CRAVE ONLINE: Out of curiosity, what is your take on both Backbeat and Nowhere Boy? Did you like those films?
TIWARY: I did! Those films are kind of tough for someone like me, to be honest, because I’m very educated about this topic. I guess I find that there are certain takes on the story that I disagree with, or I feel like I don’t learn much. I feel like these are stories that have been told before and I’m not sure what I’m getting out of them. That said, I did like them. I don’t want to say anything bad about either project, but I think what makes our story really special is that it’s an untold story. It’s a story that people have not heard before, and especially with some of the creative, fanciful stuff – you know, Brian was a big fan of bullfighting, and there’s a whole bullfighting motif that runs through the story – I think there will be some interesting ways of presenting the story that people just haven’t seen before. I think that’s the major problem I’ve had with prior Beatles films and Beatles books and Beatles comics and what-not. It’s that they haven’t really pushed the envelope a little bit, and I think we try to tread that balance, to walk that line with being respectful to the history, telling a true story and being truthful about it, but also doing it in a way that captures the poetry of the times.
CRAVE ONLINE: It’s hard to believe that there are any untold stories left about the Beatles at all. But that begs the question of how much speculation you had to engage in to flesh out the story, given that Brian’s personal life is really his untold story – something he had to keep under wraps under penalty of law. How do you ride that line between speculation and the truth?
TIWARY: Yes, we did have to do some speculation, for the reasons that you just suggested, but less than you might suspect. In large part, that’s because Brian died in 1967, several decades ago, and people who knew him are unfortunately starting to pass away as well, but there are a number of them still alive, and I’ve spoken with all of them. Now that it is so many years removed from that day and age, a lot of them are finally feeling comfortable with telling his story and revealing aspects of his personal life that they might not have wanted to talk about twenty years ago. As I hope you can tell, this is a real labor of love for me, a passion project, and I think also, when I sat down with those folks, they could see that from me. They could see that I’m not just another producer or writer who thinks he can cash in on a great Beatles story. Yes, I think it’s a great Beatles story and yes, I think and hope we have a chance to be a bestseller and all that business stuff, but that’s not why I’m doing this. I’m doing this because I care about the Brian Epstein story and I want his story to be told. I think once I conveyed that to people who knew Brian, and they could see that in me, they also wanted his story to be told, and they also wanted it to be told properly. So I would say a large part of it is not speculation, but based on tireless research that I did.
CRAVE ONLINE: Did you have to do the same thing with each of the surviving Beatles, sit down with them and convince them to sign off on it as with the music rights, or did you do that through intermediaries?
TIWARY: I did do that through intermediaries. They are all aware of the project, but up until now, I have not sat down with any of them, I’ll be honest. But I have been in communication with all of them, through their representatives.
CRAVE ONLINE: I read an anecdote somewhere about Brian’s first experience with marijuana, where he was staring in the mirror and pointing at himself and happily yelling “Jew! Jew!” With Brian’s reputation as the business end of the Beatles and given his unfortunate personal circumstances and tragically early end, a lot of people might not necessarily know about the lighter side of Brian Epstein. Do you uncover any really fun stories about him?
TIWARY: That’s a great question. I’m actually really glad you asked that. I don’t want to tell any of those stories, because I’d like people to read the book, but yes, I hope that the book, while it tells the business and the Beatles side of the story, will also tell the human side of the story. I guess I focused on the inspirational, the heavier side of that, but there is a lightness as well, and I really hope that we capture that. There is quite a bit of that, and it’s good of you to point that out.
CRAVE ONLINE: How about any story that was fun in that way that you didn’t put in the book, that you had to leave out for whatever reason?
TIWARY: Oh, that’s a good question! I’ll have to give that some more thought, because there aren’t many of those, and the ones that I do know, I tried to put in the book, and I don’t want to give away too much about the book right now. Let me get back to you on that one.
CRAVE ONLINE: Fair enough. Okay. So, the look. How hard was it to convince the early ruffian Beatles that they all needed to clean up and dress the same, and what played into the specifics of that look? How did he decide on the final aesthetic?
TIWARY: Brian was very interested in fashion designing. He actually tried his hand at it. That field didn’t work out for him, but he did do it for a little while, and he was also very into theater. He did try acting. He went to RADA for a brief period of time. That also didn’t pan out for him professionally, but those were passions of his. So he saw things with that eye – with a dress designing eye and a theatrical eye. He just believed that, with the right presentation, the Beatles could appeal to everyone. Since he had a sense of fashion designing, he had a specific sense of what sort of suit, what sort of look he wanted to see them in. He did believe, if they cleaned up their act, that they would be more palatable to everyone. He did really have that vision. In terms of convincing them, they definitely didn’t believe him. They thought he was a little loony to suggest that, but they trusted him. They sort of said ‘if we’re going to take on this guy as our manager, who we trust, we’re going to do what he says.’ John Lennon very famously said, toward the end of his life, “in my entire life, there are only two people I’ve ever trusted and two people who I’ve listened to when they told me to do something, and that’s Yoko Ono and Brian Epstein.” Brian had that ability. They did love him and they trusted him. So when he said ‘guys, this is what you need to do,’they might’ve said ‘uh, this is really a little crazy,’ but they were going to give it a shot. They were always willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, and you know what? He was never wrong for them.
CRAVE ONLINE: Lennon often had a tendency to rub people the wrong way, and I’ve heard stories about how he’d tease Brian, but in general, how did the Beatles really respond to his homosexuality at a time when it was an actual crime? Did they take some convincing, or were they really just fine with it off the bat?
TIWARY: The Beatles – they knew about his homosexuality and completely accepted it. They didn’t think less of him because of it. John Lennon could be a pretty acerbic guy. I’m a huge John Lennon fan, so I say with this much respect –
CRAVE ONLINE: Oh, believe me, I’m a big fan, but I know he had asshole tendencies.
TIWARY: He could be mean. He could be a real jerk, you know? So John really teased Brian and could be awfully cruel. When Brian wrote his autobiography, it was called “A Cellar Full of Noise,” and John teased him and said “maybe you should call it ‘A Cellar Full of Goys,’ or “why don’t you call it ‘Queer Jew?'” Just really mean. The song “Baby, You’re a Rich Man Now,” John once joked “Baby, You’re a Rich Fag Jew.” But my take on John is that he really pushed and teased and tested the people that he loved, and if they could get over that or see through that or dish it back to him, than that’s how you played on his terms. And Brian could take it. Brian dished it back. There’s some of that in the book, too.
CRAVE ONLINE: Could John really take it when people dished it back to him?
TIWARY: Oh, I don’t know. I think it depended on who it was. I think he took it from Brian and Yoko, but there are a number of stories when other people would dish something back and he wouldn’t take it so lightly. There was a story that there was a Liverpool DJ who accused John of something gay, of some sort of gay moment, and he beat him up. Brian had to call him and tell John ‘you need to apologize, because the guy is important to us and important to your career.’ You don’t just beat somebody up when they say something bad about you. So I don’t think he could always take it, but he could take it from the people he loved.
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