Ringo Starr on 200 Motels Ringo Starr

Tell us how you got involved in 200 Motels

Uh, it was very strange actually
A call came from the office, the Apple office at the time
That, uh, Frank Zappa had this idea
And he wanted to come and present it to me
So I thought, "Oh, great," 'cause, you know
I'd heard Frank's music, you know
You know, in a very musical way, it was pretty wacky actually
And, uh, so I invited Frank to, to my house
Where he, he came with a, a huge, um, score
And he laid this huge score out and he said, uh
"You know, I've got this idea, I wanna make this movie, and hеre's the score"
And I thought, "Why arе you showing me the score? I cannot read music
But because of that, I will do the movie"
So that's how it happened and he was very, uh, very straight
So he told me he wanted me to play him
'Cause he just wanted to be, like, the musician in it, so
Also it was, like, you know, pretty strange
Like, the Ringo playing Frank, and then Frank being a musician
So it was, it was a nice premise and I hung out with musicians
So that was always a good deal

It was, it was filmed in a very short period of time under fairly chaotic circumstances

It was, uh, filmed very fast
And a lot of it, though there was the outline and some script
I mean, sometimes, you just made it up, um
And, you know, I was like the devil Frank
And I would take the band when they were ordering food or whatever, you know, talking
And then Frank'd write a song about it and force them to play it and sing it
Which was fun
So, it was a really nice experience for me