Drummer who played with rock royalty and is still at it

A MUSICIAN from Crazies Hill is releasing his third record with a new Britpop supergroup.

Zak Starkey, a drummer and the son of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, used to play with Oasis and The Who.

Now he is a member of Mantra of the Cosmos, who were formed in 2023. The band comprises guitarist Andy Bell, who has also played with Oasis and Ride, and former Happy Mondays stars Shaun Ryder and Bez.

They released their debut single, Gorilla Guerilla, and made their debut on the Glade stage at Glastonbury Festival in 2023.

The band’s third song, a six-minute psychedelic alternative punk-rock hit called Domino Bones (Gets Dangerous), will be released on Monday.

Starkey, now 59, says forming the band was both the best and worst thing he has ever done in his music career.

He said: “I was approached to form a Britpop supergroup, which was the most horrific idea I’d ever heard.

“I was like, ‘You know all my mates, they’re too cool to do that — no one’s going to do that’ but they did.

“I called Shaun and asked about his mate Bez and he said he was already doing it and then I called Andy Bell.

“[Noel] Gallagher texted me and said, ‘You know you have the British Bob Dylan’ about Shaun, who is the king of lyrics.

“He sent me over the vocals for the song and I rearranged it all but it’s a great single. I’m producing and writing and it’s the most fun I’ve ever had.”

The band’s name came from a Los Angeles meditative session that Starkey and Ryder took part in.

He said: “We weren’t sleeping good and went to an old lady to do some meditation and it turned out she is the mum in The Beatles’ The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill.

“She didn’t know us but said: ‘If you come out of your meditation too fast, we will be as grumpy as John Lennon’, who wrote the song.”

All three of the band’s songs were recorded in Starkey’s home studio, which was designed by technicians and architects of Abbey Road Studios in London, where The Beatles famously recorded.

His musical journey began when he was 10 when he started learning the guitar but he soon followed in his father’s footsteps and took up the drums.

Starkey, who was born in London, said: “I remember seeing Marc Bolan of T. Rex when I was seven and I wanted to be him. I immediately went to my dad, ‘I want a guitar and I want shoes like him and a feather boa around his neck like him’.

“That’s probably my greatest musical memory because it kick-started everything.

“My dad wanted me to be a lawyer but I left school at 14 on the advice of the guy who ran The Beatles’ record label who said, ‘You don’t need school, you’re a drummer’, so I stopped going to school.

“Marc showed me some stuff on the guitar but when I was 10, I changed to the drums because it was so exciting.

“When I was a kid, all I wanted was a real guitar — it’s all I could think about.

“Now it’s just a bit like the South Park episode where Randy brings in a guitar and they’re like, ‘Dad, we’re playing the Rock Star band, it’s old school’. That terrified me and I thought it was the end of rock ’n’ roll forever.”

In 1985, Starkey joined his father’s All-Starr Band and toured with them in 1992 and 1995.

In 1994, his drumming career at The Who started when he joined their Daltrey Sings Townshend tour and in late 1995 he joined them on their Quadrophenia tour.

Starkey founded Johnny Marr & the Healers at the turn of the century and they released their album Boomsland three years later when they did a world tour.

Starkey features on all but one of the tracks of Oasis’s album Don’t Believe the Truth but he left the band in 2008 after falling out with Noel Gallagher.

Starkey says the only place he feels safe is on stage. He explains: “Since I was 10, it has been the only place I feel secure, like really safe, and I’m not the only one to say that. I don’t know anything else. It’s like an addiction, except you can’t stop doing it and I wouldn’t know what to do otherwise.”

In 2012, Starkey tracked down his favourite musician of all time, Toots Hibbert, a Jamaican songwriter and lead singer of the reggae band Toots and the Maytals.

He said: “When my wife and I went to Jamaica to find him, we didn’t think we were going to.

“We were chasing him all around Jamaica. I got to his house and his wife would say, ‘He can’t see you today’. I would go back the next day and just keep at it and I finally got him to dinner. It was the greatest thing ever.

“He was like a tiger out of his cage. He would say, ‘It’s too early for beer, let’s have rum’. He was just an amazing guy.

“Three nights before we left, a guy in the hotel said he was playing, so we got a £200 taxi to the Blue Mountains and were at a gig in a car park. He was doing acoustic with his band and we got invited backstage.

“We met the family and kept in touch with him and then we moved there and worked together. It was amazing.”

In 2020, Starkey financed the band’s first joint album, Got to Be Tough, their first in 10 years.

He played guitar and other contributors included Ziggy Marley, Shaggy and Mick Jones of the Clash.

It was released before Toots’ death due to complications from covid in September that year and won a Grammy award for best reggae album in 2021.

Starkey says: “You’re supposed to go and schmooze at parties and do all that sort of thing but I was just thrilled. It was wonderful. It was great for the label and great for business.”

Starkey was introduced to reggae by his parents, Ringo and his first wife Maureen. He says: “My mum gave me a Bob Marley live album and dad gave me an album called Man in the Hills by Burning Spear, which is hardcore.

“I became a punk and Johnny Rotten and the Clash were always talking about reggae too so all of us punks got into it.

“My biggest achievement was being accepted by Jamaican musicians, who are the hardest bastards I’ve ever met, because they allowed me to play their devotional music, even though I’m not a Rasta.”

Starkey is the third drummer to have appeared with Oasis, from 2004 to 2008.

He says: “The music scene changes all the time — Noel said it does every seven years.

“The Nineties were all right. Oasis was great then but everything went a bit mild.

“Right now, there’s a Britpop frenzy. Hundreds of thousands of kids walk around in bucket hats and trainers because Oasis is making a comeback.

“They’re an amazing band and amazing people, so hard-working. They made me feel like I’d never done enough.

“Paul [Arthurs] is my favourite — he has the most discerning taste in music.

“The Gallaghers are a great family but I was already in my favourite band, The Who.

“They never argued once in four-and-a-half years, not one argument. I think they were like that because they didn’t want to ruin it because it was so good.”

Starkey advises aspiring musicians to “get on with it”.

He said: “Bands now, no one will take the risk. If you’re prepared to lose, you’ll nearly always win.

“I met a 14-year-old called Bruno who is a psych rock punk outsider who knows more about music than me and all my friends put together.

“It’s like talking to someone my age who really made it. It was the greatest breath of fresh air we ever had in the studio.

“This kid came in so good and recorded his vocals rolling around the floor salivating in front of the drum kit.”

And what of his own future?

“I live for today and tomorrow,” he said, “I’ve still got Mantras and the Toots work that I promised him I’d finish before he died.

“I’m going to look back and go, ‘That was great and amazing’ and hopefully not have regrets nor resentment.”

• Limited edition blue and red vinyls, signed by Zak Starkey, are available in Jimmy Cuba’s record shop in Station Road, Henley.