Peter Best (born November 24, 1941) is an English musician who was the drummer for the Beatles from 1960 to 1962. He was dismissed shortly before the band achieved worldwide fame and is one of several people referred to as a fifth Beatle.
The Beatles invited Best to join the band on August 12, 1960, on the eve of the group’s first Hamburg season of club dates. Ringo Starr eventually replaced Best on August 16, 1962 when the group’s manager, Brian Epstein, fired Best at the request of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison following the band’s first recording session.
Over 30 years later, Best received a significant monetary payout for his work with the Beatles after the release of their 1995 compilation of their early recordings on Anthology 1; Best played the drums on 10 of the album’s tracks, including the Decca auditions.
According to Best, Brian Epstein told him he was “not a good enough drummer” and "Ringo [Starr] was the better drummer.” The other Beatles – as well as producers, musicians and critics who had heard Best play with the group – confirmed this reasoning.
John Lennon said Best was recruited only because they needed a drummer to go to Hamburg. “We were pretty sick of Pete Best, too, because he was a lousy drummer, you know? He never improved, you know? ... And we were always going to dump him when we could find a decent drummer.”
Paul McCartney stated Best was “good, but a bit limited.” He later suggested Ringo’s drumming was a significant improvement over Best’s.
George Harrison also recalled preferring Ringo’s drumming. He said “Ringo kept sitting in with the band. And every time Ringo sat in with the band, it just seemed like, this was it.”
For his part, Starr said, “I felt I was a much better drummer than [Best] was.”
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| Pete Best performing with the Beatles in February 1961 at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, England. |
Epstein claimed in his autobiography that Lennon, McCartney and Harrison thought Best was “too conventional to be a Beatle” and added, “though he was friendly with John, he was not liked by George and Paul.”
It has been documented, in Cynthia Lennon’s book John and elsewhere, that while Lennon, McCartney and Harrison usually spent their offstage time together in Hamburg and Liverpool, writing songs or socializing, Best generally went off alone. This left Best on the outside, as he was not privy to many of the group's experiences, references and in-jokes.
McCartney explained, “Pete had never quite been like the rest of us. We were the wacky trio, and Pete was perhaps a little more sensible; he was slightly different from us; he wasn’t quite as artsy as we were.”
Harrison said, “Pete kept being sick and not showing up for gigs,” and admitted, “I was quite responsible for stirring things up. I conspired to get Ringo in for good; I talked to Paul and John until they came round to the idea.”
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