No Drummer, No Lead Guitarist, No Problem: Remembering When Wings Pressed on With an Unlikely New Album in 1973

As if the litany of negative reviews about his new band Wings weren’t enough of an issue for Paul McCartney, the turmoil that surrounded the band threatened to rip it apart. Many music experts were ready to sound the death knell for the group.

In 1973, two members of the five-person band departed just as they were preparing to leave to record their new album. Somehow, McCartney and the two remaining members closed ranks and rose to the occasion with a classic.

Wings Clipped

The first two Wings albums, Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway, did not exactly justify the existence of the band Paul McCartney formed in the wake of The Beatles’ breakup. Even as they filled out to a five-person lineup, they struggled to find their identity. Were they rockers or balladeers, or something in between?

On top of that, McCartney couldn’t quite find the niche between being just one of the group and the superstar who dictated the artistic direction. He might have strayed too far to the latter side of that equation when it came to Henry McCullough, who’d been Wings’ lead guitarist since the start of 1972.

While in the studio rehearsing songs that the band was planning to record for their next album, McCullough disagreed with McCartney on a guitar part. After a bit of a row, McCullough left the studio. The next day, he called McCartney to tell him he was leaving Wings for good.

A Last-Minute Departure

McCartney decided he wanted to shake things up a bit when it came to recording the album. Knowing that EMI, his record company, owned studios all over the world, he decided to pick an exotic location. He landed in Lagos, Nigeria, thinking that the sunny climate would be a better setting than a dank autumn in England.

But before he could make the journey, he was down another band member. Drummer Denny Seiwell got cold feet about making the journey practically hours before the band was about to depart. McCartney didn’t try to fight him on it, feeling that anyone not 100 percent into the enterprise wasn’t worth the trouble.

That left the band with just three members. In addition to McCartney, there were his wife Linda and Denny Laine. On top of that, Linda was still a novice musician at that point. If Wings were going to fly, they’d have to do so on Paul McCartney’s shoulders.

Muggings and Rainstorms

Nigeria didn’t turn out to be the dream recording location McCartney originally envisioned it to be. Torrential downpours, a normal occurrence considering it was the country’s rainy season, tested the limits of the already primitive recording facilities.

To make matters worse, Paul and Linda were mugged one night while carrying tapes of their sessions. If ever there were an album that seemed snakebitten, it was Band On The Run, which is what McCartney would title the new record upon its release at the very end of 1973.

Incredibly, Band On The Run turned out to be perhaps the greatest thing Paul McCartney ever released in his post-Beatles career. Down a drummer and a guitarist, he went into do-it-all mode with his two cohorts, putting Wings on the map in a manner that had eluded them to that point.

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