RINGO STARR: 'THE BEATLES WERE SOLDIERS THAT NEVER SIGNED UP'

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Last updated: Monday, May 5, 2008

RINGO STARR: 'THE BEATLES WERE SOLDIERS THAT NEVER SIGNED UP'

The world has the end of mandatory national service in Britain to thank for the BEATLES, according to RINGO STARR.

Ringo Starr attends the Linda McCartney Photographs - Private View at the James Hyman Gallery. London, England - 23.04.08

The drummer insists the U.K.'s pop and rock explosion in the 1960s all happened because teenagers no longer had to join the Army.

Starr explains, "We were the first generation that didn't go into the army. I missed the call up by, like, 10 months, and so we were allowed, as these teenagers, not to be regimented and turn into these musicians."

And the rocker admits he was a hopeless drummer when he first started out.

In an interview with fellow rocker Dave Stewart on U.S. TV show On The Record, Starr recalled, "The first band I was in you were in if you had an instrument; it wasn't a requirement to be able to play... and I couldn't play.

"I'd got this kit of drums, I had no sense of time. I was just hitting these things and going faster and faster... That's how I started."

Source: WENN