The Beatles recruited Ringo Starr to join their band just before they rose to fame. Starr had a solid relationship with each of his bandmates, but they reportedly didn’t care much about his musical opinion. According to Hunter Davies, who wrote the only authorized biography of the band, said Starr didn’t have much to do in the studio.

The other Beatles ignored Ringo Starr

By the late 1960s, all the Beatles were growing tired of working together. George Harrison famously quit the band, and the affable Starr walked away too. Davies said Starr’s frustration was understandable.

“In 1968 Ringo walked out on the Beatles double album,” Davies wrote in the book The Beatles. “He said he was fed up being their drummer. Watching him so many times in the studio over the years, it was a pretty fed up-making process.”

The Beatles stopped performing live in 1966. Since then, Starr had much less to do in the band. At times, it seemed that they didn’t need him at all. Paul McCartney even played the drums on several songs.

“On stage, he was equally involved and important and had his own little special bits to do and acquired his own faithful following amongst the fans. In the studio, he was often virtually ignored. John and Paul would break off sometimes for hours at a time, working on an arrangement.”

The boredom and frustration became too much for Starr and he quit. 

“There was often no need for Ringo to be there at all — his contribution could be dubbed on at any time,” Davies wrote. “However, he only walked out for a day and was persuaded to come back.”

The Beatles convinced Ringo Starr to rejoin the band

After leaving the group, Starr went on vacation with his family. His bandmates reached out to him to get him to come back. 

“I got a telegram saying, ‘You’re the best rock’n’roll drummer in the world. Come on home, we love you,’” Starr said in The Beatles Anthology. “And so I came back. We all needed that little shake-up.”

McCartney admitted they’d taken Starr for granted. To make up for it, they decorated his drum kit with flowers as a welcome-back present.

“You go through life and you never stop and say: ‘Hey, you know what? I think you’re great.’ You don’t always tell your favorite drummer that he’s your favorite,” McCartney said. “Ringo felt insecure and he left, so we told him, ‘Look, man, you are the best drummer in the world for us.’ (I still think that.) He said ‘thank you,’ and I think he was pleased to hear it. We ordered millions of flowers and there was a big celebration to welcome him back to the studio.”

Paul McCartney spoke about performing with the drummer for the first time

While Starr may have felt overlooked by his bandmates, they did admire his skill as a drummer. McCartney recalled the first time Starr joined them onstage. He wasn’t a permanent member of the band yet. 

“One night, our drummer then, Pete Best, wasn’t available, so Ringo sat in,” McCartney said in a speech at Starr’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. “I remember the moment. Pete was great and we had a great time with him, but me, John, and George — God bless ’em — were on the front line singing, which we usually were, and behind us, we had this guy we’d never played with before. And I remember the moment when he started playing, I think it was Ray Charles’ ‘What’d I Say,’ and most of the drummers couldn’t nail the drum part. It was a little difficult to do, but Ringo nailed it. Ringo nailed it.”

They realized he was the missing piece they needed.

“I remember the moment, just standing there and looking at John and then looking at George, and the look on our faces was all like ‘F***. What is this?’ And that was the moment,” he said. “That was the beginning, really, of the Beatles.”

Not long after Starr joined the band, they began seeing widespread success.