sound checks and rehearsals.
On being asked if he still improvises at soundchecks, McCartney said: “Yeah, we do!” and added: “We’ve got millions of them! And fortunately, there’s a guy in our team called Jamie, who logs them. And he tells me we’ve actually got thousands. Some of them are really good and occasionally I’ll pick one out and work on it.
“For ‘Egypt Station’, I picked one out, though we didn’t finish it. I picked one out and we’re kind of making a track around this riff from the soundcheck jam. ‘Cause it was like, ‘That was a good little riff!’ But because they’re improvised they’re instant and then they’re gone.
He added: “Thankfully our stuff is captured because these days you can record just about anything that moves! It’s a little treasure trove…And one day we will have to put together an album, or something, with a selection of these songs that we’ve gathered. Because they are from all around the world!”
Recently, McCartney brought out fellow Beatle Ringo Starr for his show in Los Angeles on the final night of his tour (July 13).
The performance saw Ringo playing drums as the duo performed extended versions of ‘White Album’ classic ‘Helter Skelter’ and the more psychedelic ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’. The gig took place at Dodger stadium in LA on the last leg of Macca’s North American tour.
Earlier this month (July 18), it was also revealed that McCartney had been working on a score for a stage musical adaptation of the film classic, It’s A Wonderful Life.
McCartney had reportedly been working on the project for the past year with writer Lee Hall and British producer Bill Kenwright. Hall – who penned the Rocketman screenplay – is co-writing lyrics with McCartney.
“Writing a musical is not something that had ever really appealed to me,” McCartney said in a statement. “But Bill and I met up with Lee Hall and had a chat and I found myself thinking this could be interesting and fun.” He also praised It’s a Wonderful Life as “a universal story we can all relate to.”