NEED TO KNOW
Don’t pooh-pooh Paul McCartney — or you just might find yourself on the receiving end of some.
The legendary rocker and his late wife Linda once sent some of their daughter’s baby poop to a journalist who earned their trust, then betrayed them, according to the new oral history book Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run.
Wings’ founding drummer Denny Seiwell relayed the story, explaining that a British journalist showed up just after Paul, 83, and Linda were arrested for marijuana possession backstage in Sweden in 1972.
Seiwell said the journalist told the band that he’d be writing a feature story on the way they live on the road, and would not be reviewing their music. The “Maybe I’m Amazed” singer allowed the man backstage, and gave him access to the sound check and to the group’s tour bus.
According to Seiwell, 82, the journalist flew home without catching Wings’ concert, and published an article a week later. But instead of giving readers a peek behind the curtain as promised, the article was a negative review of the concert he hadn’t even seen and a hit piece on the group’s lifestyle.
Liveright
At the time, Paul and Linda’s daughter Stella, now 54, was a baby. So, Seiwell alleged, the couple grabbed a plastic soap dish from their hotel, “got one of Stella’s turds, put it in the soap dish, wrapped it up and sent it to him.”
“I don’t care if they want it to be known or not. I thought it was the perfect response to a crude British pressman,” Seiwell said.
Paul and Linda remained married until her death in 1998 at age 56. Wings released seven studio albums before breaking up in 1979.
Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run, edited by Ted Widmer, documents Paul’s time in the band, drawing on over 40 hours of new and archival interviews with the star himself, Linda, and other members of the band, like Seiwell, Henry McCullough, Jimmy McColluch, Joe English, Steve Holley, Geoff Britton and Laurence Juber.
“I’m so very happy to be transported back to the time that was Wings and relive some of our madcap adventures through this book,” Paul wrote of the book on Instagram. “Starting from scratch after The Beatles felt crazy at times. There were some very difficult moments and I often questioned my decision. But as we got better I thought, ‘OK this is really good.’ We proved Wings could be a really good band. To play to huge audiences in the same way The Beatles had and have an impact in a different way. It was a huge buzz.”
