Paul McCartney: "I saw them perform at my cousin's wedding in south Liverpool, they called themselves 'The Plum Eaters'. They had potential and they did Beatles' covers fairly well, they all had nice hair too, which was a bonus I'd say. So after the reception festivities I introduced myself to them, gave a few autographs, took a few photos, then I asked if they'd like to be rich and famous and of course they agreed, but I told them the name had to go, and they agreed."
And it was then in 1968, after a few hours of brainstorming, 'The Beatmongers' were born, then 'Beatstreet' was born, then 'Der Baitals', then 'The Baddles', then 'Baden Schlanger', THEN finally, they went next door to the movies and watched Goldfinger, so then 'Goldfinger' was born, then 'Beetfinger', but then FINALLY: 'Badfinger' was born.
McCartney: "Badfinger and I were in the studio for seven months and recorded maybe a handful of songs. Three members of the band quit during the course of recording and Peter Ham had the attention span of a two year old, so we could never actually get through a song. I was going to kill someone, it was just a matter of time."
McCartney eventually decided to bring in the production talent of George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Together with McCartney, they produced Badfinger's first hit "Come and Get it".
George Harrison: "We went out for a bite at a nearby pub, got a little sloshed and then wrote a few new songs. Paul went off to the gentlemen's room to relax, wrote a few more songs, came back and played them, and one of them happened to be 'Come and Get it'."
Ringo Starr: "When we got back to the studio George played the new song for us, we liked it, but then Paul and I realized that we had already heard it before and had recorded it ages ago for a 1963 album we never used called 'Beatles on Parade'."
Paul: "We had Ringo rummage through the storage closet until he found the old recording, we dusted it off and gave it a listen, there was nothing wrong with it so we just used it as a model for Badfinger to follow. They played along with our recording and then we mixed the two performances together."
George: "Then we took their recording and turned the volume to something slightly above zero."
The song would be a huge success for Badfinger who would go on to record, tour, breakup and repeat the cycle for another twenty years.
John Lennon: "I think Paul was living the life a failed musician through the failure of Badfinger, I think he just wanted to see what it was like to have people hate him, and people did hate him, for unleashing Badfinger on the world."
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