Ringo Starr’s Son Used to Hate Being Related to a Beatle: ‘The Biggest Drag in My Life’
Ringo Starr’s eldest son, Zak Starkey, followed in his father’s footsteps and became a drummer. Starkey said he admires his father’s talent and is happy to be his son. He didn’t always feel this way, though. Starkey said that as a child and teenager, he resented the fact that Starr was his father. He explained that Starr was rarely around, and he didn’t seem all that interested in his music career.
The Beatles’ drummer has three children
Starr has three children from his marriage with his first wife, Maureen Starkey. The couple married in 1965 after realizing Starkey was pregnant. Zak Starkey was the couple’s first child, followed by another son Jason, in 1967, and a daughter, Lee, in 1970. Starr said he never felt that the chaos of his life with The Beatles meant he couldn’t have children.
“We never sat there saying ‘Oh, well, you can’t become a dad, or you can’t do this,'” he told Us Weekly in 2000. “I got married. We had Zak. Two years later we had Jay. And in 1970 we had Lee. We lived. We did have to move out and get a house with a big gate. But, you know, it was not like a lot of the bands today: ‘Oh, we can’t get married. Career first’ We never really thought like that. Of course, we did think of it for a moment with John [Lennon], who was married [to first wife Cynthia] and didn’t want to tell anybody. But there wasn’t as much planning as people might imagine in the Beatles’ career.”
In 1985, Starr became a grandfather for the first time.
Ringo Starr’s son said he didn’t like being related to a Beatle
Starr has admitted that he made mistakes as a father, and Zak agreed.
“To be perfectly honest, being Ringo’s son is the biggest drag in my life,” Starkey said, per the book Ringo: With a Little Help by Michael Seth Starr. “I’m always written about as Ringo’s son, always classed in with him in every single thing I do … And if I do get successful, I don’t want to live like my old man, on a big estate and all that.”
He explained that Starr was often absent during his childhood and he spent more time with his father’s friends, like Keith Moon.
“My old man was never there,” he said. “During my puberty, Moonie was always there with me while my old man was far away in Monte Carlo or somewhere.”
Despite Starkey’s interest in drumming, he said Starr only gave him one lesson.
“My old man’s a good timekeeper, one of the best, but I’ve never thought of him as a great drummer, not really,” he said. “Ringo gave me one lesson, just one, when I was young. Then he told me to listen to records and play along with them.”
These days, Ringo Starr’s son is happy to have him as a father
As Starkey aged, he developed a new appreciation for his father. He said that he no longer minded when people compared the two of them.
“It doesn’t get tiring,” he told Modern Drummer in 2007. “I kind of rebelled against it when I was a teenager; I said some pretty stupid things.”
He said he also had a new appreciation for his father’s musical abilities.
“I’ll be honest, it’s great being Ringo’s son,” he said. “He’s the greatest living drummer as far as I’m concerned.”
