The Without the Beatles project in which famous artists and creatives discuss the direct impact the Fab Four had on their careers, started back in 2012.

One of the first people we interviewed was Michael Palin. He found fame in the 60s as a TV presenter, before going on to become a performer and writer with Do Not Adjust Your Set, then Monty Python. He went on to have a stellar film career and a third career as presenter of the hugely popular travel series, Around the World...

Michael was a good friend of George Harrison and benefited from George's role as the owner of Handmade Films.

Here he talks about the Pythons, The Beatles, and George in particular.

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Technical note: This interview was originally shot for a planned TV documentary. Des Burkinshaw, the interviewer was not wearing a microphone or featured on camera.

Thanks to the wonders of AI we've been able to retrieve the distant sound of his voice from Michael's microphone and enhance it. It's not the clearest recording of his voice, but we guess most of you would rather hear Michael Palin than the interviewer in any case. We hope this does not interfere with your enjoyment.

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In 2010 we kicked off the multi-decade Without the Beatles project, and were privileged to be invited out to LA, to Richie Sambora's home, for this interview.

A few years later, in 2013, Richie quit Bon Jovi because of the pressures of touring. He said at the time that he couldn't cope with 18 month world tours, but in this interview he is still very much in the band and says he can never imagine leaving.

In this insight into Richie's artistic life, he details how the Beatles affected everything - from his first memory to being the first thing he plays every time he picks up the guitar.

This is the unedited interview tape - there's not too much in the way of hellos and goodbyes because they were done when the camera wasn't rolling, but we hope this format gives you a real insight into the man.

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It was such a pleasure to interview Andy Partridge of XTC for Without the Beatles - the documentary back in 2012 - when the world was a very different place.

Unfortunately, because of an error on my part the documentary never saw the light of day, but now that podcasts are a thing - ours in particular - it's worth putting out Andy's interview.

As usual, Andy is a great interviewee. He cites the Beatles as one of the reasons for that - he developed his sense of humour and eclecticism to their early influence on him. Of course, they impacted his music, but most importantly, like so many others, their story and personalities shaped his story and personality.

Some context. I realised some time ago, that if it weren't for a combo of Hitler and The Beatles, I wouldn't even be here. Once I was here, the Beatles shaped my outlook and made me a musician. I thought it would be easy to find well known people who had a similar story, and so it proved. I shot 40-50 interviews exploring a few themes that emerged, but by then no-one would commission us because we had done so much upfront. Yes, the BBC were interested in licensing it, but that wouldn't even have covered the legal costs.

From 2013 to 2020, the interviews sat on a hard drive, a testament to bad planning. As an ex-BBC producer, I should have known the hole I'd dug for myself, but was still happy to have met all those interviewees and other things came from it, so I didn't mind too much. During covid, I relished every episode of Chris Shaw's masterful, I am the Eggpod podcast, and realised that documentary interviews are really just conversations - ie unintentional podcasts. I was too missing until late 2023 to act on this, but 2024 finally saw the Without the Beatles podcast launch.

As we approach our millionth watch/download a year later, we have found plenty of new people to interview. The archive was in danger of being sidelined again, but now we've decided to just put out some of those archive interviews anyway. Yes, some of the topical references don't work anymore - when this was recorded Ken Dodd and Prince Philip were both still alive - but the essence of what Andy says about the Beatles is as relevant as ever.

So here it is - 13 years late - but a full unedited interview with Andy. We hope you enjoy this and the other archive interviews to come, including Richie Sambora, Nancy Sinatra, Al Jardine of the Beach Boys, filmmaker Tony Palmer, and many others.

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Enjoy!

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