Bootlegged Beatles

"I'd been unofficially dead for nearly fifteen years - I was getting bored, I needed to make music again," says Harold Plucker, who portrays Paul McCartney in the current Bootleg Beatles line up and has recently claimed that he actually is the real Paul McCartney. "Forming a Beatles tribute band seemed the obvious thing to do - who would ever suspect that I was impersonating myself?" Plucker/McCartney claims that back in 1966 he was finding the pressures of being a member of the world's most successful pop act too much. However, the other members of the band were reluctant to either contemplate a split, or bringing in a new member. "They were afraid that changing the line-up could alienate the fans," he recalls. "Then Brian Epstein came up with the idea of replacing me with a lookalike. It was brilliant - it meant that I could assume a new identity and escape the limelight altogether." Consequently, a suitable replacement was recruited and given extensive plastic surgery. "I carried on writing for the band until they split up," claims Plucker/McCartney. "I never wrote for my replacement when he went solo - that's all his own work." Rumours about the replacement started to circulate in the late 1960s, and wild stories that the real McCartney had died in an accident, or had even been murdered began to spread. "Those crazy stories suited me," says Plucker/McCartney. "They made it easier for me to disappear - if everyone thought I was dead, nobody would be looking for me. "

Having made the decision to form a Beatles tribute band, Plucker/McCartney now faced the task of recruiting three other members. "It seemed obvious - if we were going to achieve that authentic Beatles sound, we'd need as many of the old crew as possible," he says. "I honestly thought that John would be the most difficult to persuade, but it turned out that he was getting tired of is life with Yoko and was finding his solo career unsatisfying." Obviously, the real John Lennon couldn't play himself in a tribute band, so the ex-Beatle decided to follow his band mate's example and faked his own death. However, the other members of the band proved more difficult to recruit. "George and Ringo just weren't interested," says Plucker/McCartney. "I offered the drummer's job to Pete Best - he jumped at the chance, even though it meant having to wear a false moustache and fake nose." Finding a faux-George Harrison was more more problematic. "We auditioned hundreds of lookalikes, but they were all crap. None of them could play like George," he sighs. "Then we heard about this kid - he had a guitar-shaped stigmata on his side. Sometimes it would gently weep. We decided that was a sign." Incredibly, the new recruit proved to be a brilliant guitarist. "It was uncanny, he sounded exactly like George," says Plucker/McCartney. "John reckoned he was like the Dalai Lama, you can identify him as a true reincarnation by his birthmarks." He believes that his group represents the true spirit of the Beatles. "Just look at the crap attributed to the 'real' Beatles since we split up - those two lousy singles in the 1990s," he says dismissively. "It was clear that without the song-writing genius of Lennon and McCartney, they were nothing." In answer to the criticism that the Bootleg Beatles haven't produced any original material at all, he points out that the songs they perform represent the peak of his and Lennon's creative output: "You can't improve on perfection. The public knows that, so we keep giving them what they want - the fruit of our genius!"