I guess a band that cranks together, stays together.

Until Yoko arrives, that is.

In a revealing interview with GQ, which went live yesterday, Paul McCartney opened up about some previously untold stories.

It’s a lengthy look at the life of a music legend, which is worth reading in full, but for those who are a little more pressed for time, we’ll pluck a few highlights.

To begin, here’s NME with what Paul had to say about him and John masturbating together:

“What it was, was over at John’s house, and it was just a group of us,” he explained. “And instead of just getting roaring drunk and partying – I don’t even know if we were staying over or anything – we were all just in these chairs, and the lights were out, and somebody started masturbating, so we all did.”

In the group were McCartney, Lennon, and three of Lennon’s friends, all of whom would shout out names as they were engaged in the masturbation session. “We were just, ‘Brigitte Bardot!’ ‘Whoo!’ and then everyone would thrash a bit more,” McCartney said.

He added that Lennon would shout names like Winston Churchill’s to put his friends off and that the activity was “a one-off or maybe it was like a two-off.” “It wasn’t a big thing,” he said. “But, you know, it was just the kind of thing you didn’t think much of. It was just a group. Yeah, it’s quite raunchy when you think about it.

“There’s so many things like that from when you’re a kid that you look back on and you’re, ‘Did we do that?’ But it was good harmless fun. It didn’t hurt anyone. Not even Brigitte Bardot.”

Insert obligatory joke about whether or not this is what the song ‘Come Together’ is written about.

Paul also opened up about whether or not the Beatles watched George Harrison lose his virginity (“I think that’s true”), and group sex:

McCartney added the band didn’t really have orgies “to [his] knowledge, but there were “sexual encounters of the celestial kind, and there were groupies.” He discussed a time where he had a threesome in Las Vegas but said group sex didn’t “appeal to [him].”

“I think John was a little more that way, because thinking back, I remember there was someone in a club that he’d met, and they’d gone back to the house because the wife fancied John, wanted to have sex with him, so that happened, and John discovered the husband was watching,” he recalled. “That was called ‘kinky’ in those days.

Moving on from the smut talk, Paul also opened up about other aspects of his career. Via Billboard, here’s a pretty amusing story about working with Kanye:

In more recent years, McCartney has worked with Kanye West on multiple songs, even going as far as calling him “an interesting guy.” When the final product surfaced for “Four Five Seconds,” McCartney wasn’t sure if he was on the track, as his vocals and guitar work were pitched higher than initially recorded.

Though he was pleased with how the track came out, he had to ask for a proper definition of “wilding.” “My stepson knew,” said McCartney. “He’s up with the hip-hop talk: ‘Wilding? Oh yeah, that’s like getting crazy and stuff.'”

Paul learnt something, and all those people who heralded Kanye for “finding” Paul learnt something, too.

You can read the full GQ interview here.

[sources:gq&nme&billboard]