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.

All our podcasts are also available on YouTube @withoutthebeatles. Please hit like and subscribe. We only put out 1 or 2 episodes/videos per month, so you won't get spammed.

If you would like to support us via Patreon, you can.

Enjoy!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.