Former music exec Tony King is opening up about the crazy experiences he had working as head of A&R for The Beatles’ label, Apple Records, back in the day.
“It was so mad, Apple. The poor office boy had to do Ringo (Starr‘s) shopping every Friday,” King shares in a new interview with The Guardian. “There would be all these toilet rolls stacked in the lobby while they counted them out, making sure they’d got the right number for Ringo.”
Noting that the “mad side of it was lovely,” King went on to reveal, “We had an Apple darts team and we’d challenge different record companies. Keith Moon showed up wanting to play, but he was so drunk, the office boys had to hold him up so he could throw a dart.”
King, whose new memoir, The Tastemaker, comes out January 31, was friends with plenty of artists over the years, including Elton John, John Lennon, Freddie Mercury and Charlie Watts. He feels there was a simple reason they liked him. “I suppose I was always very straightforward, a straight speaker,” King says. “I wasn’t an artist but I understood the artists, I was in their camp. I think I had an innate understanding of what artists needed, and I didn’t put up with bullsh**.”
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